The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. Name: ZangZing Quick Pitch: Store and share your photos from multiple services in one place. Genius Idea: Makes it easy to create and share group albums using email. Some of my photos are stored on Instagram. Many more are saved across Facebook, iPhoto, Picasa, Flickr, Dropbox and in a stationary box on top of my dresser. Earlier this week, I used ZangZing, a photo storage and sharing app,…
Social Media
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Most Topular Stories
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Photo Startup Makes It Easy to Create Albums With Friends
Mashable!27 Jan 2012 | 10:02 pm -
Secret Windows 8 Weapon: Kinect Built Into Your Laptop
TechCrunch27 Jan 2012 | 4:39 pmThe Windows release of Kinect is coming up in a couple days, but for most people that won’t be a major event: the Kinect they have is sitting on their TV or in a drawer, waiting to be taken out for an impromptu Dance Central 2 party. Of the 10 million Kinects out there, the only ones connected to computers are the ones being fiddled with by the various hackers and students making science projects out the things. But according to the Daily, Microsoft is hoping to remedy this particular situation by building Kinect sensors right into your laptops. TechCrunch alum Matt Hickey got to handle… -
25 Reasons Why Google Hates Your Blog
@ProBlogger27 Jan 2012 | 8:02 amThis guest post is by Belinda of The Copy Detective. Your blog is a good read. Everyone says so. Although “everyone” is really just people you already know. Like your Mum. So why isn’t your blog being found by other people? The millions and millions of people hungrily consuming blog content out there in the global online space we call the Internet? The cold, hard truth is that Google hates your blog. And it’s nothing personal. You just don’t have anything that Google wants. Creating high-quality, relevant content is a must if you want your blog to be noticed by search engines but… -
Whats Your Social Media Game Plan for 2012?
fingercandymedia.com24 Jan 2012 | 6:15 amThis was originally written for a Broadcasting/Music community I have a column in, but change a couple job titles/adjectives and this could be any industry. Hat tip and big thanks to Guy Kawaksaki, Jay Albright, Scott Stratten, Valerie Geller, Sarah Austin, Andie Lynne, Amy Howell, Adam Drake and Nick Schneck for their practical and relevant 2012 [...] -
Book Companions?
We do this because...23 Jan 2012 | 12:12 pmI just had what seems to be a great idea, but want to see what you think. I'm writing a new e-book: New Media for Designers + Builders using Apple's new iBooks Author, which does all sorts of cool stuff that e-books have always wanted (but been unable) to do heretofore. I've only found one thing so far that I wish iBooks Author could do, but which it can't: allow comments on pages, like on a blog post. That inability spawned this idea: What if I build a "book companion" website online that summarizes each section of the book in bullet point format? Each section of the e-book would have…
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Social Media Examiner
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Google+ Updates: This Week in Social Media
28 Jan 2012 | 7:00 amWelcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news. To help you stay up-to-date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.What’s New This Week?Google+ Allows Nicknames: Over the next week, Google+ will provide “support for alternate names—be they nicknames, birth names, or names in another script—alongside your common name. This name will show up on your Google+ profile and in the hovercards which appear over your name.”To add an alternate name, go to your Google+ profile, click Edit Profile, select your name and… -
How Small Businesses Can Thrive With Google+
27 Jan 2012 | 7:00 amIn this video I interview Chris Brogan, author of Google+ for Business: How Google’s Social Network Changes Everything.Chris shares how Google+ can help small businesses and reveals the strategies he uses to get business leads. You’ll also learn how to adapt your content strategy on Google+ to select the people you want to work with.Be sure to check out the takeaways below after you watch the video.Here are some of the things you’ll learn in this video:Why Google+ changes everythingHow to get your content indexed quicklyDiscover Chris Brogan’s Google+ strategyHow Human… -
3 New Apps to Manage Your Social Networks
26 Jan 2012 | 7:00 amAre you looking for a better way to manage all of your social accounts?With the growing number of social networks, it can be a pain to keep on top of them all.Below I’ve highlighted three tools to help you manage your various social networking accounts from one neat dashboard.#1: AlternionJust recently out of private beta testing, Alternion packs a punch with the number of networks and social profiles you can manage.Each profile or account is added by logging into the original site and allowing Alternion to access your account.From blogging to bookmarking, image-sharing to shopping,… -
9 Tips for Integrating Social Media on Your Website
25 Jan 2012 | 7:00 amAre you leveraging the power of social media on your site?Together, social media channels and your website should work seamlessly to promote your online brand.However, if you’re like most businesses, you’re probably missing out on potential interactions, impressions and ultimately sales.In this article, I’ll dive into a quick how-to guide to ensure your business website and social media platforms are working together to maximize your online exposure.I’ve included examples from small- to medium-sized businesses that specialize in a whole host of fields to illustrate… -
Facebook Timeline and What Marketers Need to Know
24 Jan 2012 | 7:00 amAre you wondering how Facebook’s Timeline will impact your business and marketing?Right now Timeline is currently limited to personal profiles and with no schedule set or promised for brand pages.However, given Facebook’s history with design changes and how changes of this sort first get released to users and later on get applied to brands, it’s likely that Timeline is on the horizon for business pages as well.This article will explore what the timeline means for marketers.Timeline for UsersUser profiles have been completely overhauled into a sleek new page with large cover…
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TechCrunch
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Ron Paul, Mitt Romney Leading On Facebook Ahead Of Florida Primary
27 Jan 2012 | 7:49 pmThe Republican presidential candidacy is still far from decided, based on the split primaries and mixed polls so far. So here’s another source for trying to figure who’s really pulling ahead — the number of new Facebook fans that each candidate is getting, according to the Inside Facebook Election Tracker. Mitt Romney is finally making some strong gains this month, in contrast to his Facebook performance over December. By “strong gains” I mean he’s been attracting a roughly similar number of fans to Ron Paul, the candidate who normally dominates on the web… -
Harvard Gets Its First VC Firm: The Experiment Fund
27 Jan 2012 | 6:05 pmAs just about everyone should know by now, the seeds of what grew into Facebook were planted at Harvard. Might there be a bunch of mini-Zucks lurking in the dorms of Cambridge? If so, a new venture capital firm — the first housed right on the Harvard campus — wants to find them. Dubbed The Experiment Fund, the firm describes itself as “a bridge between America’s oldest universities and storied venture capital firms.” Backed by New Enterprise Associates (NEA), the firm is made up of Hugo Van Vurren, NEA co-head Patrick Chung, and NEA General Partner Harry Weller — all… -
Secret Windows 8 Weapon: Kinect Built Into Your Laptop
27 Jan 2012 | 4:39 pmThe Windows release of Kinect is coming up in a couple days, but for most people that won’t be a major event: the Kinect they have is sitting on their TV or in a drawer, waiting to be taken out for an impromptu Dance Central 2 party. Of the 10 million Kinects out there, the only ones connected to computers are the ones being fiddled with by the various hackers and students making science projects out the things. But according to the Daily, Microsoft is hoping to remedy this particular situation by building Kinect sensors right into your laptops. TechCrunch alum Matt Hickey got to handle… -
Twitter Puts Its DMCA Takedown Requests Up For All To See
27 Jan 2012 | 3:30 pmYesterday’s announcement that Twitter would be selectively censoring tweets based on country was not well-received. But part of that announcement was the assurance that the process would at least be transparent. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. They also mentioned that they were working with Chilling Effects to make notices and orders sent to Twitter publicly available. At the time of the post yesterday, the site wasn’t up yet, but you can now browse it at chillingeffects.org/twitter. It’s a good thing, certainly, though not quite a successful saving throw… -
Y Combinator Names Seasoned Entrepreneur Geoff Ralston As Its Newest Partner
27 Jan 2012 | 3:15 pmY Combinator has just announced the newest partner to join the prestigious firm: Geoff Ralston. Ralston’s previous credentials include founding Four11, which was acquired by Yahoo back in 1997 for $96 million and served as the foundation for Yahoo Mail. Ralston spent eight years at Yahoo, eventually becoming Yahoo’s Chief Product Officer. Several years after leaving Yahoo he was named CEO of Lala, before it was acquired by Apple in 2009. Most recently he cofounded Imagine K12, a tech incubator for education-related startups, which presented at TechCrunch Disrupt SF (you can find…
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ReadWriteWeb
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Why You Should Smile in Your Facebook Profile Photo
27 Jan 2012 | 7:00 pmIf you're not smiling in your Facebook photo, your life is probably going to suck in four years time. Reseachers J. Patrick Seder and Shigehiro Oishi at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville discovered that smile intensity from a single Facebook profile photo in the first semester of college predicted self-reported life satisfaction three and a half years later, at the time of college graduation. This type of study isn't actually unique to Facebook, however. A 2011 study by Harker and Keltner showed that female students smiling in their college graduation yearbook photos from 1958 and… -
Third Critical Rambus Patent Invalidated, Nvidia Vindicated
27 Jan 2012 | 6:37 pmU.S. Patent # 6,591,353, "Protocol for Communication with Dynamic Memory," tends to refer to a "memory device." The innovation with respect to this device appeared to be the introduction of a synchronous clock. That way, time-multiplexed transfers could take place in a regulated fashion. But as USPTO documents published today show, the appeals judges found that two existing patents cited by Nvidia qualify as prior art, and moreover, that the teachings demonstrated by those older patents would be inspiration enough for a skilled artisan to apply the teachings to improving synchronous memory… -
Thought SOPA Was Bad? 10 Reasons to Oppose ACTA
27 Jan 2012 | 5:30 pmSo, we've shot down SOPA and PIPA. Congratulations Internets for a job well done. Mission accomplished, right? Not so much. While that's two bad pieces of legislation pushed back, there's much more where that came from. Leaving aside existing nastiness like the DMCA, we also have the even nastier Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) (PDF). How bad is it? Bad enough that the European Parliament's rapporteur for ACTA (Kader Arif) resigned over it today (January 27, 2012). Unfortunately for those of us in the United States, President Obama has already ratified ACTA on behalf of the United… -
Top Tech Video of the Day: [Stuff] Entrepreneurs Say
27 Jan 2012 | 5:10 pm"Connect it to Facebook, viral spread, boom, boom." I have no idea what that means but I do know that for some reason, I'm still not tired of the Sh*t [fill in the blank] Says meme. This video is for anyone who's spent more than five minutes reading Techcrunch, knows what Y Combinator is and has faced the (sometimes) irrational exuberance of a tech entrepreneur. "Overheard: Time to pivot." Sponsor Discuss -
Google Maps vs. Do-It-Yourself: Which Is Better for Business?
27 Jan 2012 | 5:00 pmAs mobile becomes normal for the Web, location becomes key. The next phase of location apps are live, right there with the user as she goes about her business. When it comes to mapping the outside world, the space is pretty crowded. It's hard to argue with Google Maps, whose free consumer service powers the maps on both dominant smartphone platforms. For businesses, it's crucial to be on the map, and Google Places can't be overlooked. But there's another frontier of mobile mapping that matters, and the exploration has just begun. Indoor mapping of big buildings - like airports, convention…
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Mashable!
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15 Killer Quotes From ‘Sh*t People Say’ Videos
27 Jan 2012 | 10:46 pmThis meme is certainly making a strong case to be one of the biggest of 2012. Sure, the first episode of “Sh*t Girls Say” was uploaded at the end of last year, but who’s counting really? The results that Google yields when you start typing “Sh*t People Say” are as far-ranging in quality as they are in topic. SEE ALSO: 15 Best ‘Sh*t People Say’ Videos We’re sure you’ve got your own favorite quotes from the wide array of videos out there. These 15 favorites (and an honorable mention for each) should get the conversation started. 1. Sh*t Girls Say -… -
Photo Startup Makes It Easy to Create Albums With Friends
27 Jan 2012 | 10:02 pmThe Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. Name: ZangZing Quick Pitch: Store and share your photos from multiple services in one place. Genius Idea: Makes it easy to create and share group albums using email. Some of my photos are stored on Instagram. Many more are saved across Facebook, iPhoto, Picasa, Flickr, Dropbox and in a stationary box on top of my dresser. Earlier this week, I used ZangZing, a photo storage and sharing app,… -
Elaborate ‘It Gets Better’ Video Resembles ‘Glee’
27 Jan 2012 | 9:30 pmEach day, Mashable highlights one noteworthy YouTube video. Check out all our viral video picks. An extensively choreographed “It Gets Better” music video — set to Lady Gaga‘s “Hair” — gained steam Friday after the mega pop star gave it her seal of approval on Twitter. This is so AMAZING tinyurl.com/7jd638s #HairMusicVideo you guys did such an amazing job for #ItGetsBetter. The Choreo! I died! — Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) January 27, 2012 The clip hit YouTube on Thursday, but the making of the video has been well documented on Facebook since August… -
Meet Beckinfield, a YouTube Show With 4,000 Actors [PICS]
27 Jan 2012 | 8:59 pmThe make-believe town of Beckinfield is the setting for the Mad Libs-style show of the same name, which uses crowd-sourced amateur actors from all over the world who create the show’s story by posting videos. Writers outline the plot and email a “town happenings” newsletter to actors each week. Each actor tells a small piece of the story in their video, adding their own flair. Related segments are linked together to create a kind of webisode that will be unique to every viewer depending on which videos they watch. Beckinfield is a production of online network Theatrics.com. -
Breaking Down Apple’s Billions [INFOGRAPHIC]
27 Jan 2012 | 7:48 pmIt’s no secret Apple, one of the most valuable public companies in the world, is making major cash off today’s tech gadgets — but how much? This week, the company reported a record net profit of more than $13.6 billion for its quarterly report lasting 14 weeks and ending Dec. 31, 2011. A rumored summer release of the iPhone 5 will help keep the money flowing in this year for the more than $400 billion company. “We’re thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs,” Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, said in a statement. “Apple’s…
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Charlene Li
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Jerry Yang’s departure signals a New Day for Yahoo!, the passing of an era for Tech
17 Jan 2012 | 6:30 pmMy first reaction to the news that Jerry Yang is leaving Yahoo! was that this was the passing of an era. I first met Jerry in 1994 when he was still a PhD student at Stanford, before he and David Filo left to run Yahoo! full time. Through bubbles and two economic downturns, Jerry has always been omnipresent in Silicon Valley. But all good things come to pass. With the arrival of Scott Thompson as the new CEO of Yahoo!, it makes sense that Scott be given a clean slate upon which to write the future of Yahoo!. This is very much the norm for incoming CEOs, where founders are asked to take a… -
Predictions Social Business in 2012, Part III: Transforming Your Organization
9 Jan 2012 | 12:26 pmThis is the last of three posts I’m writing on predictions and priorities for Social Business in 2012. You can read the first and second prediction posts for more context. Prediction #3: Connected leaders and employees will create sustained competitive advantages through a culture of sharing. This year will see some companies pull ahead of others because they are able to collaborate, innovate and execute better and faster thanks to an ingrained culture of sharing. This is the year that companies get serious about investing in their internal social business capabilities, simply because it… -
Predictions for Social Business in 2012, Part II: Knowing Your Customer
3 Jan 2012 | 6:26 pmRather than simply make prognostications, I wanted to give actionable advice based on these trends. This is the second of my three predictions and priorities for Social Business in 2012 (read the first prediction). Prediction #2: Your customers want to be known. Your customers don’t merely want you to understand their needs or pain points. They want you to know them as individuals anywhere and anytime they engage with you. Companies sure know a lot about us, without knowing much. For example, I’m classified for marketing purposes as a Gen X, 35-45 years old, graduate degree holding, Real… -
Predictions and Priorities for Social Business in 2012 – Part I
2 Jan 2012 | 11:57 amMy pet peeve about the annual predictions ritual is that they lack context for action. It’s nice to know that tablets and big data are important — but what should you do about it? So here’s my attempt at not only forecasting but also to provide actions that companies should be prioritizing in 2012. The Process: I went through my speaking and client engagements in 2011 and looked at which topics and themes I kept referring to over and over again, especially toward the end of the year. I also analyzed which of the tweets from these events were most retweeted to verify where the heat… -
Complete a Survey on Enterprise Social Networking
27 Oct 2011 | 12:38 amI’m working on a new Altimeter report on how organizations are using enterprise social networking (ESN) solutions. The report is tentatively titled “Making The Case for Enterprise Social Networking” and looks at how technology platforms like Chatter, Jive, and Yammer are being used within organizations. Request: Please contribute to Altimeter’s Open Research by taking this survey. You can sign up at the end to have the report emailed to you when the report goes live. Spread the word on this survey too — we want to have broad participation and also share our research…
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SmartBrief on Social Media
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How to build a truly great Facebook tab
27 Jan 2012 | 11:30 amBuilding an awesome Facebook tab is about more than just visual appeal, writes Chelsea Hejny. -More- -
Twitter is under fire following censorship announcement
27 Jan 2012 | 11:30 amTwitter said Thursday that it will censor users' tweets on a country-by-country basis in order to comply with local laws. -More- -
Teenagers are now welcome on Google+
27 Jan 2012 | 11:30 amGoogle+ has reduced its age limit to allow anyone 13 or older to join. -More- -
Belt translates motion into social media actions
27 Jan 2012 | 11:30 amDeeplocal says it has developed a device called the LikeBelt that lets Facebook users show their love for a real-world object -More- Manager, Digital & Social Media Research Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc. -
Lady Gaga's Little Monsters social network enters beta
27 Jan 2012 | 11:30 am-More-
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Social Media Today - The world's best thinkers on social media
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Social Media in Law Enforecment
28 Jan 2012 | 7:21 amAs social media is becoming ingrained in our society, the Philadelphia Police Department is on the frontier of its use in law enforcement. The PPD Media Relations Unit has incorporated several social media platforms to assist the Department in the release of important information and the dissemination of crime surveillance videos to our communities and the media. The nucleus for the Police Department’s presence rests in the “big three” of social media, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. -
Communities are Bullsh*t
27 Jan 2012 | 3:43 pmCommunities are bullsh*t. That’s right, I said it. Go ahead … think about that Twitter page you manage. Consider the amount of time it took you to build your first 100 followers, let alone your first 1,000. You are feeling pretty high about your ability to grow a “community”, aren’t you? I hate to burst your bubble, but for all your efforts (I know the hard work firsthand) how much is that “community” affecting your brands bottom line? Chances are, not a whole lot. -
Business Wants You to Share Your Genius
27 Jan 2012 | 1:57 pmFlattery goes a long way. Apparently its goes so long now it’s a full blown marketing strategy for products being rolled out this year. -
HR Role in Social Media Strategy
27 Jan 2012 | 1:33 pmHR needs to be involved in social media strategy. It helps them recruit the best talent. You also need their support to handle employee issues that can arise when you have social media. -
How Do You Determine Your Progress? Inside the Mind Episode 4
27 Jan 2012 | 12:27 pmSeriously, How do you measure success? I'm always surprised when I ask this question how many people answer with something like..."Well... when I get a lot of comments" (or traffic, or money, etc.) But how do you measure "a lot?" And furthermore, in 6 months, how do you duplicate the process?
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@ProBlogger
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25 Reasons Why Google Hates Your Blog
27 Jan 2012 | 8:02 amThis guest post is by Belinda of The Copy Detective. Your blog is a good read. Everyone says so. Although “everyone” is really just people you already know. Like your Mum. So why isn’t your blog being found by other people? The millions and millions of people hungrily consuming blog content out there in the global online space we call the Internet? The cold, hard truth is that Google hates your blog. And it’s nothing personal. You just don’t have anything that Google wants. Creating high-quality, relevant content is a must if you want your blog to be noticed by search engines but… -
2 Different Tales of Blog Growth
26 Jan 2012 | 2:01 pm“What was ‘the tipping point’ for your blog?” This question is one that I’m regularly asked in interviews, and it is one that is challenging to answer. The assumption behind the question is that there is often some kind of event that pushes a blog into the limelight. The reality is that it’s not always this way. Let me illustrate this by telling the stories of my two main blogs—ProBlogger and Digital Photography School. ProBlogger’s tipping point: dramatic growth Here on ProBlogger, the only real tipping point-type event that I can identify is when… -
6 Fatal Symptoms You’re in the Wrong Niche
26 Jan 2012 | 8:06 amThis guest post is by Martyn Chamberlin of Two Hour Blogger. “What should I write about?” It seems such a silly question. Of course you know what to write about! In fact, you could argue it’s even impossible to write about the wrong thing. That’s like ordering the wrong iPod! Whoever heard of such a thing? As you know, if you write long and hard enough, someone will listen. An audience of five is great if you’re just blogging for fun. But what if you’re trying to build a profitable business? Can you get enough people listening to make a business? The answer… -
10 Ways Multi-blog Authors Can Stay Creative and Generate Great Posts
25 Jan 2012 | 2:02 pmThis guest post is by Jo Gifford of Cherry Sorbet Creative. Keeping fresh and creative is key to keeping on top of the game when writing different blogs across various sectors, and for various clients. Working with efficient workflows, time management and organization all help to keep that valuable information harnessed to be used when you need it, but how about making sure you can produce great content on time and on demand? Keeping creative and informed means you are working efficiently to produce content that’s engaging, informative, and, of course, profitable for you. After all,… -
Ramit Sethi Exposed: How He Earns Millions Blogging
25 Jan 2012 | 8:07 amThis guest post is by Michael Alexis of WriterViews. In this post, I’m going to show you the exact steps one blogger used to earn over $1 million. Not long ago, I interviewed Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You To Be Rich. If you’re serious about making money blogging, then you need to read this interview. But a heads-up: this post is long and extremely detailed. It took me over 20 hours to write. It will take you about 15 minutes to read. If you like, you can download a PDF of the entire article here. I know you may be skeptical about the $1 million, so let’s start by looking at…
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The Social Media Marketing Blog
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Social Media and Travel
26 Jan 2012 | 11:37 pmIf you're like me, you spend a good deal of time on the road. Whether it's at an airport, on a train or in a car, you're mobile and your digital life is mobile too.The pervasiveness of tablets and smartphones (in addition to the already ubiquitous laptop) is growing daily. Just this week, Apple announced that it sold 37 million iPhones and 15.4 million iPads in the fourth quarter of 2011 alone. It means that more of us are doing things on the web (or mobile web, as the case may be) while we're on the go, and there are certain things those of us in the digital world look for when we travel -… -
Revealing a New Ford in a New Way
13 Dec 2011 | 8:00 pmFord Motor Company has been at the forefront of social media for some time. The Fiesta Movement, the Explorer reveal on Facebook, Doug the Spokespuppet, Ford Social (formerly known as The Ford Story) and being the first brand on Google+ all stand as examples of Ford's success that spans from clever campaigns to a daily commitment to engage.Ford played a significant part in how the automotive industry thinks about social media (and in some cases how large companies think about social media) and now, as we near the 2012 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS), at Ford we have an… -
Infographic: 5 Companies That Are Rocking Social Media
29 Nov 2011 | 10:47 amThis infographic was created by Voltier Digital, a content marketing agency based in Florida, specializing on the creation and promotion of impactful content marketing campaigns for businesses of all sizes.We all know the usual names of companies that are doing well in social media. I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some of the lesser-knowns and why they've had success, either on an ongoing basis or with some one-off efforts that stood out.And since infographics are all the rage, what better way to look at them? Of course, for SEO purposes, I've listed them here as… -
Twitter Business Guide
7 Oct 2011 | 10:53 pmI was recently introduced to a compact guidebook for businesses trying to get a sense of Twitter. The microblogging site that allows you to update in no more than 140 characters at at time is deceptively complex and nuanced - especially for a newcomer.This short guide, entitled Twitter Business Guide: Communication and Marketing was written by Jean-Christophe Barré and Dr. Andreas Schroeter and in just 32 pages covers some of the things that may be keeping you and your business away from this platform. For someone who is new to Twitter, this e-book will prove a helpful compass as you… -
iLife
5 Oct 2011 | 7:04 pmSteve Jobs has died at the age of 56. His life's work at Apple literally changed the face of the earth. Undoubtedly, he'll go down in history alongside the likes of Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford.Let's remember Steve in his own words, "How to live before you die," in his Stanford Commencement speech of 2005:R.I.P. Steve Jobs. We thank you for the innovation you brought to this world. May we all live such a life.-- (Disclosure: http://cmp.ly/5)
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CenterNetworks
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API Hackday Comes to Austin This February
26 Jan 2012 | 9:06 pmIt seems these days hackdays, hackathons, hack this, hack that events are popular across the world. Some of these developer events have created very successful startups and some of the companies have been acquired. Austin will be holding an API Hackday on Saturday, February 18 at the HubAustin coworking location. The event is free for everyone – just make sure to register for the right category so the organizers can make sure there is enough of each type of attendee (developer, designer, investor, etc.). The event will run from 8am-8pm with free lunch, dinner and post-event beer… -
Newbie PhoneGap Training Coming to Austin
24 Jan 2012 | 7:28 pmThis Saturday, January 28, 2012, the LoneStar PhoneGap group will hold their first meetup. PhoneGap is a mobile platform that helps you easily create mobile applications and more importantly helps you distribute one set of code to all of the major phone OS systems (Apple iOS, Google Android, Blackberry, WebOS, Windows Phone 7, Symbian and Bada). Nitobi, the parent company of PhoneGap, was acquired by Adobe last October. I think it is awesome that a group is meeting on a Saturday afternoon! The meetup will be held at a public library just west of the university area. Free pizza and drinks will… -
Web Jobs – January 21
21 Jan 2012 | 7:54 pmCheck out some of the latest web technology and business jobs posted for January 21, 2012 on the CenterNetworks Job Board. Subscribe to the CN Jobs feed and get all of the latest Web industry jobs delivered directly to you. Featured Jobs: Front end web developer at Artisan talent Interactive Developer at Garmin International Lead Ruby Engineer at Howcast More Jobs: Senior Theme Developer / Front-End Developer at Sony Music Entertainment Project Manager, BI Applications at Beachbody Senior Web Developer at Saatchi Online Web Development Specialist at Columbia College Chicago Employers –… -
Does Your Startup Have a Disaster Plan?
19 Jan 2012 | 8:02 pmLast weekend our hosting company moved the physical location of their servers — from San Antonio to Chicago. There were a number of very serious issues that appeared post-migration caused by the hosting company. I will address the issues and the responsiveness from the hosting company in another post once all of the post-mortem details have been provided to me. But what the downtime and issues made me quickly realize is I need to have a current, well-documented disaster plan for both the blogs and for my startup. With a WordPress blog, there is the website (css, html, images, video,… -
Startup Weekend Coming Back to Austin This March
15 Jan 2012 | 9:05 pmI’ve covered the worldwide Startup Weekend events over the past couple of years. The concept behind Startup Weekend is to bring the community together in a different city each weekend to create a startup (or multiple startups) during the weekend. The event is coming back to Austin during the weekend of March 30th, just after SXSW. The weekend of events will be held at Hub Coworking which is a few minutes south of the city center. Pricing runs from $75-$99 and if it is like the last event, meals will be provided. You can register here and there is an early bird registration that runs…
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Social Fresh
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Why Internal Social Networks Usually Fail
27 Jan 2012 | 9:30 amOriginally published at Social Business News by Adi Gaskell Despite internal social networks gaining in popularity, few of them can be regarded as successes. That is at least the finding of a new report by Information Week. The report, called Rebooting the Antisocial... [Click the above headline to read the Full Article] -
It’s Time To Stop Ignoring LinkedIn Company Pages
27 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amBy Harry Hoover of My Creative Team LinkedIn Marketing seems to be an afterthought among the other high profile social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google+. But there are some good reasons that your company should set up – and keep current – your own free LinkedIn... [Click the above headline to read the Full Article] -
The 12 Keys To Successful Gamification (Part 1)
26 Jan 2012 | 6:30 amBy now you’ve probably heard of gamification and seen a few gamification examples of it around. You may even be considering gamification for your own website or app. While there are many ways to go about gamification, some ways are better than others. Here are some key... [Click the above headline to read the Full Article] -
PUMA Adds Instagram and Tumblr To The Blogger Outreach Mix
26 Jan 2012 | 5:30 amTo what lengths will a brand go in order to be “cool”? After traveling to Abu Dhabi with PUMA, I’d say the answer is farther than you’d think. I checked in to the Sheraton Hotel in Abu Dhabi on January 8, 2012, with one other popular Instagram user and 8 other well-known... [Click the above headline to read the Full Article] -
5 Facts You Didn’t Know About Facebook EdgeRank
25 Jan 2012 | 5:30 amFacebook EdgeRank is the sum of each Edge’s Affinity x Weight x Time Decay. An Edge can range from Creating a Post to Sharing a Post. As an object within Facebook receives interactions it becomes more likely to show up in the news feed. This relatively straight forward... [Click the above headline to read the Full Article]
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SocialMouths
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How To Increase Clicks On Your Tweets [Infographic]
26 Jan 2012 | 10:40 amTweet If you are an entrepreneur using Twitter as part of the marketing strategy for your business or you are a blogger trying to improve your traffic, one of the most important metrics you look at is how many clicks your tweets are getting, specially when those tweets are containing links to your own site. One thing I’ll tell you right off the bat is that, marketing in general works different for each one of us and it delivers different kinds of results too. Twitter is no different and, while I always say that you should not rely on anybody’s advice but instead run several tests… -
My Life Without Klout
24 Jan 2012 | 10:37 amTweet This is a guestpost by Brad Shorr from Straight North. Like many social media participants, I “joined” Klout without really knowing it, without really caring one way or the other. Towards the latter half of 2011, Klout became quite prominent — and controversial. Despite a lot of criticism of it from people I respect and my own ill-defined angst, I kept playing along. Eventually I decided not only that Klout has fatal flaws, but also that I needed to put my money where my mouth is and disconnect from it. So I did. The purpose of this post is to share my reasons for opting out… -
Don’t Get Lost – Your Content Marketing Roadmap
17 Jan 2012 | 11:26 amTweet This is a guest post by Eugene Farber from ContentStrategyHub.com. More and more business are hopping on board the content marketing train. Marketers across all industries are recognizing the power and effectiveness of content for producing an online business presence. Statistics show that a vast majority of marketers believe content is a key to future marketing success. And a majority of B2B marketers plan on increasing their content marketing budgets compared to last year. And yet, even with this recognition and mindset shift, most are likely to get lost along the way and find… -
Six Ways to Throw Your Audience a Curveball (in a Good Way)
12 Jan 2012 | 10:58 amTweet This is a guest post by Garrett Ira, a digital marketing strategist who blogs at garrettira.com. Over the last few years, just about everyone has given their two cents on how to “do social media” the right way. You know what I’m talking about: connect with your audience, add value, it’s about relationships, and all the other advice we hear over and over. Something has happened that few are ready to admit: companies have gotten much better at social in 2011. Yes, there are still plenty of companies doing it terribly, but if you compare the present day to two years ago, there’s… -
Google+ Brings Out The Big Guns
10 Jan 2012 | 12:22 pmTweet A lot is speculated every day about the future of Google+, one of the main topics is how the social network will affect search. So far we are all just talking about the great potential and what we want it to become while Google doesn’t say much. But Google decided to bring out the big guns today with the announcement of “Search, plus Your World”. This is basically the integration of Google+ into search results and it represents one more big step into the world of personalized search, or social search. Let’s look at what this means in terms of features… Who…
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The Bazaarvoice Social Commerce Blog
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Infographic: Millennials will change the way you sell
24 Jan 2012 | 9:01 amThe “kids” who invented Facebook, never call when they can text, and don’t go out without their smartphones – they’re growing up. And soon, your business will depend on them. It’s true. By 2017, Millennials – those consumers now in their mid-teens to mid-30s – will have more spending power than any other generation. This generation, sometimes called “Generation Y,” shops differently than their predecessors. Millennials are hyper-social, constantly connected to social and endlessly curious about what others are doing, buying, and enjoying – strangers as well as friends. -
How patient voices are transforming healthcare
19 Jan 2012 | 10:17 amAlmost everyone has spent time at a hospital. Whether you’re visiting an aging family member, welcoming a new addition into the family, or seeking a routine treatment, the service you receive leaves a lasting impression. No matter the outcome, patient satisfaction along with the quality of treatment has never been more important. We want to feel cared for. We want to be treated as an individual and respected as a patient. And we will share our experience with others. When selecting a health care provider, we often turn to our friends for recommendations, browse for information from… -
CES 2012: The “next big thing” takes a backseat to what customers really want
17 Jan 2012 | 9:22 amI've been thinking about the best way to answer that one, inevitable CES question: “What’s the big, new thing this year?” My answer is (and will be): “Nothing. And we should all be very excited about that.” I’m not a trend-basher; I think things like huge, capacitive-touch TVs and washing machines that text us when loads are ready are fascinating developments that deserve our attention, not cynicism. Some of what I saw was incredible, even ground breaking. But nothing this year was bleeding-edge-new and seen everywhere. If the innovation on display at last year’s CES… -
How IBM brings events to life with social
16 Jan 2012 | 9:25 amNote: This a guest post by Kathy Mandelstein, Director Of WW Marketing, Social Business at IBM. IBM is a Bazaarvoice client. As one of the leading voices in the marketplace on Social Business, our team at IBM believes in practicing what we preach. This week in Orlando, Florida, we are running our annual flagship conference, IBM Lotusphere along with a new two day event for Business Leaders, IBM Connect. Of all the events that IBM runs, since these two events are focused on Social Business, it is critical that all aspects of the conference are truly social, transcending from online to the… -
The NPS flip: how to turn detractors into promoters
12 Jan 2012 | 7:00 amWe like to switch things up a bit here at Bazaarvoice. When it comes to Net Promoter Score, most companies give a survey, in which each responder rates the company once on a scale of 0-10 as to whether or not they would recommend this business to a friend. At Bazaarvoice, we use our review submission process to accomplish this task. Each time a contributor submits a review, they are asked, “Would you recommend this company to a friend?” So, if they submit multiple reviews, they have the opportunity to give multiple Net Promoter Scores. In this way, we have a unique and…
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JasonKeath.com
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5 Great Ways to Use Pinterest
26 Jan 2012 | 11:01 amOriginally published at Social Web Daily What do sculptors, jet setters, philosophers, foodies, and collectors have in common? They can all make great use of Pinterest, the pinboard-channeling new social network. With a stream-lined interface, and plenty of opportunity to engage with and get inspiration from other Pinterest users, there are an endless number of creative ways to use the new site. Here are five of our favorites: 1. Collector’s Showcase Hobbyists and special-interest enthusiasts can put Pinterest to good use by uploading pictures from your personal collection, or collecting… -
Checking out the downtown NYC coworking space @Hiveat55 today
10 Jan 2012 | 1:31 pmIt is across from the NY stock exchange. Nice quiet space. And I got a free day pass thanks to my Foursquare checkin. -
How to Spot a Yelp User, The Definitive Chart
5 Jan 2012 | 6:36 pmvia flowtown.com -
Pinterest Is Perfect For Your Dear Santa Letter
21 Dec 2011 | 11:55 amSocial image bookmarking site Pinterest is very hot right now, even though the site is still invite only. If you have not tested it out, Pinterest is simply a place to save and share images from around the web. You “pin” images to a “board” and anyone that follows you or that board sees it. Even better, all images on Pinterest are links to whereever you found them, by default. So if you want to buy that cool pair of shoes your friend pinned, click through. If you want to see more info on an inspirational poster or what beach your friend took a photo of, click through. -
How Not To Provide Customer Service, A JCPenney Story
20 Dec 2011 | 7:02 pmSo, maybe I am spoiled by Amazon and Zappos, but the last few days, I have been trying to buy a couch from JCPenney.com and have failed on 3 occasions. The couch in question: Here’s the thing, this is an awesome couch and it was on sale. But we need the chaise portion of the couch to be on the left when you are sitting down. But it was unclear to me how to order it. I either had to order LAF (left facing arm) or RAF (right facing arm). I had no idea what those two terms meant. Did LAF mean the chaise was on the left when facing it or when sitting on the couch? I was also curious about…
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Liz Strauss at Successful Blog
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Be Your Best Self, Stupid!
27 Jan 2012 | 7:44 amThe Best Personal Branding I admit that most ideas of personal branding in the virtual world somewhat disturb me. It’s not the idea of self-promoting that bugs me so much as how most guides talking about “personal branding” give the most obvious solutions that would make even the most interesting man or woman in the world appear safe, humdrum, and perhaps not even human. Why Personality Matters in the Online Space When it comes to personal branding, everyone advises to put your best foot forward, be clear, and be brief. These tips are all good and well, but I’ve found that, after… -
Be Accessible
26 Jan 2012 | 7:42 amA Guest Post by Rosemary O’Neill You must be accessible if you want to build a human-centered enterprise. I recently participated in a Twitter chat hosted by the Association for Women in Communications (#AWCchat) on the subject of web accessibility, and it made a huge impression on me. Did you know that people with disabilities are 18% of US population with $175 billion in discretionary spending power? Did you know that adults with disabilities spend 2x as much time online as those without disabilities? Here are some tips on how to ensure that your web presence is inviting and… -
Business Travel Set to Take Flight This Year
25 Jan 2012 | 12:06 pmWe all know recent years have not exactly been stellar for the business community, especially many smaller companies who have had to fight tooth and nail to keep their heads above water. That being said, a recent report from the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) indicates that spending for business travel, a portion of which is done through the airlines, is forecast to increase over the next 12 months. According to the latest Business Travel Quarterly Outlook, spending on business travel is forecast to exceed $263 billion in 2012, a jump of 4.6 percent from a year ago. According to a… -
Good, Great, and Irresistible Marketing Businesses
24 Jan 2012 | 7:43 amWhen I pay attention to your message… when I watch your commercial, read your ad, listen to your presentation, can you assume that you’ve reached me? Only if you define reach in the most literal sense. And trust me, you’re reaching to believe if you believe that attention is synonymous with trust. Trust isn’t a numbers game. Trust takes time to be established — it always did. Good, Great, and Irresistible Marketing Businesses We talk with thousands of people throughout our lives. Now that the social web has amplified the speed and reach of communication, it could… -
The Top 7 Ways to Motivate Yourself Even on Mondays!
23 Jan 2012 | 7:18 amHow to Own Every Day I used to not like mornings. Monday mornings were the worst. I liked them so little that I thought of Sunday as the impending doom … that made my weekends even shorter. One day it dawned on me that if I lived to be 70 holding on to this feeling about Mondays, I’d have discounted 10 whole years of my life. Ten years — 520 Mondays lost, crashed, and burned — due to a bad attitude. I had to find a way to get and stay motivated. I had to get back my Mondays. I was pretty sure that I didn’t have enough future left to be throwing away 10 years like…
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12 Most
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12 Most FANtastic Reasons to Love Football By Brian Vickery
27 Jan 2012 | 2:00 pmBy Brian Vickery The NFL football season is winding down, and I feel compelled to squeeze one more football post in my feed before moving on to the basketball season! I love football, and I favor the professional game over the college game. That distinction alone will bring some debate amongst friends and family. Some will argue that the college players have more intensity and care more about the game. However, such a small percentage of college players “make it at the next level.” That is because the professional football players have exceptional skills and speed that separates the men… -
12 Most Life-Changing New Year’s Resolutions That Do Not Have to be Broken By Jeff Willinger
27 Jan 2012 | 9:00 amBy Jeff Willinger So, we are almost through with January, so why not start your resolutions now. Not just any resolutions…let’s shoot high this year! I declare the year 2012, the year of unconditional giving…that’s right…I said it…unconditional giving. That means we are no longer keeping track of who buys for who and how many times your kid gets invited over to the other kid’s house. Just do it…just give like no one is watching or caring. Instead of coming up with the usual list of resolutions that mean nothing to anyone except the person that wrote down the resolution to… -
12 Most Good to Know Goodies about Google Plus (Google+) By Peggy Fitzpatrick
27 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amBy Peggy Fitzpatrick Google Plus has been around since July. However, there are many people who have not embraced it fully. Some of the tips and tricks aren’t easy to find but I am offering 12 goodies to get you going on Google+. No more excuses! I am convinced that your Google+ posts and photos are boosted in the Google rankings; mine appear to be boosted in Google searches. Aaron Lee states that for SEO ”Google+ may be the best way for you to improve your search rankings. Google puts a more weight on content that has more shares or +1’s.” You can click on any photo in… -
12 Most Informed Things You Can Learn from the Penn State and Syracuse Fiascos By Roy Kessel
26 Jan 2012 | 2:00 pmBy Roy Kessel With the passing of Joe Paterno, there is a lot of debate about his legacy and how he will be remembered? It is a shame that a historic coach with over 400 victories even has doubts that his main accomplishments were in mentoring athletes, helping them graduate and teaching them to become better people. Yet, due to a variety of factors (some of his own doing and some outside of his control), Paterno’s reputation will bear a permanent tarnish. Still, I believe that his accomplishments should not be completely nullified by his mistakes. Our legacies are a complex… -
12 Most Savvy Social Media Resources By Ekaterina Walter
26 Jan 2012 | 11:00 amBy Ekaterina Walter Whenever I talk to people about the subject I am very passionate about – social media – inevitably the question comes up “What publications do you subscribe to to keep up to date with the fast-changing world of social and which organizations are you a member of?” In the world of the information overload savvy professionals are always looking for the best resources. Today I am humbly sharing my favorites with you. 1. WOMMA Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) offers both members and non-members a variety of resources and events (online and offline) packed…
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chrisbrogan.com
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Make Better Video
23 Jan 2012 | 6:52 amI’m learning about video because I believe, strongly, that 2012 is the year that companies and individuals who can create interesting video will be able to stand out better in the oversaturation of social media. My own practice, Shhh! The Secret Show, has me learning about lighting, sound, editing, interviewing, content planning, camera angles, titles, screen casting, how to make b-roll, and more. It’s quite a step up, technically, from what I used to do with a Flip camera and a bit of waggling it around in front of my face. And when I say this, it’s most definitely not… -
97 Ideas for Building a Valuable Platform
20 Jan 2012 | 11:25 am2012 is the year where social media oversaturation hits hard. We will scale back on our participation in social networks, and we will most certainly scale back who we choose to follow as sources. This won’t be because someone is bad or good. It will be based on whether the connection with that person adds value to the stream of information we’re cultivating or not. In determining how to deliver value and stay relevant and visible in this new landscape, I’ve written down 97 ideas to help you build a valuable platform. Note: some of this thinking comes from writing a new book… -
A New Project for 2012
16 Jan 2012 | 3:30 amI’m pretty excited about my new video show, Shhh! The Secret Show, which has its first episode here. The premise is that it’s a show to help you be a better you, and to improve your business through the effort. It ties to what I’m working on with my company, and it’s going to be a lot of fun to build. Instead of starting off with something fully polished and perfect, I wanted to “build it in front of you,” which means that I’ll show you how I improve it each episode. I’m learning lots of new skills at the same time, including lighting, how to… -
Doing the Work is Sexy
9 Jan 2012 | 7:21 amDorothy Parker said, “I hate writing. I like having written.” I know many people who are like that about their business, their trade. I know many more people who love to fantasize about what life will be like when they make it, but they like to skip over the part with the hard work, or they give it a sentence or two. Here’s a hint: the work part is what brings the money part. How to Get Very Lucky In Life A few days ago, I came a lot closer to being able to cross something huge off my bucket list. I can’t talk about it just yet, but essentially, I was able to shoot… -
Email List Building the Lazy Way
4 Jan 2012 | 9:17 amPeople seem to want to know about email list building, and how to get a big newsletter subscriber base. I have my ways. I’ll share what I know. I sell premium WordPress themes (affiliate link) from StudioPress, because I’m a fan of the company, but also because I use them and they have served me very well. At present, I’m using the Generate theme (scroll down a little), which features a prominent email subscription link at the top of the page (see the above graphic or just click through to [chrisbrogan.com]). This is perhaps the least customized version of a StudioPress…
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Logic+Emotion
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Launching a Social Command Center (Without The Center)
27 Jan 2012 | 10:05 am"Social command centers" are all the rage today and it's not without some merit. Many organizations now find themselves in a real-time business environment where news travels faster than sound, and information is set free. As a result, some forward thinking companies have put "monitoring" in place either in-house or in combination with partners. This isn't enough. And to make matters worse, I've seen companies make the classic mistake of buying a tool BEFORE putting any thought into the design that goes into effective monitoring and response, forgetting the 3P's (People, Process, Platforms). -
Trust Shifts From Institutions To Individuals
23 Jan 2012 | 11:44 pmToday I had the opportunity to present to academics and industry experts from the international poultry industry (you can listen to a re-cap via a short podcast from "Agwired" here). During the presentation I was able to share some results from the recently released 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer, in which the overarching theme is a general skepticism toward institutions such as government and big business with signs of hope when it comes to empowered individuals. A Person Like YourselfIn last year's study, it was the expert and even the analyst who enjoyed some degree of trust from the public… -
What's A Picture Worth?
13 Jan 2012 | 1:45 pmJust updated my "Visual Thinking Archive" on Flickr. It provides a variety of frameworks, visual thoughts and non text based strategic thinking would could apply to a variety of business cases. What's a picture worth? It's up to you to determine the worth. For me, it helps the thinking process. -
The Year of the Change Agent
2 Jan 2012 | 8:55 pmWe've always lived and worked in a state of flux but one can make the argument that recent developments in technology, society and business seem to have accelerated the pace of change we have to contend with. Our mobile devices would have been considered fairly high powered computers not that long ago. We live in a hyper-connected state of existence, constantly sending out signals to friends, family, work associates, peers , etc. If this year belongs to anyone, it is the change agent. You may be thinking—"that's exactly what I am," but chances are, if you aren't frustrated or feeling like… -
Holidays
22 Dec 2011 | 10:25 amEnded the year with a flurry of activity. We went public with our newly elevated offering around social business—have delivered significant milestones with several clients and wrapped up my frequent air travel for the year. The next couple of weeks will be spent catching up with family, friends and even some snowboarding. Here's to you and yours in 2012.
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Spiral16
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Case Study: Does More Online Chatter Mean More Votes?
25 Jan 2012 | 7:09 amWhat does the volume of relevant web posts about each GOP candidate tell us about their electability? After Newt Gingrich‘s big win in South Carolina this past weekend, we compared online sentiment between he and former (maybe current) frontrunner Mitt Romney using the Spiral16 Internet monitoring platform. Electability is a major issue for Gingrich supporters in that state, and both national polls and online sentiment prove that Gingrich still might have a problem in that area. We’ve been running a case study on the race for the Republican presidential nomination since the… -
McDonald’s Hashtag Continues to Be Funny While People Eat McDonald’s Burgers
24 Jan 2012 | 9:13 amJust last week, Ekaterina Walter, a social media strategist at Intel, wrote a post about the two-way nature of social media that, in light of the #McDStories Twitter hashtag-gone-wrong, seems to be downright prescient: With the growth of social media and all the two-way channels of communication open to organizations, brand identity is potentially stronger but more at-risk than ever. Losing control of your brand’s ‘voice’ can be hugely damaging. Exhibit A And Frank Eliason, SVP of Social for Citi, wrote this just about one month ago: The first thing to recognize is that the brand image… -
Online Sentiment For Romney Still More Positive Than Gingrich
23 Jan 2012 | 7:34 amHow do national polls and exit polling compare to what is being said on the Internet about the Republican presidential frontrunners? This weekend, Newt Gingrich landed a decisive victory in the South Carolina primary, giving the GOP presidential candidate 40.4% of the vote, with Mitt Romney a distant second at 27.8%. But he’s still got more work to do if he wants to overcome doubts about his electability. Why did Newt Gingrich win in South Carolina? Perhaps the state responded to Gingrich’s aggressiveness in the debates. Or maybe it was South Carolina sending a message to the rest of… -
Great Advice on Effective Comunication & Measurement for Your Business
19 Jan 2012 | 12:13 pmAs business communications people, we all face the challenge of getting across the core value of what we do in the simplest, most effective terms possible. In digital and social media especially, the challenge of effective communication comes down to two things: 1. Web audiences have short attention spans and you must speak to them efficiently. 2. How do you best measure the success of your communications? This morning at the KCIABC breakfast Taking Your Communications Practice From Good to Excellent, moderated by Anne Canfield (VP of communications at the Kansas City Art Institute), the… -
Travel Industry Social Media Trends for 2012
18 Jan 2012 | 8:05 amCool Travel Industry Social Media Infographic The travel industry has been closely linked with social media ever since smart phones have given everybody and their mother an outlet to complain about their flight. (Just ask American Airlines and Alec Baldwin.) Two of the biggest questions for companies in the travel industry are: 1. How are travelers driving the industry’s ever-evolving business goals? 2. Are companies are able to calculate social media ROI? Simpliflying, in partnership with Eyefortravel, created this infographic with those questions in mind. It seems like the adoption…
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Flower Blossoms' Blog
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Health Watch: Sit-ups alone don’t work. Your core matters, too
4 Jan 2012 | 2:10 pmMany people set out to make healthy changes for themselves, especially as part of their New Year’s resolution. As a result, gymnasiums see a spike in memberships around New Year’s Day. However, it may have been years since someone has exercised to any extent, let along set foot inside a gym. Not only are these people out of shape, but they maybe rusty in technique, as well. Attempting their first sit-up in years, for instance, they will find it much harder to do than when they last did it. In fact, according to recent studies in biomechanics, what they learned about… -
Downloads for Your Computer: the Essentials
3 Jan 2012 | 8:41 pmThe majority of people, like me, just cannot wait to use their new computer once it is removed from its box, especially if that computer is replacing an older, slower computer. However, as a person trained in network administration, I would make a list of the applications and plug-ins I have been using on my old computer so that I can download the same items on the new computer, making the switch feel transparent. From our standpoint, while the switch to faster-performing hardware is welcomed, the case is not the same for software applications, where retraining may be required, an added… -
18 Types of Residual Income
23 Sep 2011 | 3:32 pmWhen deciding how you would like to structure your personal finances with multiple streams of income and you are a full-time worker, you may wish to supplement your income with a second job. However, just like your first job, your salary will still be subjected to income tax. Moreover, the salaries from both of these jobs are considered linear income. What you would like to do for yourself instead is earn residual income. What is linear income? It is the income you are earning from your full-time or part-time job. With this type of income, the amount you earn is tied to how much you… -
Common Password Mistakes and How to Create Stronger Passwords
20 Sep 2011 | 6:48 pmA password is a secret word or string of characters that is used for authentication to prove identity or gain access to resources. We encounter passwords in our daily lives, at the ATM, when logging onto our home or office computers, or logging into our table TV decoder when purchasing a pay-per-view event. We use passwords several times per day when we are using our computers, such as retrieving e-mail from servers; accessing programs; databases; social networking websites; or even reading the morning newspaper online. Computer passwords are our first, last, and best line of defense… -
How Groupon Works
23 Aug 2011 | 12:49 pmGroupon is a deal-of-the-day website that is localized to major markets in the United States and Canada. The website was launched in November 2008. It was first used in Chicago, later expanding to Boston, New York City, and Toronto. Soon it was used by many parts of the United States. Groupon serves more than 150 markets in North America. Now, for those who are not Internet savvy, here are steps on how to use the website: Sign up at Groupon.com. The site will send you e-mail updates on the daily deals in your city. Purchase the deal at the discounted price. Most of the time, these…
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trendsspotting blog
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LEADING DIGITAL WOMEN PREDICT 2012
11 Jan 2012 | 8:20 pmFor the last five years TrendsSpotting trends research company has published prediction reports covering trends in tech, mobile and social media, suggested by leading technology and business experts. TrendsSpotting’s Influencers Prediction Reports 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008 are read by thousands of readers and are used by leading companies to plan their future (viewership at Slideshare/TrendsSpotting). As TrendsSpotting is involved in re-placing the role of women in the digital world (see us at Microsoft’s Women Think Next and WIFT), we have decided that this year we will dedicate this… -
Emerging market for mobile health products
9 Nov 2011 | 5:15 amIn the past year, products using mobile devices to monitor health conditions are becoming more popular with the first ones now getting accepted by the Food and Drug Administration. Among health care apps entering the market are blood pressure monitoring cuffs, CT-scan viewers, and pocket ultrasound machines. The market is still at its first steps but rapid growth is expected: according to mobile market consultancy research2guidance, by 2015 30 percent of the world’s smartphone users will be using mobile health products, up from 5 percent today. The big promise for consumers are… -
2020 Predictions -Model for Future Innovations
14 Oct 2011 | 4:12 amBased on the concept of “The Internet of Things” TrendsSpotting has developed a working model for NPD. ”The ANA Model” was developed and implemented while working with tech companies, and allows us to predict future products and services. The “ANA Model” identifies the process where data is collected from reported “Actions”, then delivered to predefined monitor systems or professionals by “Notifications”. The outcomes can “Alert” people through a visualized system. Few daily activities are presented to reflect the… -
How crowdsourcing games help solve scientific problems: Review of current projects
6 Oct 2011 | 9:09 amIt has been shown that the human capacity has still important advantages over computers. Scientists have learned to use crowd sourcing tools to improve their research. To achieve cooperation, they present models of the problems in a game like display and challenge the partipants to find solutions. Scientists in Carnegie Mellon University (look up Luis von Ahn) were the first to use human brains to help them solve problems associated with searching for images on the web (computers are not very good at distinguishing images from each other using visual cues). This lead to the development… -
Critical mass – can it get lower than 10 percent?
28 Jul 2011 | 9:11 amCognitive scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have reported that according to their recent studies simulating social networks, 10 percent is the critical mass for spreading ideas to the mass. If that proportion of the population emphatically embraces an idea, then there is a good chance for a mass follow. “When the number of committed opinion holders is below 10 percent, there is no visible progress in the spread of ideas,” said researcher Boleslaw Szymanski, director of the Social Cognitive Networks Academic Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
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BlogWorld & New Media Expo Blog
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What Does Twitter’s New Censoring Ability Mean To You?
27 Jan 2012 | 8:30 amLike many social networks, Twitter is a very powerful platform for connecting people. While some of us might use it for nothing more than complaining about coworkers or sharing pictures of our lunch, others are using Twitter to take down governments and stop poorly-worded bills from becoming laws. Yesterday, Twitter announced that it has refined the technology enough to censor tweets in specific areas of the world. This doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. We all have this knee-jerk reaction to instantly hate anything that even questions our freedom of speech concepts, but before… -
27 Brilliant Bloggers Talk About Public Speaking
26 Jan 2012 | 6:36 pmBrilliant Bloggers is a weekly series here at BlogWorld where we look at the best posts from around the web all surrounding a specific topic. Every week, we’ll feature three of the most brilliant bloggers out there, along with a huge list of more resources where you can learn about the topic. You can see more Brilliant Blogger posts or learn how to submit your link for an upcoming edition here. This Week’s Topic: Public Speaking One of the ways you make money with a blog or podcast is to use this content as a jumping off point for public speaking. Serving as a speaker had two benefits:… -
Eight Ways to Make More Money as an Affiliate
25 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amEvery month, I make a few hundred dollars in affiliate sales as a blogger, and those who focus on this form of monetization make even more. When I first started selling products as an affiliate, I was lucky to make a few bucks a month with Amazon. Lots of bloggers have given brilliant advice about working as an affiliate, but today I wanted to talk about some tips that worked for me to increase affiliate sales. You can make a few changes to increase passive sales, like me, or you can really run with these tips to make a full-time income with affiliate sales. 1. Capitalize on search terms… -
Can You Create Better Content on Google+ Under a Pen Name?
23 Jan 2012 | 5:36 pmI’ve written about blogging anonymously (under a pen name) in the past, both here at the BlogWorld blog and on the Wright Creativity blog. I’ve made it no secret that I write and manage a fairly successful blog under a different name, and I think there are great reasons for doing so (though it is definitely not the right choice for everyone). Today, Google announced that they’d now be allowing both nicknames and pseudonyms on Google+. This makes it much easier for anonymous bloggers to use the network, which will definitely be an advantage for Google as it continue to try to… -
35 Brilliant Bloggers Talk about Pinterest
21 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amBrilliant Bloggers is a weekly series here at BlogWorld where we look at the best posts from around the web all surrounding a specific topic. Every week, we’ll feature three of the most brilliant bloggers out there, along with a huge list of more resources where you can learn about the topic. You can see more Brilliant Blogger posts or learn how to submit your link for an upcoming edition here. This Week’s Topic: Pinterest Over the last few weeks, I’ve been blogging and tweeting a lot about Pinterest. It’s my latest obsession, and one that I believe has unlimited potential for…
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News from SMP
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Can The X Factor muster another number one?
8 Jan 2012 | 6:00 pmCan The X Factor muster another number one?UK X Factor 2011 winners Little Mix (covering Damian Rice’s Cannonball) were beaten to the Christmas number one by the Military Wives Choir (Wherever You Are composed by Paul Melor). The girl band (... -
Integrated Social Media Marketing Event touches down in Asia February 2012
4 Jan 2012 | 6:00 pmIntegrated Social Media Marketing Event touches down in Asia February 2012Integrated approach leverages social media for enhanced engagement and brandingPacific Conferences’ Integrated Social Media Marketing Conference offers actionable insights i... -
Weight Watchers kicks off 2012 TV ad and social media campaign
2 Jan 2012 | 6:00 pmWeight Watchers kicks off 2012 TV ad and social media campaignWeight Watchers UK kicks off its first TV and social media campaign of 2012, and the timing couldn't have been better as we see in the New Year. Marketing magazine reported ... -
Social media analysis for the UK X Factor finale
23 Dec 2011 | 6:00 pmSocial media analysis for the UK X Factor finaleThe X Factor social media infographic week 10 from the live shows finale 2011 for series 8Elemental's UK X Factor social media analysis and infographic for the Week 10 finale. The grap... -
X Factor social media analysis still on course to predict winner
9 Dec 2011 | 6:00 pmX Factor social media analysis still on course to predict winner Elemental's The X Factor social media infographic week 9 from the live show2011, series 8The semi-finals didn't fail to disappoint on drama and the performances as the...
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idaconcpts
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4 Android Apps for Facebook
25 Jan 2012 | 4:17 pmFacebook is an inspiring success story during a difficult and tumultuous time. Everybody loves a success story. As Sir McCartney opined, ‘What’s Wrong with That?’ Some have criticized the fearless founder, Mr. Zuckerberg and his company for invading privacy. The FTC apparently agreed and Facebook is fully cooperating. This now omnipresent application, and Google, has almost completely replaced that big fat environmentally destructive phone book. For that he deserves a greenly constructed blue ribbon. But for now, we can give him a list of 4 great apps to take full advantage of Facebook… -
Google Integrates Social and Search with “Search Plus Your World”
23 Jan 2012 | 12:14 pmGet ready, because Google is getting personal. The new launch of Google’s “Search Plus Your World” is the latest evolution in the Internet giant’s ever-expanding wave of algorithm restructuring in an effort to refine users’ search results, and unlike other frequent tweaks this change will be hard to miss. This most recent revision essentially combines search results that contain personal information stored by users that they share with other members in the Google+ network (e.g., photos and posts) with Internet results on the same search engine results page (SERP). It is important to… -
4 iPhone Apps for Twitter
19 Jan 2012 | 11:46 pmIt seems that no matter what site gets developed for a specific Internet browser or for a given operating system, there will always be some hot shot programmer out there that will find their niche by making it a better mousetrap. These four iPhone apps have scrupulously gleaned the missing pieces and dropped balls of Twitter’s architecture to find their own place in the shadows of Twitter’s success story. Check out these useful 4 iPhone apps to use Twitter. HootSuite HootSuite is perfect for those Twitter adherents with international interests. It supports no less than fourteen… -
World Premiere of “La Casa del Ritmo, A Film About Los Amigos Invisbles”
18 Jan 2012 | 1:19 amDear readers of idaconcpts.com, With great pleasure I share with an awesome update on La Casa del Ritmo, A film about Los Amigos Invisibles. I first wrote about this project back in February 2011 and I was very happy to support this project. I just got news that the world premiere of this amazing documentary will happen this March 2012 at the Miami International Film Festival. The full press release is below. Congratulations to “mis panas invisibles” and my fellow Ecuadorian, Juan Miguel Marin. “La Casa del Ritmo, A Film About Los Amigos Invisibles” World Premiere at… -
Crowdsourcing Logo Design on a Budget
12 Jan 2012 | 2:41 amThe other day I encountered an interesting Venn diagram about graphic design: This diagram reminded me about how difficult is to find a great logo design for a blogger on a tight budget. You Get What You Pay As you can see from the intersection of Free, the results will either end in trash, rejection from designers or “try again”. The reality is that in order to get some decent results you will have to be willing to provide remuneration for somebody to be interested in working with you. From my personal experience in developing a logo for GoodOrBadEmail.com, I highly suggest that…
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Scobleizer
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Why I love PandoDaily, new media company focused on startups
16 Jan 2012 | 3:46 pmToday Sarah Lacy, formerly of Techcrunch, announced she was starting a new media company and has gotten funded, to the tune of $2.5-million by a variety of big names in investing. This is just what the tech industry needs. Why? Because big companies are too focused on profits to properly cover the startup world. Here’s why. 1. Most stories about startups don’t get many hits. At least not when compared to stuff about Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook. There’s a reason for that that’s built into the system. If you write about Microsoft, for instance, its 90,000… -
My first photowalk with Lytro’s lightfield camera
28 Dec 2011 | 3:48 pmThis weekend we’ll be in Yosemite with Google+ photographers, including Thomas Hawk, Trey Ratcliff Karen Hutton Scott Jarvie Peter Adams shirley lo and Kimberly Shoemaker. All trying to make a better image than the ones that come up in searches for Yosemite on Google+. So, to prepare, I went on a photowalk around Half Moon Bay with a new kind of camera: Lytro’s lightfield camera. Lytro’s director of photography, Eric Cheng, gave me a late Christmas present: he let me be one of the first people in the world to actually use one in the wild. Yesterday we walked around and I… -
Oh, Charlie, you should have been here for Christmas
26 Dec 2011 | 9:18 pmOh, Charlie. Charlie Kindel, that is. He used to work at Microsoft. He still has Microsoft in his blood as he tries to explain why Windows Phone 7 hasn’t taken off. I thought about posting this over on Google+ or Facebook or Twitter, but I like the way MG Siegler is treating it. All the stupid stuff goes on the blog and all the important stuff goes on YouTube, Tumblr, or Google+. Heh. MG mailed Charlie’s post back with a “way too late” headline and pointed out that apps do matter. It’s worse than that. Sorry Charlie. I had dozens of people here for several events… -
Viral coefficients + store feature + branding + influencers = cool apps on iOS first
11 Dec 2011 | 11:55 pmAt LeWeb last week former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt was asked by an audience member why the coolest apps come out on iOS first. Apps like Flipboard and Instagram. He answered: “”So my prediction is that 6 months from now, I think the question is exactly right right now, and 6 months from now, you’ll say the opposite. Because ultimately applications vendors are driven by volume, and the volume is favored by the open approach that Google is taking. That there are literally so many manufacturers who are working so hard to distribute Android phones globally, that whether you like ICS… -
The Facebook Freaky Line
20 Nov 2011 | 1:49 pmIt seems everyone is getting freaked out by Facebook once again. Molly Wood at CNET says that Facebook’s automatic sharing features are ruining sharing. That got everyone to pile on over on Techmeme. First, what does this automatic sharing feature (otherwise known as “frictionless sharing”) do? Well, every time I play a song on Spotify, for instance, it tells everyone something like “Robert Scoble is listening to Skrillex on Spotify.” On Facebook’s web interface that shows up over on the right in the new ticker (not everyone has that, and only the web…
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Social Media Explorer
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Employees on Social Networks: To Be or Not To Be…
27 Jan 2012 | 9:30 amEditor’s Note: This is a guest post written by Ann Davlin who works at MotoCMS – an advanced Flash CMS and Flash templates provider. It’s not a secret that many recruiters and business owners use social networking sites to screen prospective employees. According to the survey of 300 hiring professionals conducted by Reppler the most popular online resources for time wasting are Facebook (76%), Twitter (53%) and Linkedin (48%). It probably means that the whole (online and offline) business world considers it necessary to take social networks activity into account and use it… -
Death to Bot Talk: Tips On Voice In Writing For The Web
26 Jan 2012 | 12:00 pmEditor’s Note: This is a guest post by Suzanne Norman, director of brand at Emma, an email marketing and communications company. The bot problem Let’s face it: most companies write marketing copy for the web and email that reads like it was written by a robot. And nobody likes bots. (See: spambots, twitbots, fembots, that 80s movie with Emilio Estevez where all the semi-trucks come to life.) photo by davedehetre I spot this kind of writing all the time in email marketing campaigns — that’s the realm I work in — but it’s just as rampant in every other… -
The Power of A Blog
26 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amWhy are blogs such a powerful communications tool in the arsenal of a company? There are lots of reasons, really. But the explanation I’ve used that normally gives those who don’t quite understand blogging have their “ah-ha” moment is a simple one. To understand the power of a blog you have to compare it to something familiar. Think about your company newsletter. If you’re not that hip to blogging yet, your company newsletter is probably still printed and circulated in everyone’s box in the mailroom. Or maybe it’s mailed to everyone’s house. But… -
Can Big Brands Go Local?
25 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amI’ve argued recently that we are entering the Age of Relevancy in Marketing. The more relevant your message is, delivered to the more relevant audience at the more relevant time and in the more relevant place, the better your marketing will be. One critical element of that Relevancy Bullseye is location. Local is better because local is more relevant. But corporations and brands struggle with local. It’s hard to sit at corporate headquarters and be connected on a 1:1 basis with every single customer, worldwide. It’s not just hard, it’s impossible. Or is it? Kevin Magee… -
The Sad Reality Of Silicon Valley
24 Jan 2012 | 12:00 pmSay goodbye to CoTweet. As of February 15, the free version will no longer be offered. Free customers will be given a chance to transition to ExactTarget’s new Social Engage product that is essentially an improved version of CoTweet’s enterprise product, but they’ll eventually have to pay for it. And frankly, they should have to. The innovation and integration with ExactTarget’s long-standing excellent email suite isn’t something the company should give away. And it’s not something they have to. ET supplies email marketing and (now) social media management…
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NowSourcing.Com » Blog
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This Week In Infographics: Google Made Lots of Money in 2011 and Generation Y Rocks
26 Jan 2012 | 10:49 amRemember like five years ago when all the world saw in Gen-Y were a bunch of lazy gamers? Not to say our generation doesn’t have its share of pod people living through avatars, but look at us now world! This week in infographics has a common theme: Google: the history and the revenue, new stats on Generation-Y, and the power of mobile. We also want to pay tribute to the Better Business Bureau on their 100th anniversary – it takes a lot to stand the tests of time, especially our times. 1. | When Larry Met Sergey (Select Image to Begin) 2. | Breaking Down Google’s Revenues in… -
This Week In Infographics: Cats And Dogs Go Social And Why Nothing Leaves Vegas
19 Jan 2012 | 3:05 pmGet ready to learn some amazing things today, folks. First of all, all those stories you hear about crazy objects found in an xray of the human body are not only true but you haven’t heard the half of it. Also, we will explore seven reasons why nothing leaves Vegas and how your pets may have more online Klout than you. Finally, find out the psychology of color, and how the healthcare industry is helping the economy with job creation. 1. | Objects Ingested and Inserted 2. | The 7 Reasons Nothing Leaves Las Vegas 3. | Social Savvy Critters 4. | The Psychology of Color 5. | A Guide to… -
Save The Web: Why SOPA And PIPA Are Not The Answer
18 Jan 2012 | 10:22 amToday you will find some of the web’s most popular sites fighting against two bills that threaten creativity, education, freedom of speech, and access to knowledge. This has all been brought to life in order to stop piracy on the Internet. Congress’ main concern is the entertainment industry. So that cute video you have of your baby dancing to “Single Ladies,” will be banned from the web and you will be accused of pirating music – you could also be sued. Major websites have stepped up to the plate in support against SOPA. Google, while not blacking out their… -
This Week In Infographics: Planking Kills And Russians Love Apples
12 Jan 2012 | 10:27 amThis week we have some particularly fun and interesting infographics to share. First of all, who knew America’s new favorite past time, planking, could be so dangerous? In case you are worried, because you are training to become a pro planker, just don’t attempt it on a seven story high railing. Next, if you are an electronics lover, like myself, you may enjoy the infographic spotlighting the history of the Consumer Electronics Show to celebrate their 45th anniversary. Our next three are more social media related, and here is what you will learn: Russia buys A LOT of apples, Mark… -
Interview With Creator of SearchRank, David Wallace
10 Jan 2012 | 10:41 amNowSourcing President, Brian Wallace, interviews SearchRank founder, David Wallace, no there is no relation. Find out just how David got to where he is today. With his innovative thinking and drive – David has become an influential leader when it comes to search and online marketing. He will also discuss the future of infographics, and a few of his favorites to date. 1 – You’ve got a great reputation in the SEO world. For those readers that don’t already know you, tell us a bit about your background? Believe it or not, I was not introduced the “the…
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Social Media Marketing
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Free Webinar: 2012 Social Media Strategies For Real Estate & Mortgage
19 Jan 2012 | 11:41 pmClick Here for Full View Social Media Strategies in 2012 for Mortgage and Real Estate Professionals– Tuesday, January 24, 2012 Discover How to Harness the Power of Social Media to Make More Money in 2012 Social media can be an inexpensive – yet lucrative means– to generate leads and grow your business. Join us for an in-depth look at how to implement Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media to excel in a “people-driven” economy this year. Join us for a free webinar hosted by Trevor Hammond, Founder and CEO of MFIC Pro:Social Media Strategies in 2012 for Mortgage… -
6 Most Popular Real Estate Social Media Posts
1 Jan 2012 | 9:09 amI hope 2012 brings you much success in all of your endeavors. I want to share with you the top blog posts that received the most shares, interactions and comments throughout the past year along with a few of my favorite new year pictures. photo credit: Shutterstock 12 Essential iPad Apps For Your Small Biz 10 Rockin’ Real Estate iPad Apps photo credit: Shutterstock HOW TO: Setup a Self-Hosted WordPress Blog Top 10 Real Estate Social Media Resources photo credit: Shutterstock Top 7 Famous Failures 7 Tips To Market Your Real Estate Biz w/Social Media in 30 min / Day Here’s… -
7 Tips To Market Your Real Estate Business with Social Media in 30 min / Day
9 Dec 2011 | 12:06 pmI know your story…As a real estate or mortgage professional you just don’t have the time to deal with social media. I hear this every day – in fact I’m receiving many requests to start a company that manages social media profiles specifically for real estate and mortgage professionals. Here are 7 Tips To Market Your Real Estate Business with Social Media in 30 Minutes / Day Tip #1 Find Your Clients Favorite Social Media Sites As you attend events or meet new clients be sure to look them up on social networks to connect with them. This will allow you to maintain… -
3 Mistakes To Avoid Using Social Media For Real Estate
5 Sep 2011 | 8:57 pmThis is a great video from Scott Stratten author of Unmarketing. He focuses on things to avoid for Real Estate Agents. Be sure to implement these changes NOW! These sites Santa Clarita Breaking News Twitter & Santa Clarita Breaking News Facebook are a few examples of how to use community based events to draw people to your website. Naomi Trower Real Estate Broker Social Media Strategist Social Media Real Estate Marketing Are you a FAN? http://fb.com/RealEstateSocialMediaMarketing Share this on del.icio.us Digg this! Share this on Facebook Add this to Google Bookmarks Add this to Google… -
HOW TO: Give Your Heart At BlogWorld Expo LA
31 Aug 2011 | 2:00 amHere is my review of Blog World Expo 2010. Be sure to register for the 1st ever Blog World Expo LA 2011! What is the one thing that surprised you while you were at Blog World Expo 2010? For me, it was the few people that actually came to the microphone during the question part of the program and said, “First off, I want to give a personal plug about myself, check out my website blah, blah, blah…” Really? How many times do we have to share that it’s not about you? I thought I would share how to give your heart at events such as these. Then I will share my…
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FactoryCity
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Report the App Facebook Platform Opt In [Flickr]
21 Jan 2012 | 2:56 pmfactoryjoe posted a photo: -
The saddest social software interface evar. [Flickr]
8 Sep 2010 | 8:43 pmfactoryjoe posted a photo: -
This sums up the challenge to the digital identity community [Flickr]
31 Aug 2010 | 8:52 amfactoryjoe posted a photo: When an original OpenID advocate like @simonw can't muster enough benefits to adopt OpenID for one of his own sites, it's time to reconsider the product we're selling. See also: openidconnect.com -
Clarifying my comments on Twitter’s annotations
21 Jun 2010 | 2:21 pmTwo weeks ago, Mathew Ingram from GigaOM pinged me via my Google Profile to ask what my thoughts — as an open web advocate — are on Twitter’s new annotations feature. He ended up posted portions of my response yesterday in a post titled “Twitter Annotations Are Coming — What Do They Mean For Twitter and the Web?” The portion with my comments reads: But Google open advocate Chris Messina warns that if Twitter doesn’t handle the new feature properly, it could become a free-for-all of competing standards and markups. “I find them very intriguing,” he said of… -
TweetPhoto NASCAR [Flickr]
14 Jun 2010 | 11:45 amfactoryjoe posted a photo: Welcome to the new world of OAuth-based NASCARs! Whither OpenID?
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Jessica Randazza
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Welcome to your blog.
2 Jan 2012 | 7:00 pmBe sure to make new posts at least twice per week. Search engine spiders are less likely to frequent your site if they know you never have fresh content. Give the search engines a reason to check your site and they will have a reason to show your site in search results. -
Upcycling: Recycling Crafts
29 Jun 2011 | 4:39 pmWe’ve all heard the term recycling, which is reusing an item either in a transformed state or as-is, but with each hand that passes down a recycled good, the item usually shows a lot of wear and tear by the end. A remedy for this is upcycling, the art of transforming something that is considered... -
Terrariums: The Low Maintenance Garden
28 Jun 2011 | 4:21 pmEvery once in a while I’ll buy a small plant for a dollar at Target or Home Depot to take care of because I enjoy the idea of growing my own flowers or herbs. However, the reality is that I don’t have a green thumb. Part of the problem is simply that I’m forgetful at... -
Lavender Flower Nail Design
27 Jun 2011 | 4:06 pmIt’s a new week and to me that means a fresh coat of nail polish. One thing that I really love is florals so I thought I would base my nail design this week off of one of my dresses at home that has lavender flowers on them. I used five different varnishes for this... -
Ikea’s Rules for Its Facebook Home
23 Jun 2011 | 1:40 pmFacebook communities are becoming more and more popular as groups of people, businesses, and even large organizations are beginning to use them. These communities are great for a number of reasons: There are a lot more people who spend their time online nowadays (especially on Facebook) so it’s another way for companies to promote their...
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ManagingCommunities.com
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ManagingCommunities.com is 4 Years Old!
26 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amphoto credit: barbourians Friday will mark 4 years since the launch of ManagingCommunities.com. In honor of this occasion, I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who has been supportive of this site and me. Thank you to those that read this blog, subscribe to it and spread the word by passing along my [...] -
When Your Members Criticize a Company or Person, Invite Them to Your Community
23 Jan 2012 | 6:10 pmphoto credit: SmithGreg I recently had a member on one of my communities start a thread to review a book, which he criticized. Most of his review was fair, but there were some parts that I felt were a little harsh. Still, it was appropriate for our community. As an author, I do sympathize with [...] -
Celebrate Community Manager Appreciation Day 2012 with Dell (and Me) on Google+
19 Jan 2012 | 4:29 pmphoto credit: Dell’s Official Flickr Page The third annual Community Manager Appreciation Day, originally started by Jeremiah Owyang, will be celebrated on January 23. In honor of this event, Dell will be hosting an hour long Google+ Hangout on their Google+ profile, starting at 1 PM ET (UTC/GMT -5). During the hour, there will be [...] -
Calm Leadership is Vital to Strong Community Management
16 Jan 2012 | 2:32 pmphoto credit: jsmjr In the United States, today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, in honor of the late civil rights leader. A few days ago, NBC News released a full episode of “Meet the Press” from March 28, 1965, which featured Dr. King. It is embedded below. If you watch it, you’ll notice how [...] -
You Have the Right to Defend Your Stream
12 Jan 2012 | 5:16 pmphoto credit: Gord Bell If you are like me, you have many different social streams of information that you pay attention to. These streams usually contain information from people that you have subscribed to in some way, whether you call it friending, following or something else. When we interact via platforms that have some sort [...]
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Bokardo
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Designing for the Next Step
16 Jan 2012 | 8:33 amNote: this is an excerpt from my forthcoming book Make them Care! In a recent post (Why you should bury the sign up button) I told the story of a redesign I did in which people just didn’t want to click the “sign up” button on the home page, no matter how beautiful or sexy that sign up button was. What I realized from that project is that there are cases in which no amount of visual design will significantly improve the state of things…instead we need to focus on making people care. Here’s another example. On cyber Monday this past November I received an email… -
Design is not Horsepoop
17 Dec 2011 | 6:37 amIn his impassioned piece Design is Horseshit, YongFook suggests that the increased focus on designers as founders is misguided because design isn’t what makes most startups successful. In my recent post The Golden Age of Design in Startups I was bullish on designers as founders, so I’m here to call bullshit on Yongfook calling bullshit…or something like that. (actually, the idea of “calling bullshit” seems silly to me…why not just respectfully debate a point?) Yongfook’s argument is that design is not the reason why startups are successful. He suggests that… -
More on Burying the Sign Up Button
7 Dec 2011 | 10:49 amA couple weeks ago I published Why You Should Bury your Sign Up Button and got some really interesting feedback and comments from folks. One of the more interesting bits was a follow-up post by the folks at Zurb who had experienced the exact same phenomenon…when they took away the “sign up” button and instead put a “learn more” button at the bottom of the page they got a 350% increase in sign ups: Why Burying Sign Up Buttons Helps Get More Sign Ups Think about how counter-intuitive that is at first glance. You take away the call-to-action that says “sign… -
The Golden Age of Design in Startups
5 Dec 2011 | 4:59 amI just returned from Dave McClure’s excellent Warm Gun Conference, and I haven’t been this excited to be a designer in a while. The entire event was about design, metrics, and products, and even more importantly the people at the conference were many of the who’s who in Bay Area design. From what I saw and experienced there I daresay there are signs we’re entering a golden age of Design. The evidence: 1. The startups being invested in are designer-led. Take the new Designer Fund that funds startups with designer-founders and helps mentor them. Consider the companies in… -
Why you Should Bury your Sign Up Button
21 Oct 2011 | 9:26 amA short while ago I was involved in a project redesigning a home page of a website. I dutifully designed the page in the common fashion, using a bold headline, some bullet points, and a juicy call-to-action button. It was very similar to many of the startup home pages that you might run across every day. The goal of the redesign was to increase conversion on the primary call to action of sign-up. We wanted to double or triple (or more) the number of people who were signing up and trying out the product. I knew the redesign was a vast improvement over the existing one, merely because the page…
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Collective Thoughts
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Where Did Google Make Their Money In 2011?
23 Jan 2012 | 1:00 pmThe number is out there, Google made 37.9 billion dollars last year. About 96 percent of this came from advertising. WordStream’s impressive new infographic explores which keywords were the most popular and whose ads made the search engine so much money. © WordStream, a Google AdWords partner company. -
The Infographic That Makes Me Want To Marry Mark Zuckerberg
11 Jan 2012 | 3:34 pmIt is no secret that so many of us want to have Mark Zuckerberg’s genius babies, and for the men out there, and the select few women who dont understand – this infographic will tell you why. Created by: Accounting Degree Online -
Apple To Apples: How The Tech Giant Stacks Up Against America’s Favorite Fruit
11 Jan 2012 | 10:25 amThe first thing I learned from this infographic, is that Russia really likes apples, and the US really likes Apple. Okay, I already knew the latter. MBA Online’s new infographic is a wonderfully interesting way to explore Apple further, and quite humorous. For instance: did you know that for the price of the iPhone 4S, you can buy almost 2,000 apples? Hey, if nothing else, it is fun and chalked full of interesting statistics. Created by: MBA Online -
New Site Changes Online Auctioning
29 Dec 2011 | 12:07 pmA new auction site launched last week called YouNeverLose. So far the business is living up to its name. The site allows you to buy rewards points in order to place bids on expensive items that you aim to win for well under market value. What makes this particular online auction so different is that they give you your money back. Once you buy the rewards package you are guaranteed to get your money back in the form of a gift card. When I first heard this I was skeptical, I thought I would get 25 bucks back on some gift card to the piggly wiggly, but I was wrong. The selection of cards is… -
Is Your Job Killing You? [Infographic]
20 Dec 2011 | 12:13 pmSometimes it feels like the more money you make the more stressful your job becomes. The new infographic by Human Resources MBA may surprise you. First of all, it’s true, your job may be killing you. Secondly, the top ten most stressful jobs are not what we all would expect. I thought for sure there would be a surgeon, and an attorney, and some kind of construction worker listed – instead, most high stress jobs are in media, big business, and real estate. So how many people are dying a year from being overworked? And how can we get the worker to relax, and the employer to take it…
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123 Social Media
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Mobile Media Training – basic questions to think about
16 Jan 2012 | 5:07 pmA day doesn’t go by without someone asking me about mobile media. At first glance it sounds like a relatively simple problem and is usually summarized by a question like “what is the best mobile app for us?” If only it were that simple for a company. The mobile trend is accelerating faster and faster. It isn’t a question of if someone is connected, but how, why, and when they are connected. As a business professional there are dozens of reasons to use different mobile technologies ranging from 3g/4g wireless access, tablet applications, QR codes, GPS services, photo… -
Social Media Policy & Employee Communication
3 Jan 2012 | 12:00 pmOur team has been detailing an on-going list of questions clients at 123 have regarding the functional models of employee communication. One of the core elements we continue to discuss is the social media policy frameworks for what is acceptable behavior for different types of industry communications. As part of the social media policy goes, there are A LOT of areas that management and workforce personnel should give some thought to. It boils down to questions… Rather than focus on where we see market trends a going, sometimes the most effective way to figure out where the boat is… -
Social Media Training @ barryhurd.com
18 Nov 2011 | 3:45 pmAs an impromptu weekend post I wanted to share some additional social media training articles I’ve been posting elsewhere. These are some of the most recent social media training articles I’ve written on my personal blog over at BarryHurd.com Some of them are a little more casual than articles I write here on 123socialmedia, but they all have some great tidbits you can learn from and apply to your own business challenges. So without further wait, here are four articles from this month at BarryHurd.com. 40+ Social Media Dashboard Tools for Tracking Stuff Social Media for Sales (why… -
5 Tips for a Social Media Policy
24 Oct 2011 | 11:28 amOver the past few years I’ve personally researched the social media policy of hundreds of organizations, the regulatory conditions in niche industries, and the business risks no one gave attention to. I’ve witnessed the gigantic tidal wave of sites like Facebook force itself into both personal and professional lives, giants like Myspace swell up and fade away, and services like Google flip a switch and declare a new way of doing things. One of the biggest problems facing business leaders is that society at large has adopted the mindset of open dialogue and personal opinion. I personally… -
Social Media Training & Weekend Reading
21 Oct 2011 | 6:35 pmAs my on-going readers know, I’m always in a process of detailing strategies and tactics for different audiences on social media training. While our crew is often working on a number of projects, some of the ideas simply don’t make it to this blog. Here is a recap of ideas on BarryHurd.com and TradeShowSocialMedia.com that shed some light on some pretty tactical questions. Take a few minutes to browse around some of the other topics and put your thinking hat on to ask “how can I apply these tactics to my situation?” Social Media Analtics and tracking points of market…
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Brian Solis
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Nissan Embraces Social Media to Improve Customer Experiences and Foster Advocacy
27 Jan 2012 | 1:25 pmIn this episode of (R)evolution, Nissan’s David Mingle, Director of Customer Management and Erich Marx, Director of Marketing join me for a refreshing conversation about social media’s impact on business transformation, customer experiences, and building an adaptive business model to learn and evolve based on new opportunities. We explore Nissan’s approach to new media for not only marketing, but also how the company uses social media to invest in and shape the customer experience over time. Having both David and Erich on the show offered a 360 view of the customer and also… -
The Mobile Marketing Value Exchange
26 Jan 2012 | 8:21 amGuest post by Scott Forshay, creator and editor of mobi.luxe. Following him on Twitter @mobiluxe Establishing consumer relationships through mobile marketing, as with any successful, productive relationship, inherently requires a mutual exchange of value. Whether consumers are opting-in for brand communications via SMS or engaging with the brand in a single instance through scanning a QR code, the onus is on the brand to deliver value in return for customers’ valuable time and information. Without the perception that value has been exchanged for value, the relationship becomes essentially… -
Likes, Genre, Action – Facebook Introduces Clicks to Action
25 Jan 2012 | 10:51 amFollowing the official roll out of its new Timeline, Facebook is introducing Actions, a series of new applications that change how people interact with apps, content, brands, and each other. The new apps will extend Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of frictionless experiences based on Facebook’s Open Graph platform, where apps introduce new ways to share your actions with your friends either implicitly or explicitly. With the new Open Graph platform, developers will introduce new Actions and Action buttons that extend the functionality of sharing beyond Likes to now include a dictionary… -
Looking Beyond 2012: Trends for Leading Transformation
23 Jan 2012 | 9:11 amPart 16 in an ongoing series that serves as the prequel to my new book, The End of Business as Usual… It’s a new year and a new set of predictions to set goals and expectations for 2012. I won’t bother you with the top 10 emerging social networks or apps to focus time and resources. Nor will I gaze in the crystal ball to reveal the five secrets to viral marketing and user/customer acquisition. Instead of adding my forecasts to the endless sea of debatable prophesies, I chose a more aspirational path. 2012 is the year of transformation as digital Darwinism threatens rigid and… -
How Suntrust Uses Social Media to Engage Customers and Comply with Regulation
20 Jan 2012 | 12:37 pmFinancial institutions are bound to rules and regulation than other companies experimenting in customer engagement, specifically in social media, can ignore. Over the years, SunTrust has stood out as one of several examples that understand how to use regulatory boundaries to inspire a new generation of customer engagement. The result is finding balance between risk and reward to meet customer expectations and improve customer experiences now and over time. As I’ve always believed…constraint forces creativity. Bianca Buckridee, AVP of Social Media Engagement at SunTrust shares her…
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Social Business Advisor: Social CRM and Enterprise 2.0
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Emergent Collaboration Vendor Review: Atlassian’s Confluence
27 Jan 2012 | 2:58 amEvery Friday, I’ll be reviewing a vendor in the emergent collaboration space and will provide an overview on that vendor which includes aspects from leadership and vision to technology and market focus. If you are vendor and would like to participate, please contact me (my email address is in the sidebar as is my Twitter link). The goal of these posts is not to bash or praise vendors but to simply offer an objective view on what various vendors offer so that YOU can decide if they are a good fit for your business. Every post will cover the same elements for each vendors. If you have ideas… -
Collaboration is a Business Requirement
24 Jan 2012 | 2:08 amI find it interesting that when it comes to collaboration; oftentimes it still need to be sold as a line item. I mean, doesn’t that seem a bit ridiculous that a company needs to have someone explain why they need something that can connect their employees together? Some companies have some type of tool in place and others have nothing but either way it’s still looked at as option that the company may or may not purchase. Perhaps I’m a bit biased or have spent too much time swimming in the collaboration pool but I wonder. What if phones were optional? What if computers… -
Emergent Collaboration Vendor Review: ThoughtFarmer
20 Jan 2012 | 5:56 pmOn Friday’s I’ll be reviewing a vendor in the emergent collaboration space and will provide an overview on that vendor which includes aspects from leadership and vision to technology and market focus. If you are vendor that would like to participate, please contact me (email is in the sidebar as is the twitter link). The goal of these posts is not to bash or praise vendors but to simply offer an objective view on what various vendors offer so that YOU can decide if they are a good fit for your business. Every post will cover the same elements for different vendors. If you have ideas or… -
Where are Collaboration Budgets Being Allocated?
18 Jan 2012 | 2:29 amWhen it comes to deploying a collaboration solution for the enterprise there are a lot of things to consider especially when it comes to budgets. Towards the end of the 2009 I wrote an article called, “Companies Interested in Enterprise 2.0 Need to Take Strategy Seriously,” which looked at data collected from a 2009 report on collaboration. What I found particularly shocking was the small budget allocation that strategy was receiving. Towards the end of 2011 Chess conducted another survey on the “State of Enterprise 2.0 Collaboration” and one of the topics we… -
Charles Darwin on Collaboration
17 Jan 2012 | 2:08 amI’m always on the lookout for interesting quotes dealing with collaboration that I can use in presentations. I came across this quote by Charles Darwin which I wanted to share with you. “It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” - Charles Darwin
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GeekGirlfriends.com
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Want a New Home Office?
23 Jan 2012 | 5:32 pmDo you have to clear spilled orange juice, dirty laundry, and someone else’s craft project away every time you sit down to work? Not me. I have a big monitor, ergonomic keyboard, and two work surfaces — all in a room with a spectacular view and a door that locks. If you aren’t taking your [...] -
This Makes Me Want More Babies
19 Jan 2012 | 10:10 amThere is nothing cooler than watching a baby go from incapable of sitting up to reading, doing advance math, repairing broken computers, and driving the car. But this stroller is almost enough to make a geek girl want to start over again with one of those stroller-riding sized babies. -
Hacking Your Router to Control Your Kids
13 Jan 2012 | 5:50 pmA version of this ran in my Family Tech column in Family Circle some time ago. Cowry shells were once a common currency worldwide. Spanish doubloons, too, were once much-traded as legal tender. Today we American’s favor the dollar – buck, greenback, moolah, scratch, cabbage, loot, bread, bacon, or dosh. But in my house, [...] -
Clean Tech Giveaway
12 Dec 2011 | 3:46 pmIt’s been an exciting few weeks over here in GeekGirlfriends land. You may have noticed that I completely redesigned this site. Hard work! Also, my annual tech gift guide is out in print in Family Circle magazine and online at FamilyCircle.com. And that means that I’ve been cleaning up the mess – boxes, tangled cables, chargers – left [...] -
Build a Mustang. Get Facebook for your Flight
3 Nov 2011 | 4:05 pmIf you find yourself bored on a flight before November 18, (and have a computer with you), you don’t have to ante up the $12.95 for in-flight Internet just to mess around on Facebook. There is a way to get to there for free. And it’s fun. GoGoInflight.com and Ford have a mutual promotions running [...]
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Dan Zarrella
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[Infographic] How to Get More Clicks on Twitter
24 Jan 2012 | 11:18 pmI’ve often said that the best use of Twitter is as a broadcast medium. You should be creating a ton of interesting content and sharing it with your followers. To that end I’ve done a bunch of research on how to optimize the clickthrough rate (CTR) of the links you’re tweeting. For the purposes of this data, I’ve calculated CTR as the number of clicks on a tweeted link divided by the number of followers the account had when it tweeted that link. Below is an infographic presenting some of my past findings as well as some entirely new data I’ve found about… -
[Infographic] What are the Best Times to Blog?
23 Jan 2012 | 12:54 amOne of the most popular webinars I’ve ever worked on, The Science of Timing was also one of my favorite. If you haven’t seen it, go check out the on-demand recording now. In it, I present data I’ve collected over three years about the effect timing has on a variety of online marketing activities, including blogging. Below is an infographic that represents a collection of the three most important stats I have about when to publish blog posts. In the webinar, I also make the point that my results are based on huge aggregates of thousands, millions, or even in some cases,… -
[Infographic] The 2012 Republican Candidates by the Twitter Numbers
17 Jan 2012 | 11:59 pmI’ve studied the relationship between Twitter success and politics before, and since this year is a big year in elections, I figured I’d do it again. This time I looked at how the 4 front-running republican presidential candidates are doing on Twitter. I analyzed the obvious numbers, followers, retweets and mentions, but I also looked at a few of my favorite, deeper metrics: retweets-per-follower, link-percentage and reply-percentage. I also looked at Twitter “penetration” in two upcoming primary states: South Carolina and Florida. Notice anything that surprises you in… -
[Infographic] How To Use Contra-Competitive Timing for More ReTweets, Likes, Comments and Clicks
17 Jan 2012 | 1:44 amOne of the most interesting patterns I’ve found while studying social media and marketing data is what I call in my book “contra-competitive timing.” I’ve found in numerous cases that the most successful times and days to publish new content are off-peak times. It’s like when you’re at a noisy party and it’s hard to hear the person talking to you 2 feet away, but suddenly you say something awkward and the room quiets down. Now everyone can hear you. The same is true with the internet. When there is less other noise to compete with (ie fewer Tweets,… -
[New Data] What Percentage of your Tweets Should be Links or Replies
10 Jan 2012 | 11:25 pmIf you like myth busting social media data like this, be sure to buy my newest book, Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness. One of the social media questions I’m most interested in is about whether Twitter is best suited for conversation or broadcasting. To many people’s surprise, I generally find myself on the broadcast side, and most of the data I’ve analyzed seems to back me up. Just yesterday, I started a little informal Twitter poll and found that respondents were pretty evenly split between broadcasting and conversation. This time, I looked at more than 100k…
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Emily Chang - Designer
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SOPA Strike
18 Jan 2012 | 9:34 pmToday was the internet’s SOPA strike day. Netizens, websites and tech companies rallied to stop the internet censorship bills, SOPA and PIPA. From the EFF‘s post, Thank You, Internet! And the Fight Continues: The numbers are pretty amazing. More than 1 million messages (and counting!) were sent to Congress today via the EFF action center. More than 4.5 million people signed Google’s petition registering their opposition to the bills. And that’s just the beginning. Many lawmakers abandoned the legislation (at least 13 senators today alone!) and we expect to see… -
Last Sunset of 2011
31 Dec 2011 | 7:07 pmHappy new year! -
3:22pm
26 Dec 2011 | 10:49 pm -
Ocean Beach
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4s
22 Dec 2011 | 12:06 am
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The Bazaarvoice Social Commerce Blog
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Infographic: Millennials will change the way you sell
24 Jan 2012 | 9:01 amThe “kids” who invented Facebook, never call when they can text, and don’t go out without their smartphones – they’re growing up. And soon, your business will depend on them. It’s true. By 2017, Millennials – those consumers now in their mid-teens to mid-30s – will have more spending power than any other generation. This generation, sometimes called “Generation Y,” shops differently than their predecessors. Millennials are hyper-social, constantly connected to social and endlessly curious about what others are doing, buying, and enjoying – strangers as well as friends. -
How patient voices are transforming healthcare
19 Jan 2012 | 10:17 amAlmost everyone has spent time at a hospital. Whether you’re visiting an aging family member, welcoming a new addition into the family, or seeking a routine treatment, the service you receive leaves a lasting impression. No matter the outcome, patient satisfaction along with the quality of treatment has never been more important. We want to feel cared for. We want to be treated as an individual and respected as a patient. And we will share our experience with others. When selecting a health care provider, we often turn to our friends for recommendations, browse for information from… -
CES 2012: The “next big thing” takes a backseat to what customers really want
17 Jan 2012 | 9:22 amI've been thinking about the best way to answer that one, inevitable CES question: “What’s the big, new thing this year?” My answer is (and will be): “Nothing. And we should all be very excited about that.” I’m not a trend-basher; I think things like huge, capacitive-touch TVs and washing machines that text us when loads are ready are fascinating developments that deserve our attention, not cynicism. Some of what I saw was incredible, even ground breaking. But nothing this year was bleeding-edge-new and seen everywhere. If the innovation on display at last year’s CES… -
How IBM brings events to life with social
16 Jan 2012 | 9:25 amNote: This a guest post by Kathy Mandelstein, Director Of WW Marketing, Social Business at IBM. IBM is a Bazaarvoice client. As one of the leading voices in the marketplace on Social Business, our team at IBM believes in practicing what we preach. This week in Orlando, Florida, we are running our annual flagship conference, IBM Lotusphere along with a new two day event for Business Leaders, IBM Connect. Of all the events that IBM runs, since these two events are focused on Social Business, it is critical that all aspects of the conference are truly social, transcending from online to the… -
The NPS flip: how to turn detractors into promoters
12 Jan 2012 | 7:00 amWe like to switch things up a bit here at Bazaarvoice. When it comes to Net Promoter Score, most companies give a survey, in which each responder rates the company once on a scale of 0-10 as to whether or not they would recommend this business to a friend. At Bazaarvoice, we use our review submission process to accomplish this task. Each time a contributor submits a review, they are asked, “Would you recommend this company to a friend?” So, if they submit multiple reviews, they have the opportunity to give multiple Net Promoter Scores. In this way, we have a unique and…
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Beth’s Blog
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Peeragogy: Self Organized Peer Learning in Networks
26 Jan 2012 | 11:16 amPhoto by Aussiegal My dream is to see more robust informal peer learning networks in the nonprofit sector. As a trainer, I’m intensely interested in creating learning experiences that integrate or about how to use the technology for nonprofits that engage and inspire people to put the ideas into practice. I’ve been obsessed with peer learning and self-directed learning models in my own learning and the trainings I design and facilitate. The term Peeragogy came fluttering through my network, like a butterfly, and it caught my interest. It resonated. When an idea or… -
What Do Facebook’s New Timeline Apps Mean for Nonprofits?
25 Jan 2012 | 11:39 amSource: developers.facebook.com via Beth on Pinterest Remember last September when Facebook announced all those changes to individual profiles, including the timeline? One of the changes was that your friends and fans can do more than “Like” or “Comment” on Facebook. Three new actions were announced at the time, including: Read, Watch, Listen to help people better understand what their friends are doing online. Facebook called it the “Open Graph” and the pr people called “A revolution to the whole meaning of listening to music together or family… -
What Comes First, Content Creation or Curation?
24 Jan 2012 | 10:59 amFlickr Photo by Carissa Marie This is definitely not a chicken and egg question! A debate in content marketing circles is whether or not you should simply focus on creating original content and forget content curation. Let’s be clear as my fellow content curator, Jan Gordon, says: There is no curation without original content. I might qualify this a bit by saying, there is no curation with awesomely addictive social content! And that means creating content – blog posts, tweets, Facebook updates, YouTube Videos – that is valuable and high quality. Not sure if you… -
The Information Diet: Not Just A Book, A Movement For Conscious Consumption of Information
23 Jan 2012 | 10:51 amI’ve been curating resources and teaching workshops on the topic of information coping skills for a couple of years. I first became interested in the topic after reading David Shenk’s “Data Smog” in 1998 using the metaphor of environmental problems to talk about the dangers of having too much online information, primarily email. This was in the era before Facebook and there was far less information available compared today. (My favorite practical principle from Shenk was “Give A Hoot, Don’t Email Pollute” when talking about the need for… -
Social Media and Cute Dogs Go Mobile And Other Cute Animal and Nonprofit Tales
20 Jan 2012 | 9:37 amThe Cute Dog Theory or more precisely the Cute Animal Theory states that including cute animals in your social media content inspires more people to share the content. If don’t believe that is true, check out this YouTube video from VW of dogs barking the theme from Star Wars as a Superbowl Teaser. In less than a day, it has over 1 million views. The cute animal theory has not gone unnoticed by nonprofits, even those that are not animal welfare organizations, zoos or aquariums are sharing content featuring cute animals on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. And now, mobile.
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The Foush » Blog
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My 5 Favorite Moments of 2011
9 Jan 2012 | 2:55 pmHi friends! Happy 2012! I hope you enjoyed your holidays! I surprised Jesse with plane tickets home to Toronto for Christmas and it was so wonderful to spend time with our family and friends. The end of the year is always a time for reflection, if for no other reason than to remind yourself of all the things you did in the past 12 months! One of my favorite things to do is to share my love of technology and innovation with others, and I was so lucky to be able to do that all around the world in 2011. I had a chance to speak in Mexico, Norway, Italy, Switzerland, Canada and the United… -
Has Facebook Gone Too Far?
9 Nov 2011 | 1:34 pmThis is the second part of a series on social media by digital strategist, author, and speaker Rahaf Harfoush. Check out Part 1 The Evolution of the Web Persona Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Tumblr, Pinterest, FourSquare, Google+, and Last.fm are just some of the outlets we currently have available to us for sharing everything from what we’re thinking to what we’re eating, and everything in between. We know we are posting this information, and we know this information is being stored and tracked. Stories of people getting fired for inappropriate tweets or status updates have…
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Debbie Weil's Blog
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Wake Up and Write For Your Existing Readers (Don’t Look for Readers Later)
27 Jan 2012 | 2:22 pmSeth Godin reminds us - again - of the new way to think about writing a business book. You are writing for the fans and followers you already have. Your tribe. They are the ones who will celebrate with you and kick off word-of-mouth sales if you set your launch price on Kindle at $0.00. As Seth puts it: "Wake up in the morning thinking about what (you) can write for (your) readers." Not the other way around. The old mindset went like this: write your book, get it edited, get blurbs from big names, design a great cover, print, distribute, launch and hold your breath for sales. In other words,… -
Is Publishing a Kick-ass eBook for Kindle One of Your Goals for 2012?
29 Dec 2011 | 2:44 pmWe're betting it is. And there are one spot no spots left to pre-register for the next Beta Author Boost, starting in March 2012. Beta Author Boost is a unique writing workshop that enables up-and-coming business authors to write and publish a short, kick-ass eBook for Amazon Kindle in 8 weeks. The first Beta Author Boost sold out in less than 12 hours. The program is currently in full swing with 10 subject matter experts working on a wide variety of book topics. We are having a blast. Writing a book, even a short book, is hard. What if a drop-dead deadline propelled you to finish your… -
Context vs. Content: What Sells Your Book?
21 Dec 2011 | 7:12 amContext is one of those words that sparks a multidimensional image in your head. That is key to understanding why context (who, where, how, what, why) has as much to do with the success or popularity of a new book as does the actual content of that book. Who recommended the book to you? That counts for a lot. You tend to trust recommendations from friends who are discerning and on top of what's new. Where did you hear about the book? Were you online, on a social network like Facebook or Twitter, where it required no more than a couple of clicks to download the book in digital format to… -
Free for 36 hours: The (Updated) Corporate Blogging Book is $0.00 on Amazon
14 Dec 2011 | 2:59 pmAmazon is capturing headlines again as the company bullies its way into book publishing - as distinct from book selling. But there are some bright spots for self-published authors. You can run occasional (very occasional) $0.00 promos for your book. That's what's happening right now on my Amazon page - but only for the next 36 hours. Download The Corporate Blogging Book (Updated Edition) for $0.00. I think you'll like the new preface. My premise is that blogs, far from being overshadowed by Facebook or Twitter, are the hub of an effective content marketing strategy. The book is… -
Attention Beta Authors: Get a Professional “Boost” to Publish a Kick-ass Kindle eBook in 8 Weeks
30 Nov 2011 | 7:09 pm[Sold out in less than 12 hours.] The cool thing about publishing a book for Amazon Kindle is that you can think of yourself as a Beta Author. It's easy to take the plunge and commit to publishing a digital book, knowing you can update your book later. And forget BOOK in all caps. When you write an eBook it can be as short as 30 pages. Nobody can tell how long your book is when they look at the thumbnail cover on Amazon. Nor do they care. A sizzling title, an eye-catching cover, a compelling topic and the quality of the writing are what matter. These are what establish your credibility as…
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Blogworks: Social Media India, Brand, Marketing and Communication Consulting.
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Irreverence and candidness greet @PMOIndia on Twitter.
27 Jan 2012 | 10:53 pm“Time to unfollow the PMO on Twitter.” proclaims Anant Rangaswami on Firstpost @PMOIndia, the Official Twitter account of the Indian Prime Minister’s office, has been live all of 24 hours on Twitter. “…few days on Twitter, do you think the Government’s been effective?” asks Sunetra Choudhry on NDTV It’s just been a few ‘hours’ more... Read more » -
#McDstories – Are they loving it ?
26 Jan 2012 | 1:12 amWhat began as an attempt to bring out the positive stories of McDonalds, turned into a marketing nightmare for McDonalds. They seeded the hashtag #meetthefarmers and #McDstories so as to showcase their commitment to deliver fresh produce. McDonald’s promoted video interviews with farmers that supply their lettuce, beef, and potatoes. Following which came the tweet... Read more » -
Entering the 6th year today is @blogworks: scaling it up.
25 Dec 2011 | 9:16 pmBlogworks completes 5 years today! It has been an intense year – moving to the next orbit requires perseverance, will, and far greater energy. We have as a team shown that we have the will and the skills. Year 5 This is the year that we became a ‘business and an organisation’. We started the... Read more »
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gapingvoid
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Evaded
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Re–
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You must love what you do
7 Jan 2012 | 9:33 pm -
A perfect moment
7 Jan 2012 | 6:38 pm -
I tried…
6 Jan 2012 | 8:37 pm
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Social Media Dudes
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13 Great Ways To Repurpose Your Content!
17 Jan 2012 | 6:59 amI think you would agree that valuable content on your website or that was authored by you and hosted on other sites is critical to your success to drive traffic and ultimately make sales. At the end of the day, it separates a good blog from a great blog! So creating great content is job [...] Related posts: Best Ways to Drive Traffic To Your Blog! The following article was written by Dorothy J Bellisario who... Content Marketing Principles: 3 Highly Effective Things to Incorporate Into Your Blog Posts! One of the things that I learned from my attendance... Related posts brought to you by… -
3 FREE Ways to Increase Your FaceBook Fans – Often Overlooked
11 Jan 2012 | 7:40 am3 FREE Ways to Increase Your FaceBook Fans – Often Overlooked In my opinion more fans are better than fewer fans. You can talk about “quality” all you want but you will not change my mind on this one. The more fans you have the more likely you will develop new business or even create [...] Related posts: 5 Ways Our Family Uses Social Media 5 Ways Our Family Uses Social Media Much is made... Get Better Engagement From Your Facebook Page! Dennis and I have had several people come up to... 20 Helpful Facebook Fan Page Tips! Strategy 1. Life is short! So have some fun from... -
Why Your Blog Didn’t Take Off in 2011 and How You Fix It for 2012!
7 Jan 2012 | 7:36 amFair warning! This blog post is not for the meek or the faint hearted! About this time last year, you were like a lot of folks who decided that they were going to follow Gary Vaynerchuk’s advice and “Crush It” (no slam on Gary…if you do what he says, you are going to be farther [...] No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. -
LinkedIn Profile Essentials – Part 2
5 Jan 2012 | 7:02 amThis is part 2 of a 2 part series written by Janet Slack. See Part 1 by clicking here. Today we are looking at strategies that will make your LinkedIn (LI) profile a true asset for your business. You want it to be a great place for people to learn more about you and we [...] Related posts: LinkedIn Profile Essentials – Part 1 You need a great LinkedIn profile. It really is no... Getting Setup On LinkedIn! Social media is gaining massive popularity these days due to... 10 Ways To Promote Your Business With LinkedIn! LinkedIn in many regards is the forgotten member of what... Related… -
What is “The Cloud” and should I be using it?
15 Dec 2011 | 12:45 pmWhat is “The Cloud” and should I be using it? So what is this cloud thing I keep hearing about? It sounds kind of scary to have my data and information stored somewhere other than my computer. Couldn’t someone get it? Isn’t it more at risk? Think of the cloud as water. You turn on [...] No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
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Soshable | Social Media Blog
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The Social Bowl
23 Jan 2012 | 11:35 amWhen the Patriots of New England take on the Giants of New York—a game that could be decided by kicking a oblong ball made of pigskin through a giant “H” for a most ripping victory—thousands of football fans will converge on Lucas Oil Field and the surrounding areas for Super Bowl XLVI. The vast majority of attendees are sure to use mobile devices to disclose various details of their fun during a full week of events. An unprepared city could experience a social media logjam, but the city of Indianapolis has taken all of this into consideration. We all know about the importance of the… -
Protesting SOPA and PIPA: Go Away for Now
18 Jan 2012 | 1:05 amWe won’t be posting until the 19th. Go away. Here’s why: Stop SOPA. -
What is the Importance of the Google +1 Button Versus PageRank?
17 Jan 2012 | 11:57 amSEO is one of the most effective methods for increasing visibility and boosting traffic online. And with Google the being undisputed king of the online search game, its ranking system is the one most publishers and marketers aim to please with their SEO efforts. However, many have found that keeping up with the company’s ever changing algorithm can be a full time job in and of itself. If you’re among those who feel this way, brace yourself because the advent of the Google +1 button could lead to one of the biggest changes yet. The +1 Button’s Potential Impact on Search Rankings… -
How to Prepare in 2012
16 Jan 2012 | 4:56 pmPreparing for 2012 Preparing for a new year is never easy no matter what line of work you’re in. In social media, it’s damn near impossible. Regardless of how much analysis of the previous year you complete or how strategies you put in place to start the year, things change… rapidly. That all said, if you aren’t at least thinking about how you can improve or tweak your social strategy on a big picture basis, you’re already behind. Throw in Google’s announcement of their social search integration and you’re plain out of sight. While they may be basic, here are some things you… -
How to Spot a Social Gamer
16 Jan 2012 | 2:55 pmTo any of our readers who are into social gaming, please do not take this as an insult. It’s definitely not intended that way. I’m not a social gamer. It’s not that I don’t like games – I do. It’s not that I don’t like social media – I do (obviously). At this point, I haven’t found a true social game that appeals to me. It will come, but I am somewhat still put off by them simply based upon the endless invites I once got (thank you Facebook and Twitter for fixing this) and the bias has yet to completely wear off. With that said, I am still…
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Brains On Fire Blog
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Permission to love.
26 Jan 2012 | 10:11 amThis tiny little love note showed on my computer one afternoon. I keep it close by and still have no clue who wrote it. Some of our team has just returned from a long weekend of training for one of our clients. I love hearing the stories they bring back home from these experiences with our clients and their advocates. Alexis shared some of the emails she got when they returned today. After reading this amazing thread of heartfelt notes, Cordell sent me one of his classic one liners. It simply said: “It’s amazing what happens when you give people permission to love.” Our purpose at… -
3.13.12 – Robbin speaks – Hoosier Hospitality Conference
26 Jan 2012 | 8:39 amRobbin will head to Indiana to speak with members of the travel and tourism industry during this year’s Hoosier Hospitality Conference in Bloomington. Robbin will present to Indiana’s restaurateurs at 10 a.m. and in a general session at 1:45 p.m. on March 13. For more details, visit: www.hoosierhospitalityconference.com -
2.4.12 – Eric speaks – CommonGround Conference
26 Jan 2012 | 8:38 amEric will share Lessons Learned Igniting Word of Mouth Movements during the CommonGround Shared Voices Conference on February 3 in Charleston, S.C. For more information, check out: www.FindOurCommonGround.com -
1.31.12 – Robbin speaks – Ten at the Top forum
26 Jan 2012 | 8:32 amRobbin will speak alongside local members of Ten at the Top on a panel about Communicating Information Across the Upstate. Held in Greenville, S.C., the forum is free and open to the public. Information on the full forum series can be found at: www.tenatthetop.org To register for the event, visit: http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07e5fh6c9d81e798b9&llr=iwqthmdab -
Co-blogging Goodness Round 2: Eric and Jamie Tackle Scaling Community Online and Offline
25 Jan 2012 | 9:26 amCo-bloggin’ goodness, round 2: One is a seasoned corporate marketer working for Best Buy. The other is a small-agency young-gun in a constant quest for his spurs. Both are passionate about making positive change in the industry, and they want to share their thoughts with you. Jamie Plesser and Eric Dodds bring you the second post in a monthly co-blogging series that tackles tasty marketing topics from both sides of the line. Meet the crew: Eric: I was raised in Upstate South Carolina and roped in by a small, big-hearted agency called Brains on Fire. I’ve had my hand in qualitative…
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Tantek Çelik
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just spoke on "Open Standards Stories & Practices" at #mozvision 2012: tantek.com/presentations/2012/01/open-web
21 Jan 2012 | 1:25 amjust spoke on "Open Standards Stories & Practices" at #mozvision 2012: tantek.com/presentations/2012/01/open-web -
no frontend JS, just backend @cassisjs and a simple black position:fixed on tantek.com. STOP #SOPA
18 Jan 2012 | 3:54 amno frontend JS, just backend @cassisjs and a simple black position:fixed <a href> on tantek.com. STOP #SOPA -
2+ yrs of self-hosted tweets with nav: http://ttk.me/t43W1. Make it a 2012 goal to join the #indieweb and #ownyourdata
3 Jan 2012 | 1:59 am2+ yrs of self-hosted tweets with nav: http://ttk.me/t43W1. Make it a 2012 goal to join the #indieweb and #ownyourdata -
Another fire in SF. This one a bit too close. Port Zero intact, though evac was ordered while we were out at dinner.
2 Jan 2012 | 1:33 amAnother fire in SF. This one a bit too close. Port Zero intact, though evac was ordered while we were out at dinner. -
2011: Remembering, Reflecting, And Appreciating
1 Jan 2012 | 1:54 am2011 has been quite the year. It's been a year of both meeting incredible people, and unfortunately losing some as well. I feel fortunate for having friends old and new. A full year working with and now at Mozilla and the numerous smart and passionate folks there. The broader open web, open source, and indie web communities. And lastly and most lovingly my girlfriend Erin. We lost far too many greats in the tech world this year. Steve Jobs. Dennis Ritchie. John McCarthy. And lastly and most tragically, Ilya Zhitomirskiy. I briefly met Steve Jobs over ten years ago in an Apple Retailer in…
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Studio Notes by Shai Coggins
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One Line a Day
6 Jan 2012 | 6:09 amI love keeping records and journals. I’ve got a huge collection of notebooks, sketchbooks, and other types of handmade books that prove my lifelong dedication to record-keeping. Over the last few years, however, I’ve slowly slipped from this beloved habit. The last couple of years were particularly bad. So bad, in fact, that last year, I decided NOT to keep any journals at all. At least no handwritten ones. Just my blogs and digital scribbles. A first, after so many years. So, this year, part of my goal is to get back to it. Keeping journals and records. I now have my traditional… -
Well, Hello 2012!
1 Jan 2012 | 6:31 amIt’s the first day of a new year, and I love being able to blog today. Why? It’s because it gives me the chance to start the year like how I want to spend the rest of it — doing things I enjoy. Blogging here at Studio Notes is one of those things. And, it’s a practice that I hope to continue with much more ardour, frequency, and tenacity. It’s also a great way to clear the “first post of the year jitters” away and just get on with it. With my first 2012 blog post out of the way, I can just write about the rest of the things that I wish to post here. -
A World of Good: My 2011 in Review
31 Dec 2011 | 8:54 amIf I were to describe my 2011 in one word, it would have to be: EPIC. How can any other word suffice when I’ve managed to pack so much more than I would ever hope to pack in one year? Life has changed so much for me within 12 months – both personally and professionally. The people I met, the places I’ve been, the things I’ve experienced… From stories I’ve shared all over the web to those I can’t even begin to write about. I’m just here to do a round-up of memories, as part of my annual tradition here at Studio Notes. Since I’ve done a semi… -
Happy Holidays!
25 Dec 2011 | 3:48 amJust wishing you all a very happy Christmas from my family to yours! In the next few days, I’m hoping to resume some more blogging to round-up 2011 and to welcome 2012. I hope you’re enjoying this festive season… and getting all the holiday loot that you desire. You Might Also Like To Read...52WoC#36: Holiday Cheer!Girls’ rules for fun mini holidaysWishing You All… Happy Holidays!52WoC #47: Holiday Wish ListBack from the Break {Victoria Trip Round-Up} -
Setting Up Goals and Strategies to Increase Twitter Follows: TGTFP Part 3
19 Dec 2011 | 10:56 pmThis is Part 3 of an ongoing series about a case study on increasing Twitter followers. If you missed the earlier parts and would like to read in order, check out: Part 1: The Great Twitter Follow Project: A Case Study Part 2: Setting a Baseline: The Great Twitter Follow Project In this post, I’ll share all about Setting Up Goals and Strategies to Increase Twitter Follows. This will include some of the tools I plan on using. Setting Up Goals With the baseline data collected, it’s easier to look at goals for this study as such: To use at least 3 different tools and approaches to…
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terrainnova.org
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Why cigars symbolize success
23 Jan 2012 | 5:37 am(credit) It’s been ages since I last wrote here but a lot has happened in the past couple of years. I co-founded a startup which didn’t go so well (a story to be told, for sure), I have been contributing to another which is moving on strong, I changed over to the industry described by the dreaded term of ‘social media consulting‘ (Greek) and last but definitely not least got married and became a father. Why come back to this blog after so long then? Well, the blog was never really abandoned in the back of my mind and all it needed was a bit of free time and an excuse. -
Respect, fame & money
11 Nov 2009 | 6:22 amImage by Sara Golemon via Flickr These days everyone seems to be making an app store. I think it all started (or at least became popular) with the iPhone releasing their SDK or – or was it with Twitter opening up their API? And then Android, Facebook of course, Yahoo, MySpace as well as any startup with a few miles behind them are opening up their platform so that 3rd party developers can create value for whatever it is they are making. And soon after that even more mainstream companies like Nokia and Vodafone weigh in by making their own platforms (more) available – something… -
Large followings’ advantage
8 Nov 2009 | 5:43 amImage by National Library NZ on The Commons via Flickr In a previous post I mentioned that most of the Greek TV channels main asset is live content: sports and music events is content that cannot be found elsewhere (neither online nor in competitors) so it keeps viewers faithful to their brand. But that’s not entirely true: live content is not their only remaining major asset much as TV channels like to think so. They have something else – the effect you get when many people start and keep following a source of information (in whatever medium). It doesn’t matter how bad or… -
Commoditizing live content
5 Nov 2009 | 5:46 amImage by Monica’s Dad via Flickr As I said in my previous post, Greek TV channels most sought-after content is live events (sports, music etc) which cannot be found elsewhere (neither in competitors nor online). Securing licenses for such content turns out as a major asset for such providers – and I can imagine that this holds not just for Greece but any and all countries. So what would it take for this last castle, which offers possibilities of monopoly to a single (or a few) providers, to fall? What would allow even live events to escape from the stranglehold of large, existing… -
Live content matters
2 Nov 2009 | 9:30 amA few months back I was talking to a guy who works at the Greek subscription channel Nova and he was telling me that the content most sought after by TV channels is none other than the coverage of live events. In Greece this means mostly football and basketball games and perhaps to a lesser extent other sports and music concerts. Image via Wikipedia And there’s good reason for that. As broadband use and torrents’ downloading increases any type of content other than live offered by the provider can be found online. Films can be downloaded, news and information can be found in many…
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Bare Feet Blog
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Can Social Media Save Hawaii’s Beaches and Land?
24 Jan 2012 | 2:02 amSaving Hawaii’s beaches and open space is a widely shared commitment – not just among those of us who live here but even more so perhaps for the millions of visitors to Hawaii! Everyone is invited, as even those of you who may never visit have likely experienced calm and inspiration from looking a Maui sunset or listening to the rhythm of the waves while watching an episode of Beachwalks.tv. I am part of the social media team that is helping raise funds for the Hawaiian Islands Land Trust (HILT) on January 28, 2012 and their annual fundraiser. We are putting social media to a… -
Summary of New Media Artist-in-Residence Program
1 Jan 2012 | 4:01 amIt is the last day of 2011 and I want to add an exclamation point of gratitude on each of my blogs – most of which suffer from neglect from me. It was my friend and Maui blogger Liza Pierce’s idea: let’s all write a blog post for January 1st! So, I’ve set this to post just one minute in to the new year. Happy New Year! I am starting on this blog, as this is the easy one! (I have at least three more I am aiming for.) This past year, I was hired by the Lānaʻi Visitors Bureau (LVB) to run a social media marketing campaign for them, based on a very original… -
How to Contribute to an Open Playlist on Spotify
11 Dec 2011 | 7:12 pmMy colleague and brilliant marketer, Tara Coomans, created an open playlist on the music sharing service Spotify, and has invited anyone to help beef up the party mix for our annual Hawaii Social Media Year in Review partee. Yes, of course you are invited! But about the Spotify Playlist: Great idea! I thought. But it is easier said than done. So here is a quick cheat sheet. Of course, you will require a Spotify account before you can add any songs to the playlist. Visit Spotify and set up your account. Then navigate to Tara’s playlist. Then click the “I have Spotify” button… -
The Social Cost of Unpaid Tweetup Teams
23 Nov 2011 | 6:28 pmAs the founder of the Social Media Club Hawaii chapter and a very active social media consultant here in Hawaii, I am often invited to attend events and receive services for free in exchange for social media buzz – aka tweeting, facebooking, photographing, and videoing about my experiences. Though I thoroughly enjoy myself when I am on site and do pour myself into the activities at hand, I have this persistent nag of discomfort. I’ve been letting it percolate as I gather information and sort out all of the energies that are in play – just what my “systems… -
Thank You Steve
5 Oct 2011 | 11:08 pmFirst, mahalo to Apple for giving us such a stunning home page in honor of Steve’s passing from this world. I am bursting with feelings tonight as I write this post. Which could go in so many directions. What I take from him and the way he lived his life is the feverish attachment to being who he was. He was a perfectionist, and not afraid of it. He was odd, and not afraid of it. He was brilliant, and not afraid if it. He was emotional, even tyrannical, and not afraid of it. Many will suggest that more companies should be perfectionistic, or cultivate oddness, or confuse brilliance with…
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Social Media Marketing
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Social Media and Travel
26 Jan 2012 | 11:37 pmIf you're like me, you spend a good deal of time on the road. Whether it's at an airport, on a train or in a car, you're mobile and your digital life is mobile too.The pervasiveness of tablets and smartphones (in addition to the already ubiquitous laptop) is growing daily. Just this week, Apple announced that it sold 37 million iPhones and 15.4 million iPads in the fourth quarter of 2011 alone. It means that more of us are doing things on the web (or mobile web, as the case may be) while we're on the go, and there are certain things those of us in the digital world look for when we travel -… -
Revealing a New Ford in a New Way
13 Dec 2011 | 8:00 pmFord Motor Company has been at the forefront of social media for some time. The Fiesta Movement, the Explorer reveal on Facebook, Doug the Spokespuppet, Ford Social (formerly known as The Ford Story) and being the first brand on Google+ all stand as examples of Ford's success that spans from clever campaigns to a daily commitment to engage.Ford played a significant part in how the automotive industry thinks about social media (and in some cases how large companies think about social media) and now, as we near the 2012 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS), at Ford we have an… -
Infographic: 5 Companies That Are Rocking Social Media
29 Nov 2011 | 10:47 amThis infographic was created by Voltier Digital, a content marketing agency based in Florida, specializing on the creation and promotion of impactful content marketing campaigns for businesses of all sizes.We all know the usual names of companies that are doing well in social media. I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some of the lesser-knowns and why they've had success, either on an ongoing basis or with some one-off efforts that stood out.And since infographics are all the rage, what better way to look at them? Of course, for SEO purposes, I've listed them here as… -
Twitter Business Guide
7 Oct 2011 | 10:53 pmI was recently introduced to a compact guidebook for businesses trying to get a sense of Twitter. The microblogging site that allows you to update in no more than 140 characters at at time is deceptively complex and nuanced - especially for a newcomer.This short guide, entitled Twitter Business Guide: Communication and Marketing was written by Jean-Christophe Barré and Dr. Andreas Schroeter and in just 32 pages covers some of the things that may be keeping you and your business away from this platform. For someone who is new to Twitter, this e-book will prove a helpful compass as you… -
iLife
5 Oct 2011 | 7:04 pmSteve Jobs has died at the age of 56. His life's work at Apple literally changed the face of the earth. Undoubtedly, he'll go down in history alongside the likes of Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford.Let's remember Steve in his own words, "How to live before you die," in his Stanford Commencement speech of 2005:R.I.P. Steve Jobs. We thank you for the innovation you brought to this world. May we all live such a life.-- (Disclosure: http://cmp.ly/5)
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EveryJoe » Work
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Fox Morning Show Co-Anchor Greg Kelly Accused of Rape
26 Jan 2012 | 4:46 pmGreg Kelly, the co-host of FOX’s “Good Day New York” and the son of Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, has been accused of rape. Not only does the 30-year-old paralegal claim the sexual assault occurred, she also says that she got pregnant and subsequently had an abortion as a result of the attack. The Manhattan district attorney’s office is investigating the allegation, and Kelly has not been charged with any crime as of yet. However, he has “strenuously” denied the charge through his lawyer. The alleged rape occurred back on Oct 8 when the two allegedly met on… -
Could Facebook Shut Down Over SOPA & PIPA?
17 Jan 2012 | 1:30 pmIf you are like many people, you are reading a lot about SOPA and PIPA right now. To get the lowdown, check out this post about how SOPA/PIPA can affect you. Also, watch this video about understanding SOPA and PIPA, and find out if Facebook could actually shut down. Though Wikipedia is going dark over SOPA/PIPA tomorrow. Many companies actually support SOPA, from ABC to Visa. Allison Boyer of BlogWorld has a good piece about Why SOPA Scares the You-Know-What Out of Me that talks about a lot of worrisome loopholes. You should also read this article from Daily Kos about the repeated blows SOPA… -
Wikipedia to Go Dark on Wednesday to Protest SOPA & PIPA
17 Jan 2012 | 10:13 amThe U.S. government is currently considering to bills that are causing quite a stir — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). According to TechCrunch, “Websites found to offer pirated content, along with the services that they use, could be hidden from US internet users by being delisted on search engines and potentially on DNS servers themselves.” Many people believe with these bills, we’d be heading down a slippery slope and the legislation could threaten free speech. Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales has decided to send a message by going dark for… -
How to Manage Your Holiday Debt
29 Dec 2011 | 12:27 pmIf you are one of the many people who overspent during the holidays, you now have to prepare for the fallout when your credit card and bank statements arrive. Andrea Woroch, consumer and money-saving expert for Kinoli, Inc. offers these tips for managing your holiday debt. Double and Triple Up Multiply your credit card minimum payments two or three times to reduce the amount of interest you’ll end up paying. Merely meeting the minimum means you’ll never see bottom. Now’s the Time to Negotiate Talk to your credit card company about negotiating a better rate on interest, fees… -
Things That Will Be More Expensive in 2012
28 Dec 2011 | 10:09 pmWant to know what you are going to be spending your money on in 2012? Dealnews.com researched and listed price adjustments that consumers can expect to see in 2012. Some increases seem almost customary, like ever-rising gas prices, while others, like a potential 25% hike on tap water, are bit more surprising. Airfare Greater demand and fewer available airline seats will likely lead to higher ticket prices for flights next year. Digital Cameras Smartphones have quickly replaced budget friendly point-and-shoot cameras, so manufacturers and retailers are focusing more on higher-end digital SLRs.
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Ignite Social Media
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Pinterest Demographic Data: The Marketers Guide to People Who Pin
24 Jan 2012 | 7:37 amUnless you’re living under a rock, or started boycotting the internet when SOPA was first introduced last year, you’ve heard Pinterest is growing. But just how much traffic is Pinterest getting these days? According to ComScore, Pinterest has over 4 million users and is rapidly growing. Data from Google Ad Planner below shows nearly 1.5 million unique users are visiting Pinterest daily, and spending an astounding 14+ minutes on the site. While this is pocket change compared to behemoth Facebook’s ~500 million daily uniques and 23 minute visits (yes, I’ve heard other numbers, but need… -
Looking for a Great Job in Social Media Marketing? Ignite Social Media is Hiring Again
23 Jan 2012 | 3:30 pmI love my job. I get to do social media marketing for some of the world’s best brands. And I get to work with some of the very smartest people in the business every day. Now, we need more of those smart people. The kind that bring a passion to what they do and combine the confidence that comes with experience with the humble nature of someone who is always learning. If that’s you, you may fit in perfectly at Ignite Social Media. I’m very excited to announce that our next phase of hiring is underway, because of the opportunity to make our team even better. Need a Job? -
YouTube Film Festival, XFINITY, McDonalds, Sam Adams – Topics That Are Igniting
23 Jan 2012 | 11:45 amYouTube Launches Online Film Festival Last week, YouTube continued its efforts to become a more serious media platform announcing the Your Film Festival, a competition for aspiring film makers. The festival is a collaboration between Youtube, famed director and producer Ridley Scott, Scott Free London, the Venice Film Festival, and Emirates. Applicants from all over the world will be able to submit their 15 minute videos of any genre to the Your Film Festival channel starting February 2nd. After the videos are wittled down by the Scott Free Production company and YouTube users, ten… -
Senator Ron Wyden Gets it Right When Posting on Reddit
20 Jan 2012 | 10:19 amSo, if you are in anyway familiar with the Internet, you’re likely aware of the SOPA and PIPA protests that consumed the net on Wednesday. Don’t worry. I’m not about to go on a diatribe about the issue. However, I do intend to share a very astute demonstration of social media know-how by a United States senator. Yesterday, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon posted a link on reddit entitled I’m Senator Ron Wyden and wanted to say thank you to Reddit and the rest of the Internet. The link sent reddit users to his website where they could read a thank you letter detailing the… -
Is Google+ Less Interesting than MySpace? New Data From Users Says Yes
12 Jan 2012 | 11:21 amAre you on Google+? If so, add Ignite Social Media’s Google+ page to your circles. An interesting nugget or two about Google+, how many people are using it and how long they stick around was hidden in a recent eMarketer newsletter on niche social networks growing in popularity. While most of the data was around fastest growing social networks and which networks worldwide were attracting the most time spent, another chart grabbed my attention. Google Plus’ 15m Users Spend Only 5 Minutes Per Month While some are claiming that Google+ has skyrocketed to 150 million users (up from…
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SocialButterfly
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Is Talking About Spirituality and Social Change Taboo?
23 Jan 2012 | 10:44 pmWhat shapes your world view? How does your world view influence your work to change the world for the better? Growing up, we’re told we shouldn’t talk about two things: politics and religion. Yet these two things often help set the foundation of one’s world view. How do we go about changing the world for the better if we can’t talk about either? It’s not realistic--Is it? www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXfD5SJgPqo “If I hear one more politician croak out the words that his or her faith is a private matter, I may just have to go smack them. That is so not reality. -
Passion Meets Purpose – Let’s #Rock2012
13 Jan 2012 | 10:24 pmHow are you applying purpose to your passion? Between blogging with Razoo and working at IQ Solutions on fun projects such as launching Healthy People 2020 and our Nation’s Leading Health Indicators, it’s been awhile. There are two announcements I want to share: Evolving Beyond the Free Agent Fundraiser Jo Rampy crossing the finish line at the inaugural TRI 2 Encourage with her family. My family and I (pictured above) have launched a nonprofit foundation to help advance multiple sclerosis research called the Rampy MS Research Foundation. Our vision? Find a cure for MS within our… -
Social Media Is Not a Marketing Strategy
20 Nov 2011 | 8:40 pmThere, I said it. Social media in and of itself is not a strategy (gasp). It does not replace a solid marketing approach or even a communications plan. To be successful, it must be integrated into a larger strategic framework. This applies to organizations as well as programs, initiatives and (my dreaded word) campaigns. Harvard Business Review recently published an article titled “Separate Social Media From Marketing:” …we need to break out social media and talk about more than marketing and technology. Instead, we need to talk about what social media enables: the ability… -
Reading Up On Social Determinants of Health
10 Oct 2011 | 9:29 pmOctober may be Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but a number of articles came out last week focusing on social determinants of health. The phrase “social determinants of health” refers to health where we live, learn, work, play (and pray). In short, Health with a capital H. U.S. Life Expectancy Rises, Health Disparities Increase Last week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) shared its review of Healthy People 2010. The report shared that as a Nation, we had met or were moving toward meeting, 71% of the disease prevention and health promotion objectives we set in… -
Activating The Global Health Trifecta
7 Oct 2011 | 10:41 amImage: PSI Is foreign aid important to Americans? According to a recent poll, most Americans believe U.S. investment in foreign aid is 25% of the Federal budget, when the accurate figure is less than one percent. When asked what would be an appropriate percentage, the median amount shared was 10%. Yet–even that less than 1% is in jeopardy. Earlier this week, ONE, USAID, FHI 360, PATH, Population Services International (PSI) and World Vision launched “The Power of 1%” campaign to highlight the economics of global health and the benefits U.S. investments overseas have for…
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Technosailor.com
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Congratulations, Internet. We Won the Day.
19 Jan 2012 | 2:05 pmToday, I feel like a proud poppa. I don’t want to get too celebratory and put out some kind of aura that our battle against SOPA and PIPA are over. In fact, neither are over. But I’ll get to that in a minute, because yesterday was AMAZING! Yesterday, we saw the Internet come of age. We’ve seen the trend. The Internet has played a crucial role in the Arab Spring, political activism and fundraising as seen in the Obama election campaign in 2008, news reporting as seen in the incident of the US Airways jet in the Hudson River. We’ve seen a definite maturation process on… -
Open Letter to Congressman Lamar Smith Regarding SOPA Championing
18 Jan 2012 | 1:55 pmAn email sent to the House Judiciary Committee Chairman, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), who insists on pushing the SOPA bill through committee. Dear Mr. Smith- This is an open letter which will be published online, and promoted on Facebook, Twitter and other networks. As a Texas resident, I find it egregious that you have decided to sell out so uniformly to the entertainment industry. It is so transparent, in fact, that federal records show that your biggest donor are from the holding company for Clear Channel and your biggest campaign contributions come from the entertainment industry itself. -
PSA: If You Pitch Me, I Will Blog It
6 Jan 2012 | 12:38 pmI get far too many pitches from PR companies. If anyone has paid any attention to this blog, they would know I never cover products, books or anything else along those lines. I don’t break tech news. So embargoed information is useless. I don’t do product reviews, so trying to get me to review a product shows complete ignorance. Going forward, let this post serve notice, I very well may blog your pitches in an attempt to embarass and humiliate you. It could have the bonus effect of making sure your firm loses business because your clients and potential clients are actually reading… -
Your Fiefdom Doesn’t Matter (Or Get your Head out of Your Regional Startup Ass)
5 Jan 2012 | 2:58 pmPhoto used under Creative Commons. Taken by Fellowship of the Rich There’s this thing called Protectionism. Protectionism is largely a political word used to describe the retreat to self-isolationism for the sake of preserving well-being. It was a word tossed around in late 2008 and 2009 after the market crash when the international community joined together to try to stave off a global economic failure. There were some who believed the United States had their own issues and shouldn’t be worrying about bailing out Europe. This mentality still exists, for better or for worse. But… -
Dude, Shut Your Effing Social Media Mouth.
4 Jan 2012 | 1:24 pmHoney Badger don't care! (Photo used under Creative Commons. Taken by Bruce McAdam) It’s been awhile since I ranted. Like really ranted. I’m about to change that. <rant> It’s no secret that social media marketing has turned largely douchey. Self-important blowhards show up at SXSW, Blog World Expo and many other industry events every year with the sole purpose of being socialites and schmoozing with their peers and getting into the hottest parties. I’ve done it. We’ve all done it. But there’s no authenticity in any of it. We call those…
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Marketing Roadmaps
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Facebook just wants “to be a real boy”
10 Jan 2012 | 10:03 pmThis is the time of year when some folks trot out the tarot cards and crystal balls, and attempt to predict the coming year. And others wax eloquent (mostly) on what transpired in the year just past. Over the 7 years I have been writing this blog, I have generally tried to stay away from this sort of post. This year, however, that is pretty much what you are going to get. There are a few trends that I have been watching for a while now, always intending to post about them but never quite having the time. Here’s the first. Facebook just wants “to be a real boy” and… -
Should you work for free?
21 Oct 2011 | 3:15 pmThe social media “industry” is built on the back of people doing “stuff” for free. The business models of most social networks — Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Flickr, YouTube etc. etc. — depend on consumers using the free/”freemium” services and thereby creating both the free content that attracts and retains users, and more importantly, a mine-able database. People. Topics. Linkages (who are your friends, what do you like, where do you go). Marketing gold. And the companies are reaping the benefits of our “work” in potentially… -
BlogHer Visionaries
1 Oct 2011 | 2:44 pmFor the past few weeks, I’ve been working on the launch of BlogHer’s new consumer panel, Visionaries. I’m very excited about the possibilities we have with the panel to connect the BlogHer audience with brands. Once or twice a month, we’ll be sending panel members a survey or perhaps even an offer to try a free product. The first trial offer is in the field — sign up for Visionaries now and get a full 12-ounce bottle of Dove® Body Wash with NutriumMoisture™. Click here to join. -
Lessons to be learned from ConAgra/Ketchum’s Sotto Terra blogger event
7 Sep 2011 | 10:25 pmI’m back! You had to know I would not be able to resist commenting on the ConAgra/Ketchum “Sotto Terra” blogger events in New York last month that went so horribly, tragically wrong. So wrong that the fallout made it to the pages of the New York Times. Ouch. I’m not going to rehash the details here, because this post is not about piling it on. The company, brand and agency have been thoroughly schooled in the blogosphere already. Instead, I am going to focus on a few lessons that have nothing to do with the specific brand, that anyone involved in blogger outreach can… -
Pitching on the grave
28 Jun 2011 | 11:09 amNormally, I’m proud to tell people that I’m a marketer. I love connecting consumers with the brands they love and companies with the products that fuel their business. Every so often though, someone calling themselves a marketing professional does something that makes me embarrassed for my profession. More than a few of these instances have occurred in the past few years, quite specifically related to the practice of blogger outreach. You’ve read about them here and elsewhere too — bad pitches, rude PR people, “spray and pray” mass mailings. And so on. Many…
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The Social Customer Manifesto
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Social Engagement Journey Video
15 Jan 2012 | 1:39 pmCheck out this fun little video on the Social Engagement Journey that our team in Seattle just put together. -
Social Business 2012 Presentation
29 Nov 2011 | 4:08 pmI’ll be speaking about social business strategy at the ASAE Technology Conference and Expo CIO Summit next week in Washington, DC. There are three key components to the conversation. 1) The Social Engagement Journey The Journey is the recognizable progression of social engagement capabilities that a large enterprise goes through on its way to becoming a social businesses. 2) The Relationship Progression While the “purchase funnel” has been well understood for years, there is a comparative dearth of conversation around how business relationships progress over time. A… -
This Week’s Social Business Jam
11 Nov 2011 | 12:48 pmA number of luminaries participated on this week’s W3C Social Business Jam, including Doc Searls (pictured), Alex “Sandy” Pentland and the inventor of the web itself, Sir Tim Berners-Lee. A jam is “an online conversation among leaders in business, government and technology about the current state of social business, the future role that social technologies can play in improving the bottom line, and how social technology should evolve in order to support business objectives.” There were a number of deep conversations, which generated over 1,100 posts on the… -
Google+ Launches Brand Pages
7 Nov 2011 | 5:58 amThe big news today is that Google+ has finally announced their long-awaited brand pages with a blog post here. The top line, from Google: For businesses and brands, Google+ pages help you connect with the customers and fans who love you. Not only can they recommend you with a +1, or add you to a circle to listen long-term. They can actually spend time with your team, face-to-face-to-face. All you need to do is start sharing, and you'll soon find the super fans and loyal customers that want to say hello. A number of pages are already available (see below), but any organization… -
Steve Jobs Tribute in Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine
8 Oct 2011 | 4:53 pmNormally, Businessweek comes on Friday. For some reason this week, the magazine showed up today instead. I didn’t think much of it when I walked out to the driveway, actually. There it was, folded up in its weatherproof bag, just like usual. I brought it inside and opened it up, and saw that they featured a tribute to Steve Jobs on the cover. It was spare and gorgeously typeset, with nothing but the title of the magazine, the iconic photo of the salt-and-pepper Jobs, and “Steve Jobs 1955-2011.” (link) I opened up the magazine and started to flip through it, and was…
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The Blogging Times
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5 Mini SEO Tips to Help You Get an Edge on the Competition
22 Jan 2012 | 10:09 am -
Jeremy Wright: Making it easier for people to do all the hard crap around blogging
16 Jan 2012 | 11:36 amWhat have you been up to lately? I assume by “lately” you mean since leaving b5media a couple of years ago? If so, I’ve spent the last few years figuring out what I love, simplifying my life and balancing my career between agency life (PR/Marketing), startup life and book writing/speaking. These days that means I’m VP, Digital at OSL Marketing (a large agency in Toronto), as well as CEO at 23press and working on a book (Networking for Introverts). I’ve also recently become a big biker, my baby is a Yamaha FJR-1300 and she’s so pretty! What is 23Press? -
Turn your WordPress site to a mobile app via Appifier
15 Jan 2012 | 9:46 amIf you want to turn your WordPress site into a mobile app, then Appifier is your solution. The new service creates actual mobile applications with push notifications, offline access, social media sharing, and of course, the look and feel of an app. This is not a free service though, so be ready to shell out the $39.99 monthly fee. [via Techcrunch] -
Websites to protest against SOPA with a blackout
14 Jan 2012 | 9:25 amOn January 18, that’s a Wednesday, websites like Reddit, Mozilla, MoveOn, Tucows, Cheezburger, Fail Blog, Dailywh.at, Good.is, Twitpic, Free Software Foundation, will go dark to protest the Internet censorship bills. If you run a website or would like to urge others to do so, pass the word here Strike Against SOPA. -
WordPress wants you to help in stopping SOPA/PIPA
11 Jan 2012 | 9:43 pmWordPress has officially released its stand regarding the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act (SOPA/PIPA). In stressing their strength in opposing SOPA/PIPA and calling on others to oppose, WordPress said: We are not a small group. More than 60 million people use WordPress — it’s said to power about 15% of the web. We can make an impact, and you can be an agent of change. Go to Stop American Censorship for more information and a bunch of ways you can take action quickly, easily, and painlessly. The Senate votes in two weeks, and we need to help at least 41 more senators see…
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Koka Sexton dot Com
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Social Media Engagement Drives More Followers
21 Jan 2012 | 2:00 pmA few weeks ago I tasked the team to pay closer attention to the community we have developed on Twitter. The goal was to see if being more engaged with our community would drive more fans and followers. It seems like common sense but I wanted to test it out just to make sure the extra time spent would result in an increase. I’ll be the first to say that the number of followers you have is not the most important metric. In fact companies that think that numbers are the most important metric, miss the point of what social media is all about. The metric should be based around the amount of… -
My iPad is the Hottest
21 Jan 2012 | 12:21 pmThis is a first for me. I guess my iPad gets just as worked up over Twitter and Facebook as I do. -
Too busy to blog?
22 Dec 2011 | 12:11 amInterrupting our regularly scheduled program of sorting through work emails and other social marketing tasks to actually right a blog post here on my blog that I have been neglecting. I haven’t been slacking. It’s been an exciting ride at InsideView this year. I just read my post from my first week at InsideView for the first time since I wrote it. Damn, we’ve accomplished alot since then. Complete social marketing / engagement plans, new websites, 153 blog posts, the launch of Social Selling University, roadshows, and learning more than I can express. But I’ve… -
Heading to Social Media Plus
14 Nov 2011 | 1:23 pmThis week I’m going to be in Philadelphia speaking at the Social Media Plus business summit. I was accepted as a speaker and will talking about Leveraging Social Media for B2B Sales Teams. SocialMediaPlus will consist of 21 seminars on real-world topics that will help you walk away with an understanding of how to effectively implement Social Media strategies inside your company. You will hear from marketing directors, technology professionals, and social media experts, telling you how they have used social media to build brand, interact with customers and generate revenue. I’m… -
How to Activate Your Facebook Timeline [video]
23 Sep 2011 | 10:33 pmThis is gold for those of us that heard all the hype around Facebook Timeline and can’t wait to see the changes to Facebook. Here’s how it works: Facebook Timeline looks like a Tumblr blog, letting you scroll vertically through all the biggest moments in your life–maps of where you’ve been, pictures, comments, apps, and more. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-timeline-2011-9#ixzz1YpyDOoBk
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MarketingProfs Daily Fix Blog
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Free Friday: Learn How to Give Your Customers a Fantastic Brand Experience
27 Jan 2012 | 9:01 amWant to gain and retain more customers through improved cross-channel customer interactions? Then check out this Free Friday’s offering: the opportunity to attend the free seminar Optimizing the Customer Journey: Strategy and Case Study. Guest speaker and vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, Shar VanBoskirk, will give you the scoop on how to optimize your interactive marketing and improve your customers’ brand experience in four steps using CORE principles: Customize Optimize Respond Empower By attending this free seminar, you’ll learn how to speed… -
How to Define Public Relations
26 Jan 2012 | 9:02 amThe Public Relations Society (PRSA) recently announced an effort to update the formal definition of Public Relations. They invited PR professionals to submit their suggestions for how to define what we do. And they unveiled the three leading contenders to become the new official definition of what we in PR do at work. The top three were compiled from more than 625 responses PRSA received. If you go to the site and click on “read annotations” under each definition, you can get a good idea of why certain words and phrases were used. I’m really not crazy about any of them,… -
Marketing Smarts Podcast: Sally Hogshead and the $500 Cup of Coffee
25 Jan 2012 | 8:57 amWhat if you wanted to open up a coffee shop in a hip, urban neighborhood? Chances are you would already face competition from other indy shops, Starbucks, and the local equivalent of Dunkin’ Donuts. How could you go about differentiating yourself? The main problem is simple: You and your competitors basically sell the same thing. This means that your point of differentiation will have little to do with your product and everything to do with creating an aura around that product that others find fascinating. One way to do this, according to this week’s guest on Marketing Smarts,… -
Sharing Your Way to B2B Social Media Lead Generation
24 Jan 2012 | 12:39 pmSocial media has always involved sharing quality content with your network, but in its current state, B2B companies need to understand how social media can connect with their sales cycle. Companies need to find prospective customers for their products and services, and they need those prospects to find them. Traditionally, B2B marketers were responsible for generating leads at their companies. That role of marketing has not substantially changed with the advent of social media. But many social media purists have rejected the notion of using any part of social media to fill the sales funnel. -
Marketing Study Shocker: QR Codes & Social Media Have Little Impact for Shoppers
24 Jan 2012 | 8:58 am“As much as people embrace all things digital, they’re much fussier when they turn into actual shoppers. In fact, QR codes and social media have very little impact, according to new research from Catapult Action-Biased Marketing, a Westport Connecticut-based researcher.” Those are the opening lines of a recent Media Post Marketing Daily article, “Shoppers Spurn Social, QR Codes.” Wow. So let’s dig deeper. According to Catapult Marketing’s Brian Cohen, digital shopper marketing director, “We looked at 1,200 consumers, and the role that social media is playing is not as large as…
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Digital Trends
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Amazon merchant caught bribing customers for five-star reviews
27 Jan 2012 | 11:58 pmWhile many merchants take advantage of Amazon's position as the leading online retailer, one merchant's unethical attempt to game the review system has shed more light on Amazon's inability to protect consumers from paid reviews. -
Apple-fan cop uses app to catch iPhone thief
27 Jan 2012 | 11:39 pmWhen a distraught crime victim told a New York cop that someone had just taken her iPhone at gunpoint, he immediately believed he had a fair chance of making a quick arrest—thanks to his knowledge Apple's smartphone device and in particular, one of its apps. -
Does the new 3G/WiFi PS Vita bundle make 3G worth it?
27 Jan 2012 | 11:18 pmWeeks away from the PS Vita launch, Playstation wants to entice consumers over to the 3G side with a new bundle that includes a memory card. Does this bundle make 3G worth the effort of pre-ordering? -
Poll: Over 50 percent of users are worried about Facebook Timeline
27 Jan 2012 | 10:23 pmWith Facebook Timeline continuing to roll out on millions of Facebook profiles, security and privacy advocates are dubious of the new design changes in regards to how easy older information can be found. -
Nikon D800 looks set to be unveiled early February
27 Jan 2012 | 9:47 pmIt appears a date has been set for the official launch of Nikon's D700 replacement, the D800. And it's only days away....
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Janet Fouts - Social Media Coach
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Are Google+ Business Pages Replacing Facebook Pages?
19 Jan 2012 | 6:22 pmI speak a lot about Google+ as a tool for business. In fact I’ve just written a book called “Google+ for Business Tweet” and I’m presenting a second Focus.com Roundtable in February. So you might think my position would be that Google+ is the be-all end-all social media network for business and people should be pitching their blogs and Facebook pages out the window in favor of Google+. And there you’d be mistaken. Here’s the thing. Google+ is a social network with huge potential for businesses, but it’s best value is as an individual user, not a… -
Am I participating in the SOPA strike? You betcha!
18 Jan 2012 | 1:16 amOn January 18 websites all over the net will go dark from 8AM to 8 PM, and this will be one of them. Why? Well for one, because I still can. One of the most powerful things about the internet is that it is largely not controlled by government. Sure, I’m against piracy, but not if it means DNS filtering that could actually penalize lawful businesses. Not if it means messing with the Domain Name System and push users towards unreliable, less secure DNS servers just to avoid frivolous lawsuits, block “suspicions Foreign websites”, and squash the entrepreneurial spirit of the… -
How are you going to change the world in 2012?
4 Jan 2012 | 1:13 amMaddie Grant threw down a glove challenging a number of people to participate in a meme answering the question “How are you going to change the world in 2012?” It’s a great question. I love the chaos theory metaphor called the butterfly effect. The idea is that a small, relatively insignificant act can created marked and sometimes unexpected change. The flap of a butterfly’s wing can cause a hurricane on the other side of the world. Small business that we are at Tatu Digital Media, we have been fortunate to impact corporations and individuals and show them how to be… -
Need a little Social Discipline?
30 Dec 2011 | 2:30 pmI follow almost 4,000 people on Twitter, over 1500 on Linkedin, and more on Facebook, Google+, blogs, forums, a zillion social networks, wikis and more. I get around 800 emails a day (half of them are alerts, newsletters and feed reports for my clients). I’m not bragging, there are plenty of people with more, it’s just a fact of my life. How do I manage to do all that every day and still run a full time business? Great question. I don’t. Nobody else does either, at least not by themselves and definitely not every day. Here’s the big deep dark secret about using social… -
15 Amazing Women Bloggers You Should Get to Know
27 Dec 2011 | 11:59 amOne of the fantastic things about the growth of social media is how it has widened our window on the world. We live in amazing times where we can create deep friendships with people we may never meet face to face, or meet people whom we’ve known through social media networks for the first time face-to-face and it’s as if we’ve lived next door to each other for years. As I wrap up the year I want to take a moment to share with you 15 amazing women bloggers I’ve gotten to know, respect and learn from on a daily basis. Some of them I know in person, but many I know…
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SocialTimes.com
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Socialize: Google+ May Be More of a Social Layer Than a Social Network
27 Jan 2012 | 11:14 amAt today’s Socialize conference here at the beautiful St. Andrew’s Club onthe 27th floor of the Sun Life Financial Tower there was a great session discussing Google+ and its role within the greater Google suite. The most interesting idea was that Google+ shouldn’t be looked at as a social network, but rather a social layer that improves Google’s core product, search. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media. -
Pinterest, Copia, and Cheddar Bay Biscuits – Social Media for Books [Podcast]
27 Jan 2012 | 9:45 amToday on mediabistro’s Morning Media Menu podcast, GalleyCat editor Jason Boog shared with me his take on how social media is changing the landscape of the publishing industry. What do gardening manuals have in common with the Red Lobster seafood chain? Listen to the podcast to find out. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media. -
Social Media Explained – Possibly by a Dog [Infographic]
27 Jan 2012 | 9:27 amWarning: do not read this post if you are in a meeting or stuck in line somewhere. You might pee your pants. Thankfully, this picture also explains the best social network on which to break the news. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media. -
Socialize Conference: Facebook Advertising for Results and ROI
27 Jan 2012 | 9:08 amToday at Socialize Toronto, there was a great discussion discussing the role of Facebook ads in business, with a panel of experts on the subject. The panel included Hussein Fazal, CEO of Facebook Ad platform AdParlor, Seth Lieberman, CEO of Pangea Media, Nikhil Sethi, the Co-founder of Adaptly, Veronica Stecker, the media manager for Gordmans, Mario Zelaya, the Managing Director for Majestic Media and it was moderated by Brian Carter, the CEO of FanReach. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media. -
Why You Should Take a Look at Google’s New Privacy Policy
27 Jan 2012 | 8:45 amGoogle plus Your World has the tech community up in arms about the impact of integrating Google+ into its search engine on the user experience. Yesterday I opened an email from Google that read, “We’re getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google and replacing them with one that’s a lot shorter and easier to read…reflecting our desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google.” I checked it out, and so should you. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
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Techipedia | Tamar Weinberg
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5 Things I’ve Learned from Running BizSugar
24 Jan 2012 | 7:03 amThis is a guest post by Anita Campbell. When my company, Small Business Trends, LLC, first purchased BizSugar in the summer of 2009, the best way I could describe it was as a miniature version of Digg, except that BizSugar focused soley on sharing information geared toward small and mid-sized businesses. This is still true. But as BizSugar has grown over the last couple of years, it’s also become a small business networking site where business owners can discuss issues, get and give advice, and gain insight into the ins and outs of running a small business. As the site has changed and… -
Attack of the Consumer! The Many Ways Consumers Can Put You Out of Business Online
17 Jan 2012 | 8:04 amThis is a guest post by David Rodnitzky. Having the best prices and largest selection of products means nothing on the Internet if you don’t back it up with incredible customer service. Treat customers badly and you will be out of business – period! Bad customer service will get you banned from major advertising networks, skewered in organic results, and ridiculed on social networks. Here are the top ways consumers can crush your business online. Advertising Bans If consumers complain about your business, your money won’t be green enough to buy advertising online. Both eBay and Amazon… -
How to Hire Your Social Media Marketing Partner
11 Jan 2012 | 7:51 amThis is a guest post by Brad Shorr. Want more? See How to Hire Your SEO Partner from November. After taking the social media plunge, companies quickly discover that it is vastly more complicated and time-consuming than they thought. The normal response is, HELP! But companies must avoid a panicky response, because hiring a social media marketing (SMM) partner requires careful study. As I’ll run down in a minute, SMM involves a wide range of activities that require totally different skills. So, First, we’ll take a look at what the activities are, to help clarify the type of support you… -
Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2011
5 Jan 2012 | 7:19 amIt’s my birthday and I have some great news! In January of 2011, I said that I’d make our Internet Marketing Posts of 2011 subscriber only. And I did. Many loyal readers have checked in on the newsletter throughout 2011 to get both evergreen content, the content that typically embraces these monthly updates, in addition to something completely new, monthly digital trends – the stuff you use for presentations and proposals, for arguing that social media and online marketing does have a firm place in today’s landscape. The newsletter, which was sent within the first… -
Looking Back on the Year of the Panda: Google Algorithm Changes
27 Dec 2011 | 8:09 amThis last year Google brought a large number of algorithm changes to the table. Although these changes helped increase traffic and rankings to many large corporations such as YouTube and eBay, it hurt a large majority of small businesses. According to Search Engine Land, some domains saw a 94% loss in visibility, and others were left picking up the pieces after they lost 80% of their keyword positions. Consider this graph by Sistrix, created to describe where mahalo.com’s keywords landed on Google search engine results pages (SERPs) before and after one of the Google algorithm updates:…
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Stay N Alive
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The Solution to Offshore Manufacturing is Technology, Not Politics
24 Jan 2012 | 10:56 pmIn The Biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, it talked about a meeting Steve Jobs had with President Obama. Jobs was quoted saying, '“You’re headed for a one-term presidency,” Jobs told Obama at the outset. To prevent that, he said, the administration needed to be a lot more business-friendly. He described how easy it was to build a factory in China, and said that it was almost impossible -
Defining Social Product Strategy Within the Organization - a New Role I Think Companies Should Pursue
11 Jan 2012 | 2:35 pmOver the last several years, as we've seen Social Media grow and mature within organizations, I've been in a bit of a struggle as I've tried to define my role at each organization. As a software developer and entrepreneur interested in product design and growth, I've been forced into this world of marketing, a world where developers typically avoid. I've grown to enjoy it, and I think I've -
There's Plenty of Room to Grow for Enterprise Social
7 Jan 2012 | 6:34 pmOn Thursday Altimeter Group released a report, titled "A Strategy for Managing Social Media Proliferation", on the state of social media strategy in global corporations with over 1,000 employees. The report is quite telling, suggesting that most organizations in this category simply aren't properly aligning business values with social media strategy and lack the proper tools to manage their -
Top 10 Rides of Disneyland 2011 (Stay N Abroad)
3 Jan 2012 | 11:48 pmDisneyland (and Disney California Adventure) cannot be experienced in a single day. The industry standard is at least 3 days, 3 long days. Between rides, shows, parades, and shopping, it is hard to know where to begin and what to skip when time starts running short. Choosing a top 10 list was almost impossible. After three fun-filled but long days at Disneyland and Disney California -
Christmas Traditions (Stay N Faithful)
25 Dec 2011 | 3:17 amThis is a re-post from my more personal blog, Stay N Faithful. I thought due to the timeliness, it was worth sharing this bit of my life with you as well. Please enjoy, and Merry Christmas! As I finish up the night, stockings all hung, presents wrapped and under the tree, I can't help but reflect back on all the traditions my family has participated in over the years. Christmas, in my family,
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Colin Walker - Social Thoughts
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Social groupthink, or following the herd?
27 Jan 2012 | 9:07 amIn a new post over at Media Tapper Grace O’Malley poses some interesting questions: Is a social network, or other closed forum, bound to become self-serving to the point where its participants resent having to follow external links and is this hurting conversation? She asks if it has reached the point where we should not even bother posting those links as people will not follow the call to action. In essence, have we forgotten how to be social? Is social becoming a paradox where our behaviour is affected to the point that we can no longer truly converse? Are we suffering because the… -
Building Google’s beautiful new world.
26 Jan 2012 | 3:58 pmNow that all the pieces are in place and we know when the new privacy policy takes effect do we have a time-scale for the building of the Google+ social layer and, with it, Google’s beautiful new world? As has been reported, Google is seeking to create “services that people in the world will use twice a day just like a toothbrush” and “make those services beautiful, simple and easy to use” I posted earlier that the new Google+ naming policy allowing pseudonyms and Google’s single privacy policy were tying up the loose ends with regards to enabling full… -
Pseudonyms: paving the way to better Google+ integration.
26 Jan 2012 | 4:00 amThe integration of the Google+ “social layer” with other services has been slow but the recent policy changes could indicate we are in for some significant changes. You might also like to read the follow-up post Building Google’s beautiful new world. When Google+ launched its real names policy caused a stir but, as Google is vying to become an identity service, this was not unexpected. The key to identity is trust and Google would not have wanted to be involved with users creating “throwaway accounts” and hiding behind the anonymity they afford. Social on its… -
Google+ – meeting or managing expectations?
25 Jan 2012 | 5:12 amPeople Will Overlook Google Plus In Favour Of Other Networks. Shortly after Google+ launched as an invite only beta, I asked if Google+ met the expectations set for it after months and months of speculation as to what Google’s next social offering would be. This new post at Media Tapper follows on from this now that the service has been up and running for more than 6 months. Great expectations Our expectations were initially formed from our time using the existing social networks at the time – Facebook and Twitter taught us how these services should run so we combined this experience… -
Social search: protectionism and semantics.
23 Jan 2012 | 6:12 pmNow that Google+ is gaining popularity is there a conflict of interest between the social network and search? Is Google right to focus on promoting its own content? Just when you thought the furore over Search Plus was abating pending the antitrust investigation by the FTC then we get engineers from Facebook, Twitter and MySpace providing a proof of concept bookmarklet which reworks Google’s personalised results to include sources other than Google+ in an attempt to better “Focus on the user“. By way of debate, Jon Mitchell throws an interesting argument in to the pot saying…
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Social Media Mom
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Win Free Tickets To ABC’s, The Revolution
25 Jan 2012 | 8:39 amReading time: 1 – 2 minutes If you are a fan of Ty Pennington, or of daytime talk shows, or of living a better life – this is your chance to be front and center. ABC is offering free tickets to be a part of their new show’s live studio audience. This is a wonderful opportunity. I am very impressed with the entire premise of the show. Here on Social Media Mom, we often talk about living a better and more balanced life, which is the idea behind The Revolution. When it comes to style, adventure, health, and fitness – The Revolution is doing its part to make people happy… -
A Guide To Travel Therapy Jobs
18 Jan 2012 | 12:15 pmReading time: < 1 minute Many of us spend our lives looking for that dream job, and in this economy, we are forced to take what we can get. This is part of the reason Onward Healthcare's new infographic resonated with me. It is always reassuring to see industries that help job creation. This particular career track is interesting because: you can live comfortably off of it, you have the resources to help others, and you get to travel the country. Check out the following infographic for more information on this career, and let us know if you know anyone in this field or are interested in… -
Faces iMake App. Stimulates Creativity
16 Jan 2012 | 9:36 amReading time: 2 – 2 minutes The new app. for your iPhone and iPad, is an award winning activity for your kids. Your child will take everyday objects and make faces out of them. It helps your child to be more creative and stimulates right brain activity. The application was created by children’s book author, Hanoch Piven, and is loved by parents just as much as kids. Many parents have called it addicting, and say it even makes them feel they are being more creative. The game is easy and intuitive for your children, and has been said to be very helpful to children with… -
Apple To Apples: Tech vs. Fruit
11 Jan 2012 | 10:41 amReading time: < 1 minute I came across a great infographic, by MBA Online, that I thought was so clever. This was a very interesting way of getting cool stats on America's favorite technology, and Russia's favorite fruit. It should also be no surprise that most of our apples, and all of our Apples come from China. I hope this brings some joy to your wednesday! Created by: MBA Online -
Hungry Kate: The Girl With A Belly Ache
10 Jan 2012 | 3:47 pmReading time: < 1 minute Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank's new video infographic is wonderful. I was very impressed as to how they told the story of little Kate to help show us the lives of those who have only recently become poverty stricken. We all know how unstable the economy has been, and so many of us are only mildly affected, but for others, it has completely changed their lives.
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Quick Online Tips
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Best Way to Find All Broken Links on WordPress Blogs
27 Jan 2012 | 8:28 amBroken Links are bad for SEO. What is the best way to find broken links on your WordPress blog? There are many broken link checkers which will let you find broken links, and many paid SEO reports also which will help you identify broken links, but in WordPress it is easier. I have been using the amazing Broken Links Checker plugin for quite some time since Panda updates became famous and it has helped us find and fix all broken links on our website. Check Broken Links Few months back, the first time we used the plugin it took several hours as it scanned across our entire site and you could… -
Site Traffic Crash by Google Layout / Panda Update
27 Jan 2012 | 1:44 amOur site traffic crashed over the week by 50%, closely after Google Page Layout Algo update was announced which was meant to penalize Google search traffic to sites with heavy ads above the fold. Now site traffic seems to have affected all pages across the site as traffic hits new lows. Google Page Layout Update We had only one 336×280 ad unit aligned right and only one 160x90px adlink unit aligned left above the main content. There are few 125×125 buysellads banners in the sidebar. Ironically the same day Google Adsense sent an email that we should place upto 3 Adsense ad units to… -
Google Penalizes Traffic to Above-the-Fold Ad Heavy Sites
20 Jan 2012 | 11:21 amGoogle traffic is set to crash for ad heavy websites with low content above the fold as per a new Page layout Google algorithm change. If visitors need to scroll down to find your content, you can be sure the new Google alogrithm will reduce your site traffic. Page Layout Google Update The earlier Google Panda update was said to significantly affect Google search engine rankings for websites with high ad to content ratio. This saw many webmasters reduce the number of ads, remove low quality thin content and generate a high content-ad ratio. What this new Google update does is target… -
Google Adsense Bug Showing No Ads on Sites
20 Jan 2012 | 9:44 amAre Google Adsense Ads not showing on your site? It seems an Adsense bug is affecting many Adsense publishers which is causing no ads to display for last many hours, which is leading to loss of revenue for many Adsense users. We are also seeing no Adsense ads on our site, but only blank ad spaces (check this post on our site yourself). No Adsense Ads When I found the issue, I was surprised and at first it stuck me that its possible the ads were disabled. Then quickly checked my email for any Adsense warnings for policy violation etc., but there were none. I though it might be a browser… -
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich: 8 Essential Tips and Tricks
18 Jan 2012 | 10:10 amHere are some essential Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich tips you need to know. As Android has progressed through various iterations, the world’s number one phone operating system has improved and matured. Today we look at the many secrets lurking under the hood as a result of these improvements. Since version 1.0 in 2008, Android has made great use of hardware advances to the screen, camera, WiFi, magnetometer, accelerometer, GPS, gyro and much more. All in all, the OS has done a pretty fine job of creating an interface between man and machine. The problem is that there have been so many…
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PR-Squared - Social Media Marketing and Public Relations
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It’s the End of the Web as We Know It … or, Speed Kills
23 Jan 2012 | 11:46 amThose of you who follow me on other social nets like Twitter or Facebook know that I am pretty opinionated when it comes to politics. Suffice to say that I am a card-carrying member of the “Liberal Coastal Elites.” (I try not to over-indulge or bore folks with it; and I certainly can play nice with my right-leaning friends.) I bring it all up only as a segue to the fact that I am a big fan of Andrew Sullivan’s Dish blog. Sullivan’s one of the big dogs in blogging; he’s been freshly-empowered by his move to the Daily Beast to experiment… -
Thoughts on a Twitterversary
19 Jan 2012 | 9:18 amLet’s take a ramble. One of those automated spambots on Twitter informed me that today was my 5–year anniversary of microblogging. Wow. Five years. Really? What was I up to five years ago? I was living in Boston, in-between my family’s quinquennial moves to San Francisco. My brain was on fire, as I’d hit upon a worthy successor to the Social Media News Release concept and was just a couple of weeks away from debuting the Social Media Newsroom template. As I look back, 2007 was a prolific time for the entire Social Media industry. It was not only the year Twitter… -
The Measurement Silver Bullet Does Not Exist – So Stop Searching
17 Jan 2012 | 8:57 amMeasuring social media was one of many hot button topics of 2011. Chances are good that it will be the hot button topic of 2012, and every year thereafter until we have a standard set of metrics for brands to use. Unfortunately, the chance of arriving at a standard set of metrics for every brand is small. Brand goals differ, as do the metrics tied to those brand goals. It has been this way in public relations for years, and it’s likely to be that way with social media as well. Similarly, communications professionals should be leery of approaches that advocate measuring social like… -
2012 Prediction – Here Comes the Boring Part
9 Jan 2012 | 9:41 amSorry it’s been a while since my last post. I was recharging the batteries. In-between sitting by the fire, walking the dog, going to the movies, etc., I got to thinking about Social Media. It’s gotten so … big. There are something like 800M folks on Facebook. Walk away from your Twitter account to grab lunch, and there are 1,500 unseen tweets waiting in queue. Social Media has even been given outsized (if controversial) credit for powering the Arab Spring. Crazy, right? And when you are a marketer? — Unwieldy. -
Lovin’ It: McDonald’s Advertising Cooperative Taps SHIFT
20 Dec 2011 | 8:23 amI am delighted to announce that SHIFT Communications was recently named the Agency of Record for McDonald’s Advertising Cooperative, representing franchises from across New England. Around here we just call it McDonald’s, in-between the high-fives and exultations of “I’m lovin’ it!” While the work doesn’t officially begin until January, we’ve already plunged elbow deep into the culture of the company. If you’re the type who still holds an image of McD’s from the era of “Supersize Me,” I want to disabuse you of such notions. I…
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Web Strategy by Jeremiah
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A Worldwide Salute to Community Managers
23 Jan 2012 | 5:43 amIt’s the third annual Community Manager Appreciation Day (every fourth Monday of Jan) and I’d like to salute the folks working on the front lines at companies big and small leading the charge. These folks are critical in the change as companies have moved from the static website to the dynamic human focused social business we’re seeing across every agency. Charged with the following four key responsibilities: a community advocate, brand evangelist, savvy online communicator, and involved in shaping future products and services they’ve got their hands full. This exciting new role… -
People on the Move in the Social Business Industry, Jan 16, 2011
16 Jan 2012 | 2:04 pmMark you Calendars now that Community Manager Appreciation Day is coming this coming Jan 23rd, please salute your community professionals. Both the submissions on this job announcement board, as well as available social media positions at corporations continue to pour in. In this continued digest of job changes, I like to salute those that continue to join the industry in roles focused on social media, see the archives, which I’ve been tracking since Q4, 2007. People on the Move in the Social Business Industry: Len Devanna joins Ant’s Eye View as Vice President, Social Business… -
Buyers Guide: A Strategy for Managing Social Media Proliferation (Altimeter Report)
5 Jan 2012 | 11:57 amGet account control now –or risk a career of continual social media sanitation. To match the growing consumer adoption of social media, many companies have launched social media efforts with little planning. As social media spreads beyond corporate communications and marketing, business groups are deploying social media without a standardized process. In fact, enterprise class corporations (those with over 1,000 employees) have an average of 178 social media accounts and this number will only grow if left unchecked. Companies that don’t control these accounts are at risk of having… -
A Taxonomy of Tech Bloggers –Who Will Lead Beyond The Golden Age?
29 Dec 2011 | 8:53 amIn order to understand the movement in the ever-changing tech blog space, let’s dissect the market to identify trends. Whether folks agreed or disagreed, the assertion that Tech Blogs are evolving from the Golden Era to the next, continues to resonate as a healthy discussion. I saw responses from many of the blog management teams (Techcrunch, Mashable, RWW, VentureBeat, BoingBoing, and more) both agreeing and disagreeing, as well as traditional journalists at Wired chiming in. Recap: Four Trends Why Blogs Are Evolving Out of Golden Age In the previous post, it was identified there are… -
End of an Era: The Golden Age of Tech Blogging is Over
27 Dec 2011 | 11:01 amUpdate Dec 29: I posted a Taxonomy of Tech Bloggers in response to the growing conversation. That’s right. We’re at the end of an important period. The tech blogosphere as we know it, is over. Four Trends Show the End of this Era: Like the film industry, the Golden Era is the emergence period, when fresh innovation in a new medium is born. New techniques, revolutionary content, and different business models emerge as innovators pioneer a new medium. I first had this discussion with Chris Saad, which triggered some thinking on my end. I asked some of the foremost tech bloggers of their…
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Jon Burg's Future Visions
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Digital Piracy Explained
22 Jan 2012 | 7:28 amnote: hardness includes cost. -
Why do we expect more of our breakfast cereals than our presidents?
21 Jan 2012 | 12:57 pmSocial government as a concept may well be a farce or a fallacy. A campaign slogan and a campaign promise. And an empty one at that. Obama ran on a platform of Yes We Can. But when he got elected the chants were Yes We Did, not Yes We Are. Because social government is a pipe dream that is unviable in the present political landscape. And yes, I am a registered Democrat who has voted in every major election I was eligible to participate in. The Obama campaign demonstrated incredibly savvy use of social and digital media. The Obama presidency's record in social and digital was… -
Anyone in K-12 Can Tell Apple Their Math Is Off
19 Jan 2012 | 10:39 amThe math on the iPad for k-12 students simply doesn't line up. Assuming that an iPad in daily use for k-12 students will last two years before requiring serious repair, we are looking at the following financial model: $500 for a base model iPad $15 per book Assume at least 7 books per year (many schools use two books for one subject) That's a total cost of $710 for two years of k-12 education. This is an equivalent cost of $50 per book. And ibooks cannot be passed on to younger siblings or the next grade of students. In eighth grade I earned extra credit by stocking the book room. This… -
This Is Kodak's Golden Age
19 Jan 2012 | 1:04 amKodak was one of the earliest movers in introducing photography to the masses. We bought Kodak cameras, Kodak film and developed our pictures on Kodak paper using Kodak ink. People today are taking and sharing more pictures today than ever before. Pictures and photography play a greater role in our lives than ever before, fueled largely by the triple emergence of digital, social and mobile media. This should be Kodak's Golden Age. Kodak should have been Flickr. They should have been Dropbox. They should have been Snapfish and they should have been Camera+. They should have been… -
Is Silence Inaction or Protest? #SOPA #PIPA
18 Jan 2012 | 3:52 amSOPA and PIPA are bad ideas. But is my NOT posting to this blog today going to further the protest? Would my silence be deafening, or would it not be missed at all? The most effective way for major sites like Google, Wikipedia and major influencers like Robert Scoble to protest is to remain silent for a single day. And to talk about their non-participation for weeks before and after the event. Because for major, regular value-providers, we would notice their silence. Do the rest of us have a responsability to continue to tweet, blog and converse. I am not on Twitter…
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Confessions of an eBiz Junkie
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2012 - The Year of the Ant
10 Jan 2012 | 12:13 pmReaders of this blog know that my passion for the digital realm, and the business transformation that it enables, is simply insatiable. Where real-estate on the web was once reserved for big brands with deep pockets, the social web of today has leveled the playing field. This digital revolution is fundamentally changing the rules of business, and brands that embrace this change will command a significant competitive advantage in the years ahead. This is a transformative journey that requires a fundamental re-wiring of tired and traditional business models. So when the opportunity arose to… -
A New Year, A New Opportunity
16 Dec 2011 | 10:13 amI've been very fortunate to be a part of the EMC family for the past twelve years. During that time, I've had the opportunity to do some truly amazing things, directly influencing EMC's digital presence and also the overall corporate culture. In 2007, we formally embarked on our journey to become a true social business. The transformation of the brand has been nothing short of staggering, and has fundamentally changed how we engage across audiences. It's easily been the most fascinating thing I've ever been a part of. All of this, plus my strong affinity for the 48k folks that make up the EMC… -
EMC Fights Cancer
11 Oct 2011 | 1:20 pmIt's one of the things I love about EMC's culture - the seemingly insatiable desire to make the world a better place.Each quarter, we take on a new cause, and harness the power and passion of our global employees to make a difference. Earlier this year, we set our sights on fighting hunger. We sure did have an impact, collecting over 40,000 pounds of food and helping over 20,000 individuals across the globe. In fact, we doubled our goal. This quarter, we take on something that's touched just about all of us in some way or another - Cancer. There are no shortage of organized activities taking… -
What's Your Social Media Strategy?
15 Sep 2011 | 2:10 pmIt was an honor to see EMC's approach to Social Media cited in the July issue of the Harvard Business Review. The article is well worth the read, if you haven't seen it already. Be sure to read the healthy and provocative comments from the community. What's most interesting to me in reading this piece is the fact that no one size fits all. The authors call out four basic approaches - The 'predictive practitioner', 'creative experimenter', 'social media champion' and 'social media transformer'. While it's true that we (EMC) continue to embrace the notion of experimenting, our journey has…
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The Social Concept
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What's It Worth To Be A Social Object?
27 Jan 2012 | 11:01 amEd. note: This is part of a series of excerpts from The Social Customer, the new guide to social customer acquisition, monetization, and retention by Adam Metz. For the first entry, go here. This installment continues Chapter 1: The Brand As A Social Object and the Business Case for Social CRM. Adam asks what a brand as a social object is worth. What trips up consumer brands in terms of becoming “social objects” is that brands are sold on the value of knowing consumer sentiment and being able to act on it: “Do consumers like and trust our company, the Gap? Are… -
Which Brands Became Social Objects and Why
26 Jan 2012 | 11:01 amEd. note: This is part of a series of excerpts from The Social Customer, the new guide to social customer acquisition, monetization, and retention by Adam Metz. For the first entry, go here. This installment continues Chapter 1: The Brand As A Social Object and the Business Case for Social CRM. Adam dives deeper into the concept of social objects. The Few that Became Social Objects Whether consumer brands ever aspired to become “social objects” for much of the last 100 years is questionable. Brands have always wanted to be talked about, but whether they wanted to be… -
The Growth Of Brands As Social Objects
25 Jan 2012 | 11:01 amEd. note: This is part of a series of excerpts from The Social Customer, the new guide to social customer acquisition, monetization, and retention by Adam Metz. For the first entry, go here. This installment continues Chapter 1: The Brand As A Social Object and the Business Case for Social CRM. Adam discusses the four historic milestones of branding. The first major milestone on the road to “brand as social object” was simply the birth of the concept of “brand personality.” We see this concept begin to emerge in late nineteenth century advertising for… -
The Social Customer: Chapter 1, Part 1
24 Jan 2012 | 11:01 amEd. note: This is part of a series of excerpts from The Social Customer, the new guide to social customer acquisition, monetization, and retention by Adam Metz. For the first entry, go here. This installment comes from Chapter 1: The Brand As A Social Object and the Business Case for Social CRM. Why would a brand want to be a social object? And what in the heck is a social object? Brands want to be talked about so people will buy their products and services. Consumers want to interact with brands that make the products and services they purchase, day-to-day. Brands also want… -
The Social Customer, excerpt 7: Ready?
19 Jan 2012 | 11:01 amEd. note: This is part of a series of excerpts from The Social Customer, the new guide to social customer acquisition, monetization, and retention by Adam Metz. For the first entry, go here. This installment completes the book's introduction, invokes the (other) F-word, and sets the tone for what you can expect in future chapters. In a 2008 blog post, Clay Shirky quoted New York Times online editor Gordy Thompson as saying, “When a 14-year-old kid can blow up your business in his spare time, not because he hates you but because he loves you, then you got a problem.” Thompson…
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Des Walsh dot Com
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Social Media Not an Easy Call for Financial Advisors
16 Jan 2012 | 12:21 amWhen I accepted the invitation to keynote the Hillross Annual Conference 2012 in Canberra, Australia, focusing on practical strategies for social media, I was pretty sure that one of my main challenges would be finding examples of successful engagement via social media by financial advisers. Part of the problem is that financial advisers operate in a highly regulated environment and have a justifiable concern that engaging with clients and the general public via social media might bring problems in terms of reputational risk or even put their whole business at risk. My presentation is in the… -
Starting LinkedIn Guide Updated
20 Dec 2011 | 10:35 pmThis morning I updated my free downloadable guide, 5 Simple Steps for Getting Started on LinkedIn. The biggest challenge of the updating process was restricting myself to the basics of getting started. There is so much more to LinkedIn than is in this brief guide but I am convinced that those of us who have been using LinkedIn for a long time can easily underestimate how complex the platform can appear to people who have not had that experience. Apart from anything else, LinkedIn does not have the most intuitive of user interfaces. So the guide provides just five basic steps for getting up… -
Smart Business Owners Don’t Leave Blog Design to Designers
11 Dec 2011 | 5:10 pmGeorges Clemenceau I make no claim to be good, let alone excellent, at blog design or the more general field of web design. And I have great respect for good and great designers. But what I know is that, as a business owner, the design of my blog or other web site is my responsibility and not one to be passed completely on to others, no matter how brilliant the designers and no matter how many prize-winning sites they have to boast of. To borrow from the great French statesman, Georges Clemenceau, who is said to have remarked that war is too important to be left to generals, web design is… -
Not Everyone Loves Change
6 Dec 2011 | 2:09 amCoaches and trainers need to recognize that not everyone will respond positively to the prospect of change and some will resist. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” is a well worn phrase. And useful in its place. But there are times when, even though something might not be broken, it might have passed its “use by” date, so to speak. Milking cows by hand, for example. Coming from a long line of dairy farmers, I can imagine some farmers resisting for a long time the introduction of milking machines, even though they had been around since the 19th century. -
Our Futures Are Not Carved in Stone, Unless We Want Them to Be
30 Nov 2011 | 11:58 pmWhen I left my first job after six months I was told I was making a mistake Henry Davis York Building, Sydney, with MLC carved on tower, Nov 30, 2011 My first real job out of high school was in the head office of one of Australia’s leading life insurance companies, the Mutual Life and Citizens’ Assurance company or MLC, founded in 1886 as the Citizens’ Assurance Company. The office was in the prestigious Martin Place, then and now the closest thing Sydney has to a civic square. I imagine that in Sydney at that time, someone who wanted a career in life insurance could…
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Affiliate Marketing Tips from Super Affiliate Zac Johnson
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INTENTclick – Contextual Advertising that Clicks
6 Jan 2012 | 3:56 pmWhen it comes to monetizing a web site or blog, you have a lot of options. In the last monetization post I wrote, I covered a few different methods, which ranged from promoting yourself as a brand, selling your own product and also through contextual advertising. Contextual advertising is a hot trend lately, as site owners are moving away from the idea of adding banners to their sites that will take up more web site, and potentially lower the user experience. One contextual network that has been on the rise and making a name for themselves is INTENTclick. How Contextual Advertising Works As… -
Knowing How to Best Monetize Your Site’s Traffic
3 Jan 2012 | 12:46 pmThe ability to create a web site or blog and know how to make the most out of your traffic is an art in itself. Every type of web site has it’s own type of traffic. What are visitors to your web site looking to accomplish? When someone visits a blog like this one, they are most likely looking for information on how to make money online and are more likely to join an affiliate network mentioned on the site, or maybe even sign up to an affiliate forum or training program. As the owner of a web site or blog, it’s not only important to know what your audience is looking for, but also… -
Live Fights at ClickBooth’s Affiliate Fight Night at Affiliate Summit West 2012
30 Dec 2011 | 5:48 pmA couple weeks ago I gave a little teaser about a sweet looking party that ClickBooth is throwing during Affiliate Summit West 2012 in Las Vegas. While other parties might be dying down as the night comes to a close, Affiliate Fight Night is just beginning, and live fights will go on all through the wee morning hours! The party will take place at the Xtreme Couture MMA with Randy Couture on Monday, January 9, 2012 from 10:00pm until 3:00am. The RSVP process for the party has just opened up, so make sure you get on the list asap! In addition to getting access to some premium fights and… -
Online Reputation Management: Top Firms
27 Dec 2011 | 1:18 pmWhen it comes to advertising and building a brand online, reputation is everything. Though it may take years and several happy clients for you to establish yourself as a trusting brand and service, there is always the potential for negative feedback and people out there just making it their mission to tarnish your name. Just as quickly as you can build your reputation online, someone can come along and bring it down even faster… even if the information they are posting isn’t true. Think about it for a second… is there anyone from your past, maybe a client, friend or even… -
UPrinting Die-Cut Business Card Giveaway
20 Dec 2011 | 1:54 pmIf you only had 30 seconds to tell someone about your business in an elevator and never see them again, would they remember to contact you? Better yet, would you have an impressive business card to give to them, that not only has all of your information and what your business is about, but leaves a lasting impression? You should! How many times have you gone to conference even and collected a ton of business cards, then look through them when you get home and find that most of them are boring and only a couple actually stand out? Wouldn’t you like to be one of those cards that stands…
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Social Gears
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Follr Releases Digital Identity Management Business Platform
25 Jan 2012 | 5:00 amSoftware product extends use of Follr Digital Identity Websites to corporations. Emeryville, CA (January 24th, 2012) Follr, Inc., today announced the release of “Follr Business”, a Web based SaaS (Software as a Service) product aimed at helping corporations leverage employees and staff to protect their brand. The software simultaneously drives online traffic to official marketing channels like Facebook business pages and Twitter, addresses human resource and compliance issues and becomes Follr’s second product alongside their initial consumer platform. Follr’s digital identity… -
Follr Announces Strategic Partnership with WiseStamp
18 Jan 2012 | 11:00 amDeal increases exposure of Follr Digital Identity Websites through seamless and automated email signature integration. Emeryville, CA (January 18th, 2012) Follr, Inc., today announced a partnership with WiseStamp, creator of the leading social email signature builder. The partnership allows Follr users to share their Digital Identity Website link through WiseStamp Email Apps transforming every email into a powerful self expression and promotional tool. Follr’s Digital Identity Websites organize and aggregate an individual’s online information making it accessible via one memorable Website… -
Follr.com Now Supports BranchOut
5 Jan 2012 | 11:00 amYou can now link your BranchOut profile to Follr. Follr’s Digital Identity Websites organize all your online information into one memorable address. Use your Follr address as THE place for people to find your profiles, links, content and contact information. BranchOut is the largest professional network on Facebook with millions of users in 60 countries and 15 languages. On BranchOut, users leverage their Facebook friend network to find jobs, source sales leads, recruit talent, and foster relationships with professional contacts. BranchOut also operates the largest job board on Facebook… -
Social Media Data – LOADS of Social Media Data Continued!
4 Jan 2012 | 9:00 amSo, following on from yesterday’s post (See: ‘Social Media Data – LOADS of Social Media Data!’) here is infographic # 3 and # 4 which leads to a question: is social media any clearer now? -
Social Media Data – LOADS of Social Media Data!
3 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amIt seems hard to believe but we formed a social application development company more than four years ago and still (dare I say the majority of?) people have a huge problem trying to come to terms with how to use social media, social networks and social marketing (yes, they are three distinct and separate things). So as we start 2012 here’s some data that might help, brought to you from AdAge. But there’s a problem: there’s so much data I’m going to spread this over two posts. Here’s infographic’s # 1 and # 2. Enjoy Come back tomorrow for # 3 and # 4.
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The Jeff Pulver Blog
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The State of Now's (#140conf) Call For Speakers
19 Jan 2012 | 7:46 amSince June 2009, it has been my honor to offer the chance for people from many different walks of life, from all over the world to come to New York City and share their stories on our stage. In addition to our live in-house viewing audience, our speakers have had an online audience of over 100,000 via our UStream broadcasts. If you take into account the amplification from the social web, moments from these events have touched million(s) of people. The State of NOW Experience Though seemingly viewed as random connections, there are no accidents in the State of Now, but rather an underlying and… -
My talk with Rick Jensen (@Jensen1150WDEL): Delaware the Innovation State
12 Jan 2012 | 6:38 amOn the afternoon of January 11, 2012 I had a meeting in Dover, Delaware with Governor Jack Markell. On my way to the meeting I dropped by the WDEL studios and had a converation about my visit on-the-air with Rick Jensen (@Jensen1150WDEL). Click HERE to listen to the interview. While the main focus was about Delaware as the Innovation State, we also touched on the State of NOW / #140conf events. And if you are interested in helping to make Delaware the Innovation State, please feel free to contact me. Tags: Governor Jack Markell, Rick Jensen, innovation, WDEL, Jeff Keni Pulver -
Subscribe to 140Talks
8 Jan 2012 | 7:40 pmTo date, over 300 talks from past 140conf events have been posted to our YouTube Channel 140Talks. Click here to subscribe: You will get notified when new sessions are posted. --- Tags: 140talks, 140conf, social media, State of NOW, Jeff Keni Pulver -
Steve Greenberg Interviews David Broza at #140conf Tel Aviv
7 Jan 2012 | 2:42 pmMy friend Steve Greenberg, founder / CEO of S-Curve Records interviewed his friend, music artist David Broza on the stage of #140conf Tel Aviv 2011. One of the best interviews / sessions we had at #140conf in 2011. Tags: Steve Greenberg, David Broza, Tel Aviv, #140conf, music, Jeff Keni Pulver -
Dylan and Jake at 17
7 Jan 2012 | 9:20 amMy kids continue to surprise me. And impress me. Now 17 years old, Dylan and Jake have become a force of nature inside the sneaker head community. I'm proud to be a dad of Sneakerheads. Two kids whose part time adopted job is to share their passion and their voice in Sneaker culture. These days they run the blog SoleCamp ( http://solecamp.com ) and continue to contribute to the sneaker culture by their interactions with other members of the community via Twitter, Facebook, their blog and their random encounters at various sneaker events. Without thinking about it, Dylan and Jake have become a…
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brandflakesforbreakfast
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sex gamified
27 Jan 2012 | 7:10 amThis is a campaign absolutely deserving of a WOW. Apparently the young adults of Stockholm, Sweden are among the worst at practicing safe sex. Sure, you can hand them all condoms and hope for the best, or you can take it a step way further and turn sex into a fun, competitive game... as long as it's safe of course. That's exactly what Swedish agency, Ester, did with this campaign. They handed out 50,000 condoms to young adults with QR codes on them (yeah, I know, but it's actually a good use of them). The QR code downloads an app that measures your sexcapades for motion, rhythm and duration. -
snugglin' with celebrities
27 Jan 2012 | 7:09 amIt's pretty easy to love comedian / filmmaker Mark Malkoff. Apparently so easy that he convinced 13 celebrities to let him sleepover their houses, including Dave Coulier (cut. it. out.), Kate Walsh (who is clearly not attracted to Mark) and the adorable Lisa Loeb, who reads him a bedtime story from her book. You can't help but smile when you watch this fun little video. -
thanks for letting us pee
27 Jan 2012 | 7:08 amFirstBank - Super Bowl Commercial from TDA_Boulder on Vimeo.Most of us are sick of Superbowl commercials already and it's not even the Superbowl yet, but this one from FirstBank gets a pass. Why? Because it's pretty awesome without even trying too hard to be awesome. Playing off the fact that since commercials are now just as much part of the "show" as the football game, we no longer have a free second to pee, this simple ad features a man in a recliner who remains silent for most of the commercial so that you can go take your bathroom break. Then it just ends with "Better Customer Service."… -
gaming for a good cause
26 Jan 2012 | 7:10 amAmnesty International 'Amnesty Rescue' Call Of Duty MOD from Strange Day on Vimeo.In November, we reported on Amnesty International's "Slide to Unlock" campaign. They've joined forces with Call of Duty: MW3 to take the campaign further with seamless in-game advertising and potentially reach millions more potential volunteers and supporters. Players can buy the Amnesty Rescue MOD (additional map) for $1, which gets donated to Amnesty, and players can rescue and save people suffering from human rights violations. And let us thank Amnesty for giving gamers a chance to contribute to society. -
fun with pharmacies
26 Jan 2012 | 7:05 amWho says pharmacies have to be so cold and clinical?Swedish Design Labs doesn't. They have designed new collateral for pharmacy chain Vardapoteket in Sweden that is full of vivid colors and fun designs that incorporate organs and body parts in a fun way. The design isn't just a pretty face either. It's also informed by research that proves positive environmental factors help lessen anxiety and promote overall well-being. Now there's an idea.
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David Binkowski.com
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A Look At Facebook's Ponzi Scheme
25 Jan 2012 | 11:35 amI posted something yesterday on Twitter and on Facebook was favorited and Liked by senior executive at one of the world's largest retailers, an executive at a massive, global CPG and senior executives at agencies, respectively, so I'm going to repost it here to share it with you. A little background, first: A lot of folks in the industry had been creating fan hubs long before Facebook went from -
Facebook's Changes Means Digital Agencies Should Thrive
24 Sep 2011 | 6:08 amThursday the bomb was dropped at f8 that Facebook is going to be ditching the Like in favor of user actions and passive updates, meaning that when you engage with apps and have the "Add to Timeline" feature enabled it will automatically update your Timeline with what you're doing (for an example of this, check out the Washington Post Social app). It's mildly reminiscent of the auto-checkin app -
Get Me To The Schmoo
29 Aug 2011 | 4:00 amUnfortunately this happens all too often at companies: We need to prove that social media delivers a return before we can invest budget in these sort of programs. Pretty chicken and egg, right? The fortunate part is that it's easily correctible; if you set up your social media programs and measurement properly you can determine the ROI. -
Upcoming Speaking Engagements
26 Aug 2011 | 7:45 amSince it's Friday and everyone's talking about Hurrican Irene, I figured it'd be a good time to slip in some shameless self promotion for a few upcoming speaking gigs in New York City. You know, provided it's not flooded:September 16, 2011PRSA's T3PR: Theory, Tactics and Technology for High Tech Public RelationsNew York, NYTechnology Crisis. Digital Age.October 26, 2011ACI's Focus on Social Media -
Facebook Use May Lead to Psychological Disorders in Teens
8 Aug 2011 | 5:56 amThis Mashable article reminds me of the Gen Y "Make me famous" syndrome, where Jason Alexander once said:I once went to speak at a school, and there was a 16-year-old girl. And the girl says to me, "You know what? I don't care what I do, I just want to be famous."And I thought, you know, I should really just shoot her in the head because it would serve two things: It would make her famous as the
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ComMetrics: on infographics, social media measurement, best practice
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Luxury brands: Does sin-free equal failure?
22 Jan 2012 | 5:18 pmSummary Bentley, Bugatti, Chloé, Hermès and Vertu are masters in best-of-both-worlds marketing. We outline how to have your cake and eat it, too. Who does not love sin-free seduction that allows someone to consume luxury goods without guilt, since part of the purchase price is donated to charity. The parvenus (from the Latin perveniō, meaning arrive or reach) – those affluent people who crave status – may use Vuitton’s distinctive LV monogram, since the more subtle details of a Hermès bag’s price tag may not be recognized by all. What sets these luxury brands apart is… -
What satisfies your customer?
15 Jan 2012 | 1:13 amSummary Have you joined HSBC and IBM in using sentiment analysis? We discuss people’s 4 biggest mistakes. Some time ago, I posted Sentiment analysis for online content: Honest?, and moderated a discussion about it in our Xing Social Media Monitoring group. This is another update in our 2012 marketing trend series. 1. Mother tongue – what mother tongue? The biggest challenge for marketers is that people’s mother tongue is increasingly something other than the locally spoken language, and people also increasingly learn English as a second or third language to facilitate… -
Commercials: What ROI?
8 Jan 2012 | 11:37 pmSummary 60 years ago some thought TV commercials were a waste of time and money. Is history repeating itself with social media? I know comparing commercials to social media is not apples to apples but it’s close enough for my purposes. Flash forward to 2011: with over 300 million Twitter users, it offers an even bigger audience than TV did back in the day. So why isn’t everyone advertising on social media? The reasons range from lack of staff or time to lack of analysis or return on investment (ROI). This guest post by Carly Gentry addresses the social media advertising issue and… -
2012 trends: What makes a failure?
1 Jan 2012 | 2:31 amSummary Vodafone takes over Groupon as mobile revenues from average Android users drop dangerously low, and a takeover seems imminent at RIM (Research in Motion, manufacturers of the Blackberry). By the end of Quarter 3 of 2011 Android had a 52.5 percent share of the global smartphone market, up from 25.3 percent in Quarter 3 of 2010. In contrast, iOS’s share has declined from 16.6 to 15 percent, and BlackBerry’s from 15.4 to 11 percent over the same period. More often than not, predictions are wrong or obvious. For instance, it is obvious that netbooks – introduced in… -
ComMetrics poll results: Key trends for 2012?
18 Dec 2011 | 6:36 pmWe just completed a poll we launched a few weeks back about what you, our readers, perceive as the most critical social media marketing trends for 2012, and these are our findings. Whether you work for a non-profit, government agency, Fortune 500 company, or are self-employed, if you use social media in your job (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, blog, discussion forum, Tumblr, YouTube, Slideshare, Google+, Weibo, etc.), you will want to know the results of this poll! Article source – ComMetrics poll: Key trends for 2012? To manage these trends and stay ahead of your competition we suggest that, if…
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Six Pixels of Separation - Marketing and Communications Insights - By Mitch Joel at Twist Image
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Don't Let Your Brand Be Creepy
28 Jan 2012 | 7:17 amIt's important to remember that being transparent is not the same as divulging personal information. We have never seen a moment like this on our history. Look at the combined audience of platforms like Blogging, Podcasting, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and more. What you are confronted with is a very interesting journal of how we - as a culture - are. There are both personal and professional components to it. Many people think that we are over-sharing, while others think that we're divulging way too much personal information. If you're looking to better understand what all of this publicness… -
A World With No Keyboard And No Mouse
27 Jan 2012 | 7:16 pmHow's that user experience working out for you? I often ridicule the masses (I know, that's very snide of me). When computers were first introduced the mantra was that, "screens are not easy to read or work on." Forget the fact that many dismissed the power of a mobile phone ("is your life that important that you need to make calls when you're not at home or at the office?"), and let's not forget the many people who would often say, "I could never type with my thumbs." To this day, there are still people who don't see the value in platforms like Facebook, YouTube… -
How To Do Everything Wrong In A Presentation
27 Jan 2012 | 11:55 amWatch this video... Brutal (and funny)... I know. I was unaware of the book, Habitudes For Communicators, so Dr. Tim Elmore gets high marks for not only cutting through the clutter, but for creating something so funny (because it's true). What's scary is that this video (in all of its humor) is a basic round-up of about ninety-percent of the presentations I attend (I'm sure your experience is similar). The tools are here for us to get better. If you want to make a difference in your world (and the world of your co-workers), please pass this video around, watch it... and then go out and read… -
And In The End...
25 Jan 2012 | 2:20 pmDo you have a morbid fascination with the end? I'm not sure why (but I'm pretty certain that a psychiatrist would love to figure it out of with me), but I often think about the end. I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm scared about how my life will end (which is in direct relation with the many issues I have around control) and that I don't want it to end any time soon. There are plenty more things that I want to accomplish in my life and I often play the "which would you rather game" when it comes to deciding between family and the rest of my life (in case you're wondering, family… -
Does This Blog Make Me Look Fat?
24 Jan 2012 | 12:49 pmIs it just a question of getting the facts straight when it comes to our media? What Blogging brought forth is the notion that opinion lies neatly next to news (and that it is sometimes very difficult to tell the difference between the two). In fact, it's worth arguing that opinion is the new news. Without looking at the political sphere for examples (you get more than enough of that here on The Huffington Post and on other websites, news outlets and Blogs),what does it take create great media? The heart of the matter. Emotion is key to driving interest. Human beings are creatures of habits.
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Chris Pirillo
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Is Your Hourly Rate More Than Free?
27 Jan 2012 | 6:40 pmWouldn’t life be grand if we didn’t have to pay bills, buy food for our tables (or buy tables, for that matter), or shell out cashmoney for shelter to keep our heads from being rained or snowed upon when the weather’s being less than kind? Heck, it would be nice if we could live... Read the full article on http://chris.pirillo.com/ -
In the Mumbleverse, I Bathe in Minifigs
26 Jan 2012 | 6:34 pmDo you hear those voices in my head, or is it just me? They kind of sound like a chorus composed of the offspring of Ethel Merman and Billy Laughlin gulping down a balloon full of helium. Oh. It is just me? That’s unsettling. Recently, I mentioned that we were working on this project, but... Read the full article on http://chris.pirillo.com/ -
What Do You Get when You Mix Espresso and Red Wine?
25 Jan 2012 | 6:07 pmMixing uppers and downers, as any self-respecting drug addict will tell you, is totally awesome… or really dangerous. One of those things; I can’t quite recall, as I’ve been drinking alternating sips of espresso and red wine. Wheee! Ahhh. Wheee! Ahhh. I’m not sure if this... Read the full article on http://chris.pirillo.com/ -
Should It Be Legal to Marry Software in the State of Washington?
24 Jan 2012 | 6:28 pmIt’s a taunt heard on kindergarten playgrounds around the world in some form or another every day. “If you love [enter whatever inanimate object here] so much, why don’t you marry it?” In our house, we love quite a few kinds of software (and operating systems), but... Read the full article on http://chris.pirillo.com/ -
I’m Not a Fairy or a Wookiee Warrior – I’m a Gnome
23 Jan 2012 | 6:06 pmAs many of our regular TLDR viewers and readers know, Thursday and Friday were rife with bad luck for many of us here in the winter-clad hills of Issaquah. Power was down (along with spirits) and didn’t return — for me, anyway — until Saturday. And I’m one of the lucky ones;... Read the full article on http://chris.pirillo.com/
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Common Craft - Common Craft - Our Product is Explanation
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5 Trends Behind the Growing Shift to Video Explanations
23 Jan 2012 | 1:24 pmIt’s easy to look back at Internet history and spot the points of major change. A famous example is the Web 2.0 era which spawned products like Twitter, Facebook and other lasting features of the Web. Some would say we're in the cloud era now, with nearly everything we do on computers being moved to off-site servers. Within these big, tectonic shifts are smaller shifts that also make a difference. YouTube was a big shift that kicked off online video in 2005 and in the years since, we’ve seen the growth of viral videos and myriad artistic expressions in video form. How did we survive… -
Guest Post: What Communicators Can Learn from a Highsticking Penalty
16 Jan 2012 | 2:45 pmThis is a guest post by friend of Common Craft, Darren Barefoot. He's a writermarketerCanadian and a big hockey fan. During a hockey game in March, 2010, Boston Bruins defenseman Zdeno Chara drove Montreal Canadians forward Max Pacioretty into the stanchion that separates the player's benches. Nearly a year later, it still looks like a brutal hit as Pacioretty 's head bounced off the corner of the boards. Chara received a five-minute penalty and ejected from the game. Pacioretty was sent to the hospital. The next day, Mike Murphy, the NHL's vice-president of hockey operations released a… -
New Video: Social Networking (Facebook)
12 Jan 2012 | 11:14 amToday we've published a new video: Social Networking (Facebook). This video is a much-requested sequel to our video on Social Networking. As you likely know, a lot has changed in the world of Social Networking as Facebook has emerged to be one of the standards - and this video is aimed at why. It covers the basic ideas through the story of a woman who becomes a member and discovers how the social network and status updates help her feel more informed and engaged with her interests. Audience: This video is helpful for trainers and teachers who teach technology. It provides a good… -
How a Coin is Solving One of the World's Great Explanation Problems
9 Jan 2012 | 12:07 pmI grew up playing soccer and over the past few years, Sachi and I have become bigger fans than ever, especially for our hometown Seattle Sounders. The rules of soccer came pretty easily to Sachi who didn't play as a youngster - with one huge exception: the offsides rule. I tried to point it out at matches, explain the idea, etc. Eventually, visuals did the trick and now she's the one throwing her arms in the air. Indeed, the offsides rule has a serious, worldwide explanation problem. It's adoption is limited by how the idea is being explained. And looking forward to The 2012 Olympics… -
Speaking at the Training Magazine Conference
4 Jan 2012 | 6:27 pmI'm excited to be one of the keynote speakers at the Training Magazine Conference and Expo. The event is in Atlanta, Georgia on February 13-14th. The event is set up to have multiple, short keynotes over the course of the conference and my talk will focus on the "Art of Explanation". Here's the description: While technology increases connectivity, connectivity increases complexity. The time between decisions is shrinking and the scale of information around each decision is exploding. How do we craft explanations when faced with this dual challenge? How do we make sense of complex issues…
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Data Mining: Text Mining, Visualization and Social Media
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Bitly Users Vote with their Clicks on Vatican Scandal
26 Jan 2012 | 8:37 pmBy far the biggest story right now according to clicks on the bit.ly links to articles published by Reuters (as shown on d8taplex) is: This story doesn't make it on to Google News front page or even their page of world news. It's not on the BBC's front page or in its European news section. Could be quite simply due to the fact that Reuters got the news late and everyone has moved on, but I see an article on HuffPo on this (from the same source) posted 3 hours ago. -
Super-hot News
23 Jan 2012 | 8:06 pmA simple list of articles may tell you that the ones at the top are 'more something' (relevant, popular, etc.) than those lower, but not by how much. I just noticed on the d8taplex news page that this article, entitled 'Starbucks to sell alcohol in some U.S. cafes' just hit 11, 430 clicks on bit.ly. This is an order of magnitude more than most articles get to in terms of bit.ly clicks. -
Journalists' Tweets Provide Additional Story Context
22 Jan 2012 | 10:49 pmI'm watching the bit.ly counts for Reuters story on the RIM guard change continue to jump up on the d8taplex news page. Because the d8taplex page links to the Twitter accounts of the journalists when they are available, I took a look at what Alastair Sharp was sharing on Twitter. Alastair provides a couple of tweets on the topic, including a link to a video interviewing the new CEO. I'll figure out a way to integrate recent tweets from the journalists into the interface in the near future. -
Visualizing the ROI of News Articles
22 Jan 2012 | 12:41 pmBy filtering on a contributors name (in the example below, I've filtered on the enigmatic Cynthia Johnston) the d8taplex news page can instantly show to what degree the contributors articles are getting attention (according to bit.ly stats). Here we see that from the pool of recent articles with CJ's name on, one has made it to the hot column, while nine are still in probation looking for some clicks. Over time, we will likely see articles move from the right to the left while new ones populate the unloved column. By filtering on country names, or other keywords, one can get a sense of where… -
Exploring News
20 Jan 2012 | 6:15 pmIn experimenting with news aggregation and mining on the d8taplex site, I've come up with the following questions: Why are some news articles picked up and others not? News sources such as Reuters create articles that are either directly consumed or which are picked up by other publications and passed along. Who are these people writing these articles? What are their interests, areas of expertise and personalities? What is the role of the editor and how do they influence the selection and form of the content produced by the news machine? The next round of experimentation with news…
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Drew's Marketing Minute
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What’s your purple goldfish?
11 Jan 2012 | 1:30 pmGet your free copy of Stan Phelp’s book! A few years ago, I met Stan Phelps, another marketing guy, online (I think he commented on my blog and we started chatting via email) and before I knew it — we were friends. He was just dipping his toe into the blogging waters and I tried to be helpful along the way. Fast forward to today, January 11, 2012. Stan’s first book, What’s Your Purple Goldfish*, is being released today. I’ve read it and know you’re going to love it. Really love it. I’m also very humbled to say that Stan asked me to write the… -
You cannot ignore Google+ for your business
10 Jan 2012 | 12:59 pmGoogle+ cannot be ignored When Google+ emerged last summer, people’s reactions were to be expected. The early adopters were all over it. But for most people who were already suffering from social media fatigue — their response was “oh no…not another site for me to maintain!” And many people simply opted out, not wanting to use/try yet another social networking site. All along, I have been saying that it simply could not be ignored. (like here) Let’s look at time line for those of you who aren’t familiar with how this played out. Summer 2011… -
Mitt Romney is getting tired (or lazy) in Iowa!
3 Jan 2012 | 10:03 amThis upcoming Presidential election will be my daughter’s first opportunity to vote. Combine that with the fact that we live in Iowa, the caucus is upon us and she’s a registered Independent and you can only imagine the flood of mail and calls she’s received leading up to the caucus. You know what all the candidates are thinking…. fresh meat! So I was a little surprised and appalled at what front runner Mitt Romney sent her late last week. The front of Mitt’s postcard to my daughter. Understated would be a nice way to describe it. The back of the postcard sent… -
5 questions to define your 2012 game plan
30 Dec 2011 | 7:58 amDefine your 2012 game plan Over the past month, I’ve been posing what I hope have been some head scratching, thought provoking questions to help you get ready for 2012. If you can answer these five questions — I think you’re going to have a solid foundation for your marketing efforts moving forward. In case you missed one, here are the five questions (with links to the whole post): What do you really sell? Who is your ideal customer? What’s the lifetime value of your customer? What’s your marketing foundation? What’s your legacy sentence? So — have… -
Marketing insights question: What’s your legacy sentence?
28 Dec 2011 | 6:59 amWhat’s your legacy sentence? Over the next few weeks, as we head towards 2012, I want to get you thinking about your business in a new/fresh way. I’m going to ask a single question in each post — but I’m warning you, these aren’t slam dunk questions. I’m hopeful that as you ponder my question — it will give you some ideas for making 2012 a break out year for your organization. If nothing else — this exercise should fine tune some of your marketing efforts. What’s your legacy sentence? If a customer/potential buyer was going to describe your business in a…
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Steve Rubel
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The Clip Report: An eBook on the Future of Media In the early...
3 Jan 2012 | 1:39 pmThe Clip Report: An eBook on the Future of Media In the early 1990s when I began my career in PR there were clip reports. These were physical books that contained press clips. It seems downright archaic now but that’s how I learned about the press - by cutting, pasting up and photocopying clippings. My fascination with the media never abated. Today my role is to form insights into how the entire overlapped media landscape - the pros, social channels, and corporate content - is rapidly evolving and to help Edelman clients turn these learnings into actionable strategies. As part of this… -
It was a sizzling summer for social media. As we move into fall,...
5 Sep 2011 | 9:28 pmIt was a sizzling summer for social media. As we move into fall, here’s a look at some of the major milestones. -
¶ Could Mobile Apps Be Wilting in the Heat of Summer?
18 Aug 2011 | 1:03 pmImage credit: Financial Times It’s hard to believe, but mobile marketing didn’t really get going in earnest until Apple launched its App Store in 2008. Three years later there are now marketplaces on all five major device platforms - Apple’s iOS, Android, BlackBerry, HP WebOS and Windows Mobile. What’s more, there seems to be a constant footrace between brands not only to be first to market with their own apps, but to refresh them for a fickle public. Some of what’s driving this is the zeitgeist. Overnight, it seems, apps have become deeply embedded in our culture. To stand out at a… -
→ Media Tops in Corporate Social Media
25 Jul 2011 | 7:27 pm→ Media Tops in Corporate Social Media: Fire up the PowerPoint. Here’s a fantastic, data-rich report (PDF) from Netprospex on the state of social media adoption in Corporate America. What’s notable is that the media continues to shine. One reason? Content matters. via Lost Remote -
¶ Three Key Things Google Is Doing While We Focus on Google+
25 Jul 2011 | 2:41 pmThe following is also my AdAge column… With all of the attention that’s being paid to Facebook and Twitter it’s easy to forget that no single company impacts media and marketers the way that Google does. Even small changes in Google’s algorithm and/or its underlying search technology can cause a massive ripple effect in consumer traffic patterns and buying behaviors. The intentionally low-key launch of the Google+ social network - which ended up being quite strong out of the chute - is no different. It’s Google’s effort to encourage more consumers to create and share content it…
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Social Media Clubhouse
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Social Media Meets the Aloha Culture in Hawaii
27 Jan 2012 | 9:53 amThe island paradise of Hawaii rounded out the stars on the U.S. flag at 50 in 1960, and it remains the union’s most unique member. Hawaii is the most ethnically and racially diverse state, the southernmost state, and the only state not part of the North American continent. Globally, its islands, islets and atolls comprise the world’s longest island chain, and its Kilauea crater on Mauna Loa is the world’s most active volcano. read more -
10 Step Process for Creating a Kick Butt Social Media Strategy
27 Jan 2012 | 9:00 amMost of us are pretty close to convinced that we need to be on social media to market ourselves and our business. Some of you have put your toe in the water, polished up your LinkedIn account, maybe played around with Twitter. Perhaps you’ve set up a Facebook fan page and upload a video or two to Youtube. If you really love adventure, you are probably blogging about your industry. You’re doing what you can to get on top of it. If you’re like many, the integration of the entire process remains a mystery. Having a cohesive plan to really use social media effectively has not yet solidified… -
Digital Learning Day – Feb. 1 – Promotes Learning and Classroom Innovation through Technology
26 Jan 2012 | 1:01 pmMore than 680,000 students and 33 states will be participating in events organized around national Digital Learning Day on Wednesday, February 1. The Digital Learning Day initiative was created to demonstrate how technology can be used to deliver high-quality instruction in grades K – 12, share examples of innovative education programs using technology, and provide support and resources for teachers, libraries, school leaders, afterschool and community programs, parents, and district and state leaders. read more -
Pew Research Says 17% of Adults Use Restaurant Review Sites
26 Jan 2012 | 7:00 amI’ve covered tourism and restaurants for a long time. My approach to finding new venues to explore – and in this case, new restaurants to eat – has always been simple. I like to ask the locals. It goes something like this, “Hi, I’m not from around here. Can you recommend a good place to eat?” This always has led to good fortune and great meals. So you would think that I would be OK with checking well-known restaurant sites like Yelp and Urbanspoon for food feedback. The truth is that I’m not great at it. But what I found is that a great many of you are. read more -
How To Measure Social Media Engagement
25 Jan 2012 | 9:00 amSome things just don’t like to be measured. How can you quantify how cute your baby is, or scientifically determine how much you love Monday Night Football? At first glance, “engagement” seems like one of those unmeasurable things. It’s a fuzzy concept to start, with none of the hard-line numbers that accompany ad campaigns or a PR blitz. But in the same way you can chat with someone at a party and tell if he’s really listening (or scanning the room for someone more interesting), you can determine whether your audience is listening to you when you talk to them in social media.
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Webinar Marketing & Marketing Success With Webinars for Business
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What Worked BEST in 2011?
2 Jan 2012 | 9:59 amIt is that time where everyone is looking forward and planning for the year ahead, but to plan for the future, you MUST first learn from the past. So this is a look back at SOME of the things that worked best for me in 2011. So let’s activate “list mode”. #1 – Filtering [...] -
Paralysis by Analysis
30 Nov 2011 | 12:00 pmIf you have ever struggled to complete a project, failed to follow through on your goals, or felt completely stuck, then read on…. I have but one rule in life… “if it rhymes, then it must be true”. So imagine my glee when I heard the term “Paralysis by analysis”. Let’s kick this thing off [...] -
WTF is Brand Against the Machine?
29 Nov 2011 | 11:05 amWhat on this big blue sphere that we call “earth” is ‘Brand Against the Machine”? If that is the question you had in your head when you turned on your computer today… then wow, you are in luck… for the other 100% of you, I am going to shed some light on my [...] -
The Dangers of Turning a Loss Leader into a Bait and Switch
23 Nov 2011 | 1:47 pmHave you ever heard of the terms “Loss leader”, or “Bait and Switch”? If you would like to know the down and dirty on these two… or my recent story of seeing the dangers of pulling a “bait and switch” on a “loss leader”… then read on dear reader…. Ok, it seems to little old [...] -
Confessions of a Man Who Has Hundreds of New Relationships Every Month
7 Nov 2011 | 12:19 pmHi, my name is Dean Hunt, and in the past month alone I have had lots of new relationships… Heck, I had over 20 this past weekend, one with a Samurai called Shane, and one with a married couple… oh, and how could I forget the slick guy from Poland?!? Now, before you light your [...]
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The Buzz Bin
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Hospital blogs strike fear in the heart of marketers
26 Jan 2012 | 5:00 amBy Jenn Riggle One of the best ways to create thought leadership and develop a national reputation is to develop an external blog. Yet only 149 of the nation’s more than 5,700 registered hospitals have a corporate blog. This is a big issue because some community hospitals are now interested in building national reputation. Why? Because the healthcare landscape has changed. Today, hospitals are positioning themselves for mergers and acquisitions, joining accountable care organizations (ACOs) and negotiating rates with health insurers. They suddenly care about what people say about them… -
Content Creation Learnings from Stella Artois Artistry
25 Jan 2012 | 5:45 amTHE BOOZE BIN by Cassandra Bianco (@cnbianco) As marketers we must think and create content more like artists. Visual artists have an innate talent to gift beauty. Artists tend to look at the picture as a whole, instead of only seeing the main object of attention (scientific research has proved this.) This past Monday I attended a Google+ and 2012 Forecast Community Manager Meet Up. The speakers voiced how the No. 1 priority should be to produce rich content for our brands. Behance’s Sarah Rapp, Google+’s Timothy Jordan and Big Fuel’s Michoel Ogince were all advocates of this. -
SOPA, PIPA, The Internet Hasn’t Won Yet
20 Jan 2012 | 9:08 amBy Jason Poulos (@TheSaganaki) On Wednesday January 18, the Internet spoke out against these ridiculous bills that our government is trying to pass. It’s very nice to see big and small sites take a stand and fight for our Internet freedom. Did this protesting make a difference? Did we influence our representatives? Check out the graphic from ProPublica.org that compares supporters vs. opponents for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). The Internet won! Right? Obama says he won’t support SOPA, but what about the Protect IP Act (PIPA)? Keep in mind SOPA and PIPA are two separate… -
Staying True To Your Brand, In Sickness and in Health
19 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amBy Toni Carey (@toni_carey) This week was a hot week for celebrity (and food) news, but it got especially hot in the kitchen as the world was shocked by Paula Dean’s admission that she has Type 2 Diabetes, after three years of, as she put it, “holding it close to the chest.” The Paula Deen, “Hey ya’ll,” “let’s add a stick of butter,” empire was on the verge of succumbing to its own demise. Okay, that’s a little dramatic, but nonetheless, what happens when your brand falls victim to the very thing it’s known for? In this case, it’s Southern cooking and charm versus the… -
CRT/tanaka Protests The Protect IP Act
18 Jan 2012 | 10:24 amMany websites are blacked out today to protest proposed U.S. legislation that threatens internet freedom: the Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). From personal blogs to Wikipedia, sites all over the web are asking you to help stop this dangerous legislation from being passed. Please watch the video below to learn how this legislation will affect internet freedom. Take action now.
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Serial Oversharer
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It was the most money I had been paid to work in movies at that point...
27 Jan 2012 | 6:03 pmI had a story in my head this morning, something from my days working on movies, except like many of these stories, it’s a weird edge case, a thing that happened once and never again. I think I was filling in for a union grip on a pre-rig for some sort of movie out in Long Island. No memory of what it was called or who was in it, and I don’t think we saw the D.P. at all that day. And it could not have possibly been a union job, or I wouldn’t have been there. But there I was, and I think the rate for the day might have been a hundred bucks. It was the most money I had been paid to work… -
LAPD cracks down on drone aircraft use by real estate agents
27 Jan 2012 | 5:39 amLAPD cracks down on drone aircraft use by real estate agents: Hey guys, what year was Blade Runner set in again? -
I am shocked at how amazing this board game seems. (via...
26 Jan 2012 | 12:33 pmI am shocked at how amazing this board game seems. (via defective yeti) -
@1812PLUS200
25 Jan 2012 | 2:51 pm@1812PLUS200: I’m 11 tweets deep into authoring a completely ridiculous Twitter account that chronicles the War of 1812, 200 years after the fact. It’s been remarkably difficult so far, due to the fact that things don’t really heat up in 1812 until winter ends. We don’t start declaring anything resembling a war until June. And I don’t get to livetweet Dolley Madison saving that old painting until, like, two years into this thing. I’ve clearly bitten off more than I can ruminate on, but 11 tweets in, it’s making me laugh sometimes. I think this one is particularly horrible:… -
These are my worst Instagram photos
24 Jan 2012 | 3:38 pmMuch like the poetry I wrote in high school, I’ve classified some of my Lomo, Holga, and now Instagram-powered photography over the past, say, 12 years, as “bad on purpose,” as if there were some sort of meta-narrative about photography in play. In reality, the pictures I make just sometimes suck. As did the poems. It’s not that I’m not trying, it’s that I try everything and anything, and over-process at the expense of little things like clarity and meaning. If I could expose and document every button I push and filter I swish my index finger over, I would, just to have a record…
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SocialFish
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More Changing the World in 2012
26 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amJust in case you missed them, here are some more truly thoughtful responses to my meme, How Are You Going to Change the World in 2012? (More posts are here.) Challenge Accepted: Make the World a Better Place (Lowell Aplebaum) 1. For the association world: Collaborate. No, I am not talking about the ASAE social network platform (though it is a great place to connect with colleagues and get involved). I am talking about associations working together to work together. There are so many of us out there, and each association has the things it is REALLY good at, and those areas where we… -
MUST READ: 2012 Edelman Barometer is out
25 Jan 2012 | 9:49 amJust saw this post from Edelman: Why Your Company Needs to Structure Properly for Social Media… Right Now. From the post (my bold): Yesterday morning in London, Richard Edelman unveiled the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer. It’s the twelfth year that we’ve conducted the study, which tries to answer the seemingly simple question: “Who do you trust?” One thing is clear from this year’s research: It isn’t your CEO. Globally, only 38% of informed publics think CEOs are credible spokespeople. That’s down from 50% last year. On the other hand, trust in a ‘Regular employee’ showed a… -
What’s New in Social Media for Associations
25 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amI have a confession: one of my least favorite things to do is public speaking. I had never done it at all until three years ago when Debra Stratton of Stratton Publishing & Marketing asked me if I’d present with her at ASAE’s Great Ideas conference, which just happened to be in Miami in February. So I said yes. I was terrified, and incredibly relieved when it was over. I figured that if I forced myself to do more of this dreaded public speaking it would get better in time, so over the past few years any time someone has asked me to speak or wanted to collaborate with me to… -
How’s your social customer service?
24 Jan 2012 | 6:00 am88% of consumers are less likely to buy from a company that ignores them on social media sites. Check out the full Conversocial study here. I know I notice – very strongly – when my tweets go unanswered. If it’s a technology company of any kind? Even worse. Instant fail, and I’ll happily tweet my irritation and vow never to use them again. Fair? Maybe not – but that’s the truth. It’s not all bad, though – this unscientific but cool SBOSM poll says we’re doing a good job. How’s your social customer service? -
How do you prepare for unpredictability?
22 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amAnna Caraveli, our newest columnist, has a thought-provoking post over at the Demand Perspective called Engaging New Generations: Is it a Numbers and Data Game? An excerpt (my bold): Do we develop future members with formulas about how they behave with the only determinant being age? As a baby boomer I am supposed to feel all kinds of things that I do not actually feel. I am supposed to be uncomfortable with technology; comfortable with volunteering for my community and joining membership organizations; motivated by climbing an orderly career ladder rather than by exploring, taking risks…
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Global Neighbourhoods
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Yahoo CEOs: less vision than Ray Charles
4 Jan 2012 | 3:34 pmYahoo! has announced appointment of a new CEO: Scott Thompson. Who, you might ask? Well he’s a guy who lifted PayPal from a billion-dollar subsidiary of eBay into a multibillion dollar entity. What does he plan to do, you might ask. Well, he doesn’t yet. In a conference call with press and analysts he kept emphasizing that he just got there and he needs time. That’s precisely what Carol Bartz said for the years during which she was at the helm, watching the Yahoo ship slowly and steadily sink below the sea of change that the company has ignored for more than a decade. How… -
My Favorite Books of 2011
31 Dec 2011 | 12:41 pmIt’s the last day of an odd year and many people are reflecting on life. Some of my friends are using blogs to write about the death of the blog. Others are reviewing the great moments in technology or social media in 2011. But too me, there were very few truly great moments in technology. We have as an industry evolved from a period of great disruption and are now focused on refinement. This may be good for users and business, but it is pretty boring for writers, or so it seems to me. So, I thought I would dedicate my last post of the old year to one of my great passions: books. I read… -
Is EMail Dead?
20 Dec 2011 | 11:13 amJohn Naughton, writing in the Guardian has a good piece based on email he received from Mark Zuckerberg, forecasting the death of email. It will be replaced, if Zuck has his way, with Facebook’s new Messenger service. Naughton does a good job of refuting the self-serving prophesy, but I think there are more reason why the imminent death of email is less vision and more hallucination. Naughhton is wrong on one point. Predicting the death of email is not new. I’ve been hearing such forecasts ever since blogging and social media started gaining momentum. Dr. Danah Boyd, the a… -
A Jew’s View of Christmas
17 Dec 2011 | 10:48 amWife Paula, dog Brewster & some bearded guy. Photo by Shel [Note: I first posted this in December 2003 and have reposted it almost every December since. I hope you enjoy it.] I grew up in the 1950s in New Bedford, Mass., an overwhelmingly Christian city. Christmas was the biggest day of the year. Schools were closed. Parents enjoyed rare paid days off. Often, snow coated the ground. Churches stood in every neighborhood and their bell towers would chime carols all day long. I was a Jewish kid and I knew this day was not for me, But, I just couldn’t help feel the excitement. My… -
Needed: An Annual Tech Conference Calendar
12 Dec 2011 | 3:53 pmIt’s December and like a great many professionals in the tech industry, I’m trying to determine what events to plan and budget what I do for next year. There are a great many people looking at the same time/place/budget issues, ranging from home office folk like me, to C-elevel global enterprise executives. It surprises me how incredibly difficult it is to gather what I need. I asked about this on my social networks, and three sites were frequently recommended: Plancast, Upcoming.com and Gary’s Guide. Each of these sites is useful if you want to find a meetup, tweetup or…
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Christopher S. Penn : Awaken Your Superhero
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Why social media is like ranch dressing
27 Jan 2012 | 5:38 amHave you ever wondered what the heck ranch dressing is? I have. It’s very tasty stuff, making almost anything better. According to Wikipedia, it was first invented in 1954 by the Henson family at their dude ranch, the Hidden Valley Ranch. Eventually, it became so popular that in 1972, it was bought by Clorox (yes, the bleach maker) and made commercially available. Internet-savvy cooks have managed to replicate the original recipe as follows: 1 cup mayonnaise 1/2 cup sour cream 1/2 teaspoon dried chives 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley 1/2 teaspoon dried dill weed 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder… -
4 signs that you’re not actually a marketing ninja
26 Jan 2012 | 6:16 am“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” – Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride Marketers love hyperbole, and when we ran out of superlatives like guru, expert, and maven, we turned to sillier superlatives like ninja. However, like many foreign loan-words, you have to be careful about using it. Here are 4 signs you’re not actually a ninja, and therefore probably shouldn’t use the word in your marketing efforts unless you want to be laughed at a whole lot. 1. You can’t spell or say ninjutsu correctly. In fact, the Japanese… -
6 AM in St. Louis
25 Jan 2012 | 5:24 amTwo years ago I was wandering around St. Louis at 6 AM before one of the Social Fresh conferences. I had my digital camera with me, and was looking for interesting photos to take. Right around 6:15, I saw the sun start to come up. A look to the east revealed the reds and golds of a spectacular sunrise about to make its way over the horizon, even if obscured by all the local buildings. Amidst the urban clutter was the landmark St. Louis archway. A look to the west revealed my hotel, all 28 stories of it. Sunrise was on the way. If you’ve ever done any photography, you know that moments… -
Never make this professional speaking mistake!
24 Jan 2012 | 6:08 am4:45 AM, January 21. The alarm shouted its usual cheerful “WAKE UP” to me in my hotel room, urging me to get out of bed in time to get to the airport for my flight home. I groggily packed the remaining bits and pieces of my luggage and stumbled downstairs to the taxi stand for a cab back to Hartsfield Airport. The weather forecast in Boston said heavy snow, which might mean some delays. I stepped out into the foggy, rainy Atlanta morning and headed for the airport, expecting to be home right around 1 PM, plenty of time to enjoy the day. 5:40 AM. Getting through security was a… -
Ask on G+ redefines be there before the sale
23 Jan 2012 | 7:18 amA long time ago, Chris Brogan coined the phrase “be there before the sale” with regard to social media. Google takes that yet another step further with the revelation of “Ask on Google+” to search results. Here’s the scenario: you search Google along your line of inquiry and don’t find anything super helpful. When you don’t, you see at the bottom of page 1 results a link asking if you want to ask your friends on Google+. Click it, the box appears, and you ask your network. Think about the implications of this as a marketer. Why bother going to Page 2…
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Socialmedia.biz
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The anachronistic social media isolationist
25 Jan 2012 | 7:00 amTo follow up on my last post, Being pretty isn’t enough for social media success, I wanted to discuss what I like to call Social Media Isolationism or Social Media Agoraphobia. And there are two forms of this sort of isolationism: invitational and exclusionary. They both mean you don't venture outside your own four social media walls; however, the first is welcoming and the other is dismissive. The welcoming pineapple Jay Gatsby was a welcoming pineapple. He desperately wanted to woo his beloved Daisy and opened his grand home hoping he just might, one night, find her at one of his lavish… -
O’Reilly Strata: Why big data matters
23 Jan 2012 | 7:49 amA presentation at the 2011 Strata conference. The leading big data conference, Strata 2012, the leading big data conference, is coming up fast! And you can save 20% with the Socialmedia.biz discount code below. Strata debuted to a sold-out crowd last year and has become the top event in the field for the people and technology driving the data revolution. What: Strata delivers the nuts and bolts of building a data-driven business — the latest on the skills, tools and technologies you need to make data work. When: Feb. 28 to March 1, 2012 Where: Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara,… -
Being pretty isn’t enough for social media success
18 Jan 2012 | 8:25 amI always tell clients that it is no longer enough to be beautiful when it comes to marketing online. The Internet has become more like an Oscar after-party than it is like the airport Ramada. Online, you’re never the lone beauty in the hotel lounge. Online, you’re surrounded by equal or greater beauties. What’s more, the most successful online social media barflies are aggressive in addition to gorgeous. Too many companies that have invested vast resources in social have Pretty Boy/Girl Syndrome. A symptom of this disease is an expectation that others will go out of their way to pursue… -
The Long Tail strategy for AdWords works for blogger outreach
11 Jan 2012 | 7:00 amThe Long Tail Last week, I wrote about how to succeed with B-list bloggers, but maybe some of you aren't convinced. So, this week, I want to draw an analogy to successful Google AdWords approaches so that you can see how to apply that same technique to blogger outreach. When it comes to reaching out to bloggers online, there's a lot you can learn from Google AdWords. Long-tail blogger outreach is like long-tail Google AdWords advertising. Instead of putting all your money on the top 10 most expensive and popular keywords that everyone bids on, smart advertisers segment their markets and… -
Become a big fish by starting in a smaller pond
4 Jan 2012 | 5:00 amIt’s always a tough question: would you rather be the smallest fish in a big pond or the biggest fish in a small pond? Would you prefer to be the ugliest pretty person or the prettiest ugly person? Would you prefer to have the lowest IQ at MIT or the highest IQ at State? This is all according to your preference, but when it comes to a blogger outreach campaign, the decision is never so zero-sum, not nearly so either/or. You can always do both, right? You can always secure hundreds of long-tail earned media mentions while you’re desperately working on securing coverage on Mashable and…
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Gauravonomics
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Introducing MSLGROUP People’s Lab: Crowdsourcing Insights & Innovation
11 Jan 2012 | 5:00 pmPascal Beucler, SVP & Chief Strategy Officer, MSLGROUP Gaurav Mishra, Asia Director of Social Media, MSLGROUP The Power of People’s Insights According to the recent PwC CEO Survey of 1200+ business leaders across 69 countries, business leaders believe that crowdsourcing people’s insights are one of the main drivers for leading innovation and change. We have a significant body of knowledge on crowdsourcing now, including business rationale, application areas, best practices and case studies. We have seen dedicated third-party crowdsourcing platforms in action for almost a decade and… -
Introducing MSLGROUP India’s Social Capabilities
29 Dec 2011 | 9:00 amAs we enter a new year, all the pieces of the puzzle seem to be falling in place for MSLGROUP India‘s social team. The team now has more than 25 specialists across Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore and we have five immediate social media job openings for curious people who start things and finish things, tinker with things and make things. We now manage more than 2 million community members across 20+ clients including Sony Ericsson, Ebay and Volkswagen, and we have recently won a series of important mandates. Most importantly, our teams are beginning to work well together and we have been… -
How to Design Social Media Workshops That Appeal to Both the Left Brain and the Right Brain
28 Dec 2011 | 7:26 amOver the last two years, I have led 50+ workshops with 2000+ marketing and communications professionals across Asia, so I have become a workshop specialist of sorts within MSLGROUP. I use a discovery-driven approach in designing and leading workshops, with conceptual frameworks, in-depth case studies, and post-it note gamestorms. This beautiful quote in Richard Bach’s ‘Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah’ sums up what I try to do in my workshops: Learning is finding out what you already know. Doing is demonstrating that you know it. Teaching is reminding others that they… -
The Social Integration Journey: How are Organizations Integrating Social into Technology Platforms, Marketing Programs and Business Processes
13 Dec 2011 | 6:06 amThe Social Integration Journey Most organizations go through six stages of Social Integration Journey. They start with inaction, then move to incubation and experiment with standalone platforms and tactical programs, before they are ready to integrate social into their technology platforms, marketing programs and business processes. This simple Social Integration Journey framework helps business leaders not only contextualize their own experience with social, but also plan to extend it. It helps them map which stage of social integration they are at, then build a case to integrate social into… -
MSLGROUP Crisis Network Report: Every Crisis is Global, Social, Viral
29 Nov 2011 | 4:00 am(This is an introduction to MSLGROUP’s Crisis Network report titled “Every Crisis is Global, Social, Viral” that I wrote with Pascal Beucler, MSLGROUP’s Chief Strategy Officer) The 2010s are turning out to be the decade rich in the myriad shades of crisis. Crisis management in today’s fragile world is intrinsically interlinked with global shifts in trust and power between individuals, influencers and institutions. The End of Trust The decade has witnessed a profound erosion of trust in all types of institutions, including governments and corporations. Even as North…
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GigaOM
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15 things successful CEOs want you to know
28 Jan 2012 | 2:01 amAs a young CEO of a growing company, I find that the most valuable insight I’m gaining these days has been from other CEOs. Certainly this realization isn’t revolutionary – YPO, EO, Mindshare and a host of other organizations are set up just for this kind of knowledge exchange. But who has time for that? This is a social media world. We’re live in 140-character sound bites. So I decided to ping my favorite CEOs via Twitter to see what kind of wisdom they could drop on me. Here’s the great advice they shared. Daniel Ek, CEO, Spotify Figure out what the top five most important… -
7 stories to read this weekend
28 Jan 2012 | 2:00 amThere is a lot of talk about data, 3D printing, innovation, design and user interaction and curation. So this week’s theme is a collection of writing that questions conventional wisdom about these aforementioned themes. Most of them are long — so better get a cup of tea now. Data trumps opinion, especially when it comes to design, argues Adapative Path’s Brandon Schauer. He outlines four examples in his post. The myth of the new brand new innovation myth: Is that headline giving you a headache? If you look beyond it, the article is a great treatise on innovation, the… -
Causecast takes corporate philanthropy beyond the Fortune 500
27 Jan 2012 | 7:16 pmFor big companies like Google, Salesforce and Microsoft, being active in charitable causes is practically a must-do. Companies of this size often have entire teams of employees focused on philanthropic initiatives and organizing company-wide volunteering events. But at smaller companies that don’t have the same infrastructure in place, employees often don’t have the same opportunities to give back, on-the-job. Screenshot of Causecast for Employees (click to enlarge) That’s where a new software platform built by Los Angeles-based startup Causecastcomes in. This week Causecast… -
Gaiman: SOPA and PIPA are on the wrong side of history
27 Jan 2012 | 5:00 pmAuthor Neil Gaiman The twin anti-piracy threats that were being considered by Congress — the SOPA bill in the House and the PIPA legislation in the Senate — have been put aside due to the storm of controversy and criticism they sparked. But the media and entertainment industries are unlikely to give up their battle so easily, author Neil Gaiman said in an interview this week, even though what they’re trying to do amounts to “trying to put genies back in bottles.” Gaiman, who recently signed an open letter protesting SOPA with over a dozen other prominent artists,… -
Would you cut Facebook a privacy pass if it paid you?
27 Jan 2012 | 4:40 pmRightly or wrongly, Facebook catches a lot of flak for impeding on privacy by selling user information to advertisers and generally enabling too much sharing. But would users care so much if Facebook gave them a cut of the profits it generates by selling their data? Think about it like Plink’s new loyalty program that rewards consumers with Facebook Credits for eating at certain restaurants, only in reverse. I suggested this Thursday as a possibility for empowering users across the web, generally, but Facebook (and maybe Google) actually seems like the perfect company to pull it off.
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Brent Csutoras
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Infographic about Infographics
26 Jan 2012 | 10:02 amInfographics continue to rise in popular, buy hey… why shouldn’t they? Infographics embody everything we want from content. They are highly visual, with easy to digest information, in most cases teach us something interesting we did not know, and do it all in a matter of minutes. Additionally, it is much harder to just duplicate or resuse [...] -
SMX West and Back to the Brain Share
25 Jan 2012 | 1:39 pmI took the entire year off from conferences in 2011, so that I could focus exclusively on improving and expanding our content promotion capabilities and offerings. During that time, there have been some pretty massive changes in the social media space, specifically around content marketing (aka social promotion). You have probably noticed that I am [...] -
2012: A New Year and A New Direction
16 Jan 2012 | 12:43 pmI have spent a lot of time thinking over the last 6 months… …about how I got into online marketing to begin with, how it evolved quickly to a focus on social media marketing, and how much I love it. …about starting my own company, then co-founding Alpha Brand Media and later also co-founding BlueGlass. [...] -
Twitter Soft Ban or Simply a New Bug?
9 Jan 2012 | 11:17 amHave you found yourself seeing the Fail Whale a lot more often once you have logged into Twitter? And by more often, I mean all the time, regardless of what time of day or day of the week it is? Well if you listen to the mumbling of a growing group of Twitter users, then [...] -
7 Ways of Social Media Sharing
6 Jan 2012 | 9:39 amLeading up to the holidays, which were quite wonderful for me (thanks for asking), I did a quick interview for CopyPress’ blog, which I just wanted to toss up a link to on the chance you might be interested in reading it. 7 Ways of Sharing Featuring Brent Csutoras Enjoy Related Posts:10 Ways to Totally [...]
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Marketing Land - Internet Marketing News, Strategies & Tips
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Yahoo Shutters 10 Mobile Apps
27 Jan 2012 | 5:12 pmIt’s not just Google closing products these days. Yahoo announced today that it’s shutting down a full 10 of its mobile apps across both the iOS and Android platforms. The list of Yahoo mobile apps being shut down is as follows: Yahoo Meme (iPad and iPhone) Yahoo Mim (iPad) Yahoo... Please visit Marketing Land for the full article. -
Facebook IPO Documents Coming Next Week — Report
27 Jan 2012 | 5:01 pmAccording to the Wall Street Journal, next week Facebook will file its “S-1″ and related documents in preparation for an IPO that could raise a whopping $10 billion and would potentially value the company at $100 billion. As the WSJ reports, the mega-offering would vault Facebook into... Please visit Marketing Land for the full article. -
Marketing Day: January 27, 2012
27 Jan 2012 | 4:01 pmHere’s our daily recap of what happened in online marketing today, as reported on Marketing Land and other places across the web. From Marketing Land: Infographic: Most Popular Conversion Tests Are you testing different things on your web site? Changing up your landing page copy, your... Please visit Marketing Land for the full article. -
Mobile Search: The Agency Opportunity – SMN Tuesday, Jan. 31
27 Jan 2012 | 3:59 pmSearch Marketing Now will present “Mobile Search: The Agency Opportunity,” on Tuesday, January 31 at 1 PM EST. The free webcast features Steven Schuler and Patrick Peters, both from Yahoo!’s mobile division. They’ll give an overview of the current mobile landscape, then... Please visit Marketing Land for the full article. -
Infographic: Most Popular Conversion Tests
27 Jan 2012 | 12:59 pmAre you testing different things on your web site? Changing up your landing page copy, your navigation and other elements can lead to better conversion. The people at Monetate have assembled an infographic looking at the frequency of testing and types of testing that are conducted. The second part... Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.
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Posts about Social Media from the Econsultancy blog
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Kermit takes over Disney's Twitter feed for film promotion
27 Jan 2012 | 10:55 amKermit the Frog took over Disney UK’s Twitter feed yesterday to promote the new Muppet movie. As part of Disney's marketing around the film’s London premiere fans could post questions using the hashtag #AskKermit. Hundreds of people took part, including actor Stephen Fry, and the hashtag was in the top ten trends on Thursday.Kermit tweeted responses back to fans and also posted personalised videos on YouTube as he toured London for various promotional events. Using Twitter as a marketing tool is nothing new, but allowing fans to interact with an iconic character like Kermit in… -
Jessica Alba and 10 other celebrities that invested in digital
27 Jan 2012 | 7:17 amJessica Alba this week became the latest celebrity to try their hands at e-commerce, with the launch of Honest. The own-label brand sells eco-friendly baby products, biodegradable nappies and organic skin care lotions. Alba says it is aimed at busy mothers that don’t have the time to spend hours seeking out over-priced eco-friendly products. Honest differentiates itself from the crowd by using an online subscription model to keep consumers hooked.But Alba isn't the first actor to use their star power to launch an online business (or indeed revamp a failing one), so which other celebs… -
Tiffany's 'Instagram' campaign could go much further
27 Jan 2012 | 6:25 amThis week Tiffany & Co. partnered with fashion blogger couple Scott Schuman and Garance Doré for an extension of its What Makes Love True campaign. Schuman, of The Sartorialist, and Doré, with her self-titled blog, act as champions for the project True Love in Pictures, which aims to create a gallery to represent real couples in love from Paris and New York. The project was celebrated last night with an event at the Tiffany & Co. flagship in New York, and from Monday people have been able to upload their own ‘moments of romance’. Don’t be… -
Twitter introduces country-specific censorship
27 Jan 2012 | 4:45 amTwitter has introduced country-specific censorship of tweets. Walking a fine line in terms of freedom of expression, the company says it will introduce the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country – while keeping it available to the rest world.Twitter has also created a way to communicate with users when content is withheld and why. It says it hasn’t had to do so yet, but if and when it does, it will "attempt to let the user know". Most of the tweets deleted previously have contained child pornography. In a blog post Twitter refers to a… -
Coca-Cola's polar bears will react to Super Bowl in real time
27 Jan 2012 | 4:25 amCoca-Cola has revealed that its Super Bowl ad campaign will involve two animated polar bears reacting in real time to action on the field. The drinks brand aims to connect with the estimated 60m TV viewers in the US who will be using a second screen while watching the game.Viewers will be able to interact with the polar bears, who will be supporting different teams, by asking questions and posting photos to Facebook or Twitter. When the bears are responding they will pull out a smartphone to tweet messages or use a tablet to display images submitted by fans. The bears will react to the entire…
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Convince and Convert Blog: Social Media Strategy and Social Media Consulting
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Klout, the Super Bowl, and Our Addiction to Shooting the Messenger
26 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amTwo weeks ago, I received a Klout Perk to be part of the Social 46, a gathering of Indiana’s top social media influencers. According to the Indianapolis Super Bowl Host Committee, Klout was used to help identify the participants, and the list was augmented manually with known local bloggers, gadflies, and connectors. I do not know how many of the 46 were “found” by Klout versus already known by the committee, and it’s not particularly relevant. Last week, the group convened to learn more about the Super Bowl festivities – which have a breadth almost unfathomably… -
Marketers, Here are the Keys to Your IT Department – Good Luck
25 Jan 2012 | 8:02 amClinton Bonner is an Open Innovation author/blogger, futurist and Marketing Manager at TopCoder – a global Open Innovation platform and community. Look no further than a very recent post by the purveyor of Convince and Convert and you’ll notice something remarkable. As Jay lays out 4 Nearly Guaranteed 2012 Social Media Predictions, what do you notice? Have a quick look at his 4 predictions: Multi-Media Soars – Jay is speaking about video and photo apps that enhance social media, draw more users off of the likes of Facebook and into new channels driven by mobile app… -
Comparison of 100 Top Companies on Social Business and Corporate Culture
22 Jan 2012 | 9:00 amAre social business and corporate culture inevitably linked? In a recent podcast, Mitch Joel interviewed Fred Reichheld, author of The Ultimate Question 2.0, and creator of the Net Promoter methodology. Fred made a statement that has stuck with me in the several weeks since I tuned in: “You can’t be the best place to buy, if you’re not the best place to work.” As social business moves from the toddler stage to youth stage, it’s becoming accepted wisdom that the best and most social organizations transform from the inside out. Whether it’s Charlene… -
Social Media Success May Depend on HR
19 Jan 2012 | 12:00 amGuest post written by Mark W. Schaefer. Mark is a consultant, college educator, and author who blogs at {grow}. There is a growing gap between the social media “haves” and “have-nots.” Some companies I visit have embraced social media enthusiastically and are moving into some pretty advanced ideas. Other companies are simply checking the box. They have a blog and Facebook page… and they view the job as complete. Still others are paralyzed and have not done anything at all. What’s the difference between these scenarios? It’s not necessarily… -
The Power of Transparent Marketing to Rock Your Business in 2012 and Beyond
17 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amGuest post by Marcus Sheridan. Marcus passionately speaks and writes about business and marketing on his blog, The Sales Lion. Make sure to download his popular, 230-page FREE eBook—“Inbound and Content Marketing Made Easy” ‘Transparency’ Ahh yes, one of the most over-used words, yet under-utilized actions, in our society today. News stations, despite their incessant claims, aren’t close to being transparent. The folks in Washington DC, on both sides of the aisle, couldn’t be any less transparent. And as for businesses small and large, this void of true transparency is the M.O.
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Elevator View
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UN Secretariat Building, Trump World Tower, Bloomberg Tower, 5:30PM
27 Jan 2012 | 11:03 amPhotographed from the roof deck of 440 Kent Avenue, Brooklyn (Schaefer Landing North). -
Fifth Avenue and 56th Street, 5:30PM
26 Jan 2012 | 10:18 amPhotographed from the fourth floor of 725 Fifth Avenue (Trump Tower). -
Far West 42nd Street, 4:19PM
25 Jan 2012 | 11:20 amPhotographed by David Mitzman from the main deck of the Norwegian Gem Cruise Ship. -
Porter House, Apple Store 14th Street, 4:30PM
24 Jan 2012 | 1:15 pmPhotographed from the Rooftop of The Standard, New York. -
World Trade Center from Rooftop of 250 Hudson Street, 5:30PM
22 Jan 2012 | 3:37 pm7 World Trade Center is flanked by the rising 4 World Trade Center (left) and 1 World Trade Center (right). Photographed from the rooftop of 250 Hudson Street.
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The Online Community Guide
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Responding To Members
26 Jan 2012 | 3:46 amYesterday a commenter asked how anyone can reply to all community member e-mails in an hour or less. It takes her nearly all day to get through them all. The answer is fairly simple. You don't get all the e-mails done in an hour. You only give yourself an hour to go through it (the hour is arbitrary). You get through as many as possible in that hour. The rest of the time you spend developing your community. The danger here is spending more time on unhappy members and ignoring the happy people in your community. Would you rather spend 20 minutes resolving a minor… -
Essential Elements Of Community Platforms
25 Jan 2012 | 3:23 amDon't compare community platforms by the features they do/don't have. Compare community platforms by the features that are essential to you and how well they execute on those features. The number of essential features is very limited. Discussion area. Members need a place in which they can interact. This will usually be a forum-based. Notifications. Members need to be notified when people have responded to their posts. This keeps members coming back. It sustains activity. Analytics. You need to be able to properly track what's going on. You need to know… -
A Simple Way To Stimulate Interesting Discussions
24 Jan 2012 | 3:14 amIf you want to initiate discussions which get a good response, you need to know a few things: 1) What do your members really care about? 2) What are your members’ biggest problems? 3) What do your members do? (habits online/offline) Once you know this, it’s relatively easy to initiate discussions along these lines (and highlight discussions initiated by members along these lines). For example, what is the best way to…? How many of you have found {x} is really difficult? Have you ever found that….? You don’t always need to ask for the… -
Community Management: Planning The Week
23 Jan 2012 | 5:57 amProfessional community managers plan their week in advance. Their plans are based upon data collected from the community (growth, engagement and sense of community), and knowledge of what communities need to further develop. Let's assume your community is in the establishment phase and you're a full-time community manager working 40 hours a week (I know, but let's imagine). Using the Community Management Map, you would spend approximately the following amount of time on each element of community management: Strategy: 2 hours (collecting/analyzing data) Growth: 10 hours… -
The Internal Problems You Don't See
20 Jan 2012 | 5:59 amLast week a number of community managers claimed their biggest problem was internal. They didn't have the right support of the organization. This had many manifestations including: Using the wrong platform. Lacking resources. Juggling multiple projects. No budget for training. Couldn't allow community members to contribute content. Forced the community manager to use formal language. Restricted off-topic conversations. Demanding results too early. Removed criticisms. Do these sound familiar? There are three problems here. First, when asked, many had no plan…
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FaceReviews: Facebook Applications Reviews and Facebook News
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7 Tech Trends to Watch for in 2012
4 Jan 2012 | 2:14 amWhats Next in Tech for 2012? This is a question that I have been kicking around with some of my peers for the past month or so. There are many trends occurring in the mobile space, in the social space and in the commerce space that are fundamentally changing how consumers and users interact, share and complete transactions. One thing to keep in mind is how both Apple IOS and Android are rapidly gaining in the number of handsets activated daily. As more and more consumers upgrade to smart phones and as technology costs drop, opportunity rises in the ways that new use cases can have huge… -
iPhone Drinking Game: Where’s Cuppy?
18 Jun 2011 | 11:33 amNew iPhone Social Game: Where’s Cuppy? The game is fun and simple. Download the iPhone app and snap a pic of you and your friends with you plastic red cup. Simple. Stupid. Pointless and Fun as hell. So grab a Sharpie marker… draw Cuppy’s face on the Cup and start taking pics. The photos of Cuppy can be shared on Twitter and Facebook. There are leader boards for 9 Categories of Cuppy Photos. The pics are funny and this game is a great icebreaker at parties, the beach, the dorm, bars and while playing beer pong. There is also a cool map that shows all the places that Cuppy has… -
Win this Cool Guitar on Plixi from Patrick Stump
1 Apr 2011 | 1:53 pmCheck out this Cool Guitar Giveaway on Plixi. It looks like a photo contest where you upload a photo with the hashtag #patrickstump to Plixi.com Patrick Stump from Fall Out Boy has a new solo EP called Truant Wave. So upload your photo of you in your spotlight showing what you do best to be entered to win this Stump-O-Matic guitar. You can see all the cool photos that have been entered in this live photo stream here: www.plixi.com/live/patrickstump Details of the photo contest are here: Share this on: -
facebook f8 live event
21 Apr 2010 | 10:59 amI have been at every facebook f8 event and lots of the early developer garages; unfortunately my startup work at TweetPhoto has me buried and I cant attend. you will see tons of new product announcements. my thoughts are “like” and “geo places” and checkin with iphones are my predictions. Looks like keychain tokens as well 1500 people will be there; these events rock and facebook does it first class. if you want to see all the great stuff happening at facebooks f8 live stream and tracks here facebook f8 watching it stream live http://apps.facebook.com/feightlive/ Share… -
NYC Social Media Event for Business
9 Nov 2009 | 10:42 amGravity Summit NYC is an event that I am producing on November 16. This event is unlike most social media events as it is focused on the business world with real case studies and best practices from brands that are doing it right. Register NOW 8:30 AM — Registration – Prepare for the day (please be on time) Join us for a scrumptious breakfast and lots of networking. 9:00 AM — Welcome and Introduction Co—Hosts: Beverly Macy, Rodney Rumford Setting the stage for a full day, we’ll introduce the core concepts of social media and review the speaker agenda. The take aways from this…
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Daily Blog Tips
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The Two Biggest Guest Blogging Mistakes You Can Make
26 Jan 2012 | 10:55 pmI receive around 20 guest post submissions per week. Usually I let them pile up and once a month I go through all of them, replying to the ones I think would be a good fit for the blog. There are two types of submissions I discard right away, though, without even taking a look. I also consider those the two biggest mistakes you can make while trying to guest post on some blog. They are: 1. Not including the name of the blog owner If by opening your email I see something like “Dear Sir” or “Dear Blog Owner” I’ll send it to the trash bin immediately. Why? because… -
The Top 7 Twitter Imperatives For Bloggers
25 Jan 2012 | 10:08 pmMany bloggers accustomed to dealing with topics in 400 to 600 words are finding concentrating their messages down to a mere 140 characters to be extremely challenging. Twitter can be a minefield and the slightest error can cost you readers and reputation, so follow these top 7 blogger imperatives for Twitter and rise to the level of a whiz tweeter, not a whizzing twit. 1. Wach ur Spelink & Gramma – Your Twitter content represents your blog and if you’re illiterate in your tweets then the reader can expect more of the same in your blog. Even though you only have 140 characters to work… -
6 Actionable Tips to Really Improve Your Blog in 2012
24 Jan 2012 | 10:54 pmEnough of the quasi-motivating “New Year posts” which promise you the world but show you no actions to take. This post is just gonna give you the facts; no B.S. about “taking charge” of your blog’s success, just stuff you need to get done to rock it in 2012. So, how about you stop reading the intro and start taking notes, and after that, don’t go check Twitter, start implementing them right now! 1.) Take Your Email List Seriously It’s time to start taking your email list seriously, because building it is the “do or die” component of your… -
And the Copyright Infringement Hunt Begins…
23 Jan 2012 | 10:58 pmYou probably already heard about SOPA/PIPA and the whole debate around it, right? Last Wednesday it was a really interesting day on the Internet, probably representing the biggest online activism movement ever, with all major online companies and websites protesting against the bills. The movement was pretty successful, with many senators reversing their stance on the SOPA/PIPA bills, and making it much harder to get them approved now (i.e., the Internet folks won the first battle of the war). The day after, however, another blow stroke. The founders and key employees of the site… -
How to Add a Call to Action to Your Post
22 Jan 2012 | 9:01 pmYou might have written your best post ever — but without a call to action, it’s not going to get you the results you’re hoping for. A “call to action” is a copywriting term. It simply means asking or telling the reader to take a specific action. That might be: Subscribing to your blog or newsletter Buying your ebook Sharing the post on Twitter or Facebook Downloading a free report Trying out a particular technique or idea … or almost anything that will benefit you and/or the reader. Your call to action should be clear and specific. Don’t simply link to a post and assume…
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Poetslife
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18 Jan 2012 | 3:04 pm
18 Jan 2012 | 3:04 pm -
It Was Nothing
2 Jan 2012 | 11:06 amHere are a few photos of the house fire we went through in 2003, along with a poem I just wrote that captures some of the reaction ten years later.I include some photos of the rebuilt house and us in it."It will get better." some told us after the event.And it has.It Was Nothing“It was nothing”Said my six-year oldIn a Thank You card To his first-grade classI discover a decade laterAmong family heirlooms.Except that it was something.It was a house fireThat but for secondsAlmost took his life,And my lifeAnd the life of his older brotherAnd burned my wifeSeverely enoughThat she was… -
In Support of the American Flag in Woodbine
28 Dec 2011 | 8:00 pmComing back from a drive on 12/26/2011, I saw this amazing flag at the Woodbine traffic circle. I pulled over and took this photo and 10-second video. I just thought it was pretty cool. Little did I know it was a symbol of patriotism, respect for the military, and resistance to heavy government tyranny. Read on... "Removal of American flag from Woodbine traffic circle sparks patriotic rallyState highway decision riles neighbors, leads to large showing of troop support Brian Loveless, 14, left, and Garrett Murray, 12, both of Woodbine, wave flags at the rally. (Photo Noah Scialom /… -
Earth from Space
16 Nov 2011 | 12:15 pmTime-lapsed photography of earth from space...unreal! Click this link and marvel. This is epic. While human life continues, as in these photos, the earth spins and the planets swirl and creation continues here and beyond. CREATION!!! It shows a time lapse sequences of photographs taken by the crew of expeditions 28 & 29 onboard the International Space Station from August to October, 2011, who to my knowledge shot these pictures at an altitude of around 350 km. All credit goes to them. I intend to upload a FullHD-version presently.HD, refurbished, smoothed, retimed, denoised,… -
9/11 Vauk and Ruth Memorial and Celebration
18 Sep 2011 | 8:03 pmThis is the speech I wrote for Mayorof Mount Airy Patrick Rockingberg's Patriot’sDay Speech on September11, 2011 Click any photo to enlarge it.Thank you….And thank you all for coming to thePine Grove Chapel in Mount Airy for this Patriot’s Day 9/11 Ceremony. (PAUSE)We are here to honor all ofAmerica’s Patriots, and especially those who gave their last and full measureon September 11, 2001, Navy Lieutenant Commander Ronald J. Vaulk and Army ChiefWarrant William Ruth.As this is the 10th Anniversary ofthat fateful day, it is fitting that we pause to honor them, their…
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Nate Ritter
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The 99% Don’t Own Businesses
5 Jan 2012 | 10:41 amNow that the news channels have let go of making the #Occupy stuff, I feel like I can talk about it a bit. This post won’t come anywhere near what I believe as a whole about it, but we’ll make this a start of dialogue now that we can all be a little more rational.One interesting fact Scott Shane mentioned recently was the “Top One Percent” (in the US) own businesses. Honestly, I’m not surprised. But, it is nice to bring it to be explicit and have this knowledge at our the forefront of our brains.Think about it. There’s all these people who are running… -
List of WordPress Portfolio Themes
3 Jan 2012 | 12:11 pmWith the myriad of WordPress theme sites out there, I thought I’d just focus on the portfolio themes for a bit, and write up a little list here.Please feel free to submit any others you think are cool in the comments below.The List of Portfolio Themes for WordPressMy Resume (less like a portfolio, but still kinda cool)Deep Focus – Elegant Themes WordPress PortfolioPhazedCreaticFolioWayMediaReelArchitectosPerfektoMinimYin & YangAwesome Portfolio ThemeConclusion… too many to list… go hereAfter looking around at so many cool portfolio WordPress themes, I have to… -
List of San Diego Angel Investors
1 Jan 2012 | 6:46 pmJust for fun I figured I’d throw together all the angel investor groups/programs I know of located (at least partially) in San Diego.In no particular order, here we go:Imporium AngelsAztec Venture NetworkBill Payne & AssociatesSan Diego Launch LabConnect.orgKeiretsu Forum San DiegoTech Coast AngelsHamilton Bio VenturesMission VenturesSan Diego Band of AngelsTimeline VenturesEnterprise PartnersIf you have any other resources of angel networks, groups, or incubators that I should add to this list, please let me know in the comments.Thanks. -
Create Your Life
21 Dec 2011 | 2:53 amEntrepreneurship is awesome. It’s freedom. It’s creativity. It’s creation. It’s visionary. But, but it’s not without it’s faults.Tuesday night, Tilly and I met with some of our closest friends – a husband and wife who we’ve been blessed to live life with. Both are leaders and visionaries. The husband is a close friend with an amazing heart and powerfully driven entrepreneur, and the wife is one of the most inspiring, leadership-driving, beauty-loving person I’ve had the pleasure of spending a dinner with.In our conversations, our… -
One Year Later
20 Dec 2011 | 4:24 amIt’s been over a year since I wrote anything substantial. I feel the need for change.Perhaps it’s the crisp chilly winter which propels me to become more introspective. I’m not sure. Whatever the case, it’s time to write again.I’ve been watching my wife become a dedicated and talented blogger in her own right over the past year. It’s inspiring, to say the least. Of all people, she has less time than most – taking care of our freshly minted son, our home, and my own stressed out body and mind when I return to our sanctuary of a home from the…
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louisgray.com
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Heading Down Under for a Week
27 Jan 2012 | 12:37 pmIf you don't see me Saturday, it's because I don't get a Saturday. Late this evening, I fly from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and then take a red-eye across the Pacific with the eventual destination being Sydney, Australia. Thanks to the distance of the flight, and the International Date Line, I have the privilege of entering the airliner on a Friday and landing on a Sunday. If Saturday actually happens, I have no proof. But I'm told I get the day back when I return, as the following Friday, thanks to advanced time travel, I will arrive back in the U.S. before I leave (so far as the clock is… -
Blogger Adds +1 Data to Dashboard to Track Popular Posts
24 Jan 2012 | 4:00 pmThis afternoon, Blogger introduced a small update to user dashboards, letting blog owners see how many +1's their content has achieved across the web, including +1's from Google Reader and search results, from your personal dashboard. Now, in addition to traditional statistics familiar to blog authors, like those found in Google Analytics, you can now see a quick + count next to the number of comments and page views - helping show the impact your most popular posts have received.As I haven't been very active of late on the blog, I haven't done much to deserve +1's from every corner -… -
Social Networking With Strangers
22 Dec 2011 | 2:06 pmThere’s a well-known saying attributed to the poet and playwright William Butler Yeats: “There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met.” As social networking has evolved to encompass a significant amount of people’s time on the Internet, divergent approaches to friending and following, sharing publicly and sharing selectively have emerged. Some networks have a solely synchronous relationship, where the bond can be broken unilaterally by either individual, but must be initiated by one and accepted by another, while others are asynchronous, meaning one can follow the… -
Time Shifting In a World of Realtime
19 Dec 2011 | 2:01 pmNearly three short years ago, the buzz word du jour in tech was “realtime”. Real time discovery. Real time search. Real time serendipity. The explosion of interest in social sharing tools like Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed (remember this was early 2009) had people (myself included) saying that “Delayed news will no longer be acceptable for early adopters, who will gravitate to the quickest sources of news, wherever they may be.” In practice, while this has occasionally been true, I’ve found a completely divergent innovation to play as big a role in the way I (and others) consume… -
Winning Unconventionally
12 Dec 2011 | 12:00 pmNo two fingerprints, people, or businesses are exactly alike. While learning from the experiences of others can be illuminating and inspiring, your own challenges are unique, and following a path previously trod may not deliver you the same outcome. Often, taking an unconventional approach can deliver results far beyond those anyone anticipated, and your differentiation can start to be part of your story.While Microsoft was building a dominating market share position for operating systems through licensing its software to OEMs, one of Steve Jobs' first moves upon returning to Apple was to…
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SheGeeksSheGeeks | SheGeeks
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Brisk and Stars Wars Join Forces For BriskSaber Gaming App
13 Jan 2012 | 12:36 pmYou can now find Brisk Iced Tea in a galaxy both far far away and as close as your iPhone or Android device. I’m talking about the BriskSaber game that is making a splash in the App Store and Android Market. In preparation for Stars Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 3-D, Brisk joins forces with LucasFilms to put a modern and techie spin on classic Star Wars action and fun that’s hard to resist. Price: FreeDownload: iOS App Store | Android Marketplace Since its January 3rd debut, Brisksaber has amassed 520 reviews in the App Store rating it an incredible 4.5 star out of 5! -
The Next Generation RAZR: Motorola Droid RAZR Review
13 Jan 2012 | 9:26 amThe Motorola RAZR was a mobile icon during my early teen years. Just about everyone I knew had one. It was surprisingly thin for a phone! The screen was impressive and it could do one thing very well that all of my friends love: transfer ringtones via bluetooth. Fast forward to today and the Motorola RAZR doesn’t compare to my iPhone 4. So, I was skeptical and intrigued when Motorola announced a successor; the Motorola Droid RAZR. With the help of Verizon’s 4G LTE network, could the Droid RAZR recapture the swagger and appeal of the original RAZR? The Look & Feel Though the… -
How To Get The New Facebook Timeline Look Right Now
16 Dec 2011 | 9:49 pmFacebook Timeline is a drastic departure from the currently tired look of your Facebook profile. Announced at Facebook’s F8 conference in October, don’t be too quick dismiss Facebook Timeline as yet another new redesign from Facebook. It’s a complete departure from Facebook’s past! If you’re not afraid of change, here’s how you can get Facebook Timeline right now. If you don’t want to wait, you can get Facebook Timeline right now by visiting: Facebook.com/Timeline. In the bottom right corner of the page, you’ll see a green button with the… -
The Life of an Instagrapher: GE, Jet Engines, and Instagram
9 Dec 2011 | 3:47 pmAre you a frequent Instagram user? Would you like a free trip to a world-class GE jet engine facility in the UK to take pictures and send them to Instagram? If you answered yes, then great because you only have 3 days left to enter GE’s Instagrapher contest to make this wish come true! “For our next Instagram photo shoot, we’re going to a world-class GE jet engine facility in the UK to capture some amazing technology. Help us decide who the photographer should be. Because it could be you.” Get your iPhones ready and load up Instagram to begin entering the contest. But… -
Finding Great Content on Twitter Gets Easier With #newnewTwitter Redesign
8 Dec 2011 | 9:00 pmTwitter’s got a brand new look and not just a tweak here and there. Trending as the #newnewTwitter, it’s a fresh with a simplified and streamlined design, most of the changes center around getting the best content as quickly as possible. The redesign doesn’t stop at your desktop either. Twitter’s iPhone app, Android apps, and mobile website have received the new makeover too. Facebook, take notes! Readers, let’s take a look at what’s new, shall we? The new design may seem very different at first, but honestly it’s not. Mainly, a lot of things have…
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Discount Safari
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Experience the Holiday Autos Discount Code Online
22 Jan 2012 | 12:21 pmThe Holiday Autos discount code is offering a grand car hire sale of 30% off. The promotion is destined to run in various stations across the globe until 31st October, 2011. If you are planning a family get away, honeymoon or romantic travel with your spouse this is the time to book for your transport. The discount code is available at different locations at different times. Determining when the discount will be available at your preferred destination will help you to schedule your travel at the right time. The booking for the car is a piece of cake. You can complete the application online… -
Hints On How To Use The Vertbaudet discount Code and Save Money
15 Dec 2011 | 7:15 amIf you want to acquire the best garments and clothing for your baby you should acquire the Vertbaudet promotional code. This promotional code enables you make some great bargains while shopping from www.vertbaudet.co.uk. Vertbaudet is the leading retail outlet for winter warmers, night wear, occasion wear, ski wear, and various other baby items. After spending £60 or more, the standard packing and postage will cost you only £3.99 per single order regardless of how big or small the order is. The retail outlet is also offering very exciting Christmas shopping promotions. You will benefit from… -
Quick Tips on How To Use the Ann Summers Free Delivery To Shop at The Ann Summers
16 Nov 2011 | 3:43 pmThe Ann Summers free delivery code is the open secret of how you can acquire those naughty items you love most at the best prices ever in the United Kingdom. The store offers that latest sex toys, seductive lingerie and various other raunchy items. With this code you can acquire these items at unbelievably low prices in which you have never imagined in your life. For those who are looking for the practical ways of acquiring special prize in order to surprise someone, Ann summers is the ideal place in which you will get all that you want plus the tips on how to choose the best. In addition to… -
Europcar Discount Code: Giving you the best transport deals
3 Nov 2011 | 3:40 pmThe Europcar discount code is an offer anyone looking for excellent car hire service in Europe should be on the lookout for. This service is dedicated to offering its clients first class transport solution ranging from vehicles updated with cutting edge technology such as portable Wi-Fi; prestigious vehicles for persons on holiday and courier vehicles to solve your transportation work. All the cars are in excellent condition to save you the hassle of unprecedented breakdowns. In addition, the car is delivered to your chosen pick up place free. You can also designate a place where it shall be… -
Tips On How You Can Use The Dorothy Perkins Promotional Code
23 Oct 2011 | 4:11 amThe Dorothy Perkins Promotional Code for 2011 is out and you can use it to make great saving for all your purchases from Dorothy Perkins. This is one of the leading clothing outlets in the United Kingdom. It has more than 600 retail outlets in the United Kingdom and thus you will get a store at you nearest high street. This promotional code will enable you make great savings on the already reduced prices of the items that are sold at Dorothy Perkins stores. This is not all; the Dorothy Perkins Free Delivery ensures that all purchases worth or more than £75 are delivered to you for free. Thus…
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THINKing
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Creativity 2012 – Week #4
23 Jan 2012 | 8:37 amPhoto credit: ajaxserix from morguefile.com It Takes Two In The Innovation Tango – Which is better for innovation – a lone creative or a group of creatives? Innovation And The Art Of The Story – The art of storytelling is nothing new. Storify co-founder and Hacks/Hackers founder Burt Herman discusses the next generation of the centuries-old craft. A Running Shoe Inventor Shoots Himself In The Foot - How hard is it for an independent inventor to sell an idea to a multinational? Try running a mile in Lenn Hann’s shoes. Social Technologies Speed Innovation –… -
Creativity 2012 – Week #3
16 Jan 2012 | 8:49 amPhoto credit: cohdra from morguefile.com The Rise Of The New Groupthink – Creativity happens to a single person working alone, not in a group. January Brainstorm – A few ideas to get your little gray cells percolating as we jump into 2012. How To Maintain A Creative, Healthy Perspective – A change of perspective is what invokes new ideas. Culture And The Climate For Creativity – Organizations that invest in a climate of creativity create conditions for dealing with risk and develop an environment of trust. 10 Creative Ways To Use QR Codes – Here are some of… -
Calling All Guest Bloggers
11 Jan 2012 | 2:13 pmPhoto credit: EmmiP from morguefile.com Here’s a shout out to all guest bloggers. This is a new year and I want new voices here on THINKing. You may be asking, “why would you want to write for this blog?” We had about 200,000 visitors to the site last year. So, it is a decent sized audience for your writing. We covered a variety of marketing related topics, ranging from advertising, PR and social media to creativity, branding and writing. So, you will find a receptive audience for those topics. Convinced? Read on. If you have an idea for a guest post, here is what I want… -
Creativity 2012 – Week #2
9 Jan 2012 | 8:19 amPhoto credit: jusben from morguefile.com A Creative New Year’s Resolution – Get creative in 2012 - there is some evidence to suggest that we may be heading for a creativity crisis. Here’s What Creativity Looks Like – It’s a connect the dots puzzle, but you have to define the dots, too. 10 Commandments For Creatives - 1. Give space, time and energy to your creativity. Do Innovation Experts Kill Innovation? - We sense that the more a company talks, thinks, and strategizes about innovation, the less real, big innovation it produces. Quotes On Innovation &… -
Is Everything Old New Again?
3 Jan 2012 | 11:31 amPhoto credit: blondieb38 from morguefile.com OK, it’s 2012 and like a caterpillar, it seems, marketing is completing its metamorphosis. But really, it’s only the tactics that have changed. At least in my view. We’ve talked a lot about this. Back in 2009, we addressed this subject, Technology may have changed, bringing us blogs and social media, but people haven’t changed since we came out of the trees and onto the African plains. Marketers need to remember that no matter what vehicle you are using to deliver your message, you should set strategy first, then tightly…
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Firebelly Marketing
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Social Media & New Tools Continue To Change Education
27 Jan 2012 | 9:00 amAfter mentioning Apple’s new textbook market in last week’s blog post (Read: Be Your Own Publisher In The iBooks Store,) I’ve noticed how online tools and social media have changed many aspects of education. No, I don’t mean how much harder high school teachers need to work to keep their students off Facebook during Algebra. I mean how not only can you attend school without ever entering a building, but you can also get support from others by just sending messages. During my time at IU, I’ve had assignments that involve blog posts, wiki articles, and students… -
Facebook Small Business Boost: Free Ads for Small Businesses
25 Jan 2012 | 3:57 pmCalling all small business owners! Facebook Marketing Solutions, the official Facebook Marketing page, has launched a contest called Facebook Small Business Boost that will award a $10,000 prize to the 10 participating small businesses that accrue the most likes on their Facebook page by April 1, 2012. What you need to participate: 1. A Facebook Page for your small business 2. Your business must be based in the US 3. Your page will need at least 50 likes How it works: 1. Instantly get $50 in free ads if you have at least 50 likes on your Page 2. Get $100 more in free ads if you add 100 more… -
Facebook Page Management Tip #3: Ask Probing Questions
24 Jan 2012 | 7:09 pmThe main reason people get on Facebook is to engage with friends and family, not brands. So, it’s important to relate to your audience and spark conversation by inadvertently getting them to engage. But, how is this done? There are a number of ways, but one of the most important is to ask lifestyle questions. Lifestyle questions are questions like, ‘what’s your favorite movie’ or ‘where’s the most exotic place you have traveled?’ Be sure not to go overboard with these kinds of questions on your page though, it could annoy your fans and that’s the last thing we… -
Community Manager Appreciation Day: 5 Must-Reads
23 Jan 2012 | 9:29 amToday is the 3rd annual Community Manager Appreciation Day! Below are 5 must-reads. A Worldwide Salute to Community Managers By Jeremiah Owyang It’s the third annual Community Manager Appreciation Day (every fourth Monday of Jan) and I’d like to salute the folks working on the front lines at companies big and small leading the charge. These folks are critical in the change as companies have moved from the static website to the dynamic human focused social business we’re seeing across every agency. 9 Ways To Celebrate Community Manager Appreciation Day By Elana Zak Just a bit of… -
Nonplussed By Google Plus
22 Jan 2012 | 3:28 pmGoogle keeps fiddling around with the Internet, and (to no one’s surprise) they’ve done it again. Their latest change – Google Search Plus Your World – could be the most disruptive ever. To make a long story short (see end of article for some long stories), expect to see some hyper-personalized search results the next time you perform a search, IF you’re logged in to Google. Here’s their official announcement. You might be shocked to see what shows up in your search results, if you’ve been plus-ing or sharing some things via Google+. Chances are…
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ConverStations
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Display Merchandising: Your RSS Feed
27 Jan 2012 | 9:39 amDo you subscribe to your own RSS feed? You should. Sometimes, if you could see what I can see (and what your readers-prospects-customers see). A successful retailer and the restauranteur are always looking over their displays and presentation – and so should you. When I click on your RSS button – if it goes anywhere – I sometimes get sent to a page that looks like this: Feedburner gives you analytics AND a stylized, browser-friendly result when readers click on your subscribe button. Now that you’ve subscribed to your own RSS feed, you can do even more… -
Seasons of Talk
25 Jan 2012 | 4:46 amHow do you measure the conversations in a day? Small talk at the grocery store? Debates at meetings? Brainstorming during lunch? Arguments in your own head? How about the conversations where you listen more than talk? Or the ones you have on Twitter? Those where there is no talking going on at all? I’ve never counted the number of conversations I have in a day. You? Yet we struggle at writing a blog or posting a thing on that social network. If you listen to your day, you’ll never run out of things to write about. Nobody suffers from Talker’s Block. Start with one… -
Single Login to Google = Win for You
23 Jan 2012 | 5:30 am“Complaining that signing up for Google services forces you to sign up for G+ is like complaining that buying a smart phone forces you to own a camera.” - Marc Razia on Google+ I’ve become wary of the haters, the gripers, the pundits who scream foul like they are owed something. Before anyone jumps to conclusions about what I just said: a definition of wary. Google now offers a single login for new users. When someone signs up for a Google account, the newcomer is also activating GMail and Google+, and Google Maps and … well, it’s a Google account. -
Slide Sunday: One Brick at a Time
22 Jan 2012 | 6:52 am“You don’t try to build a wall. You don’t set out to build a wall. You don’t start there. You say, ‘ I’m going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid.’ You do that every single day. And soon you have a wall.” – Will Smith Slide Sunday: One Brick at a Time is a post from: ConverStations Find Your Social Media ROI I hear it from a lot of business owners: "Where is the ROI with all this Social Media?" If this is a question you've asked, maybe we should work together a bit more. We can work together solo, or via a professional… -
Ignoring the Social Media Echo Chamber Chamber
20 Jan 2012 | 9:27 amYou may occasionally read about the “social media echo chamber” – maybe you even write about it. Me? I don’t think it exists. Not really. And you shouldn’t let it exist – because if you do, it’s all in your head. Yep, I think you’re imagining things. Granted, there are a lot of folks that talk about social media, and as a small business owner using social media – social media is part of the conversations in your day. But it’s not your core business. Let’s say you’re a furniture store owner, you should be more concerned…
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RyanSpoon.com
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Zappos Security Breach a Reminder that Facebook is the Web’s Identity
25 Jan 2012 | 7:12 pmThe Zappo’s security breach of a couple weeks ago was a reminder that your online passwords, data and activity are vulnerable… and to change your passwords often! For me, it was a reminder of another sort and crystallized my latest thinking around Facebook & its role on the web. Facebook is obviously a social network. But it has become something different over time… something arguably more important: it is an identity network. Facebook is the identity thread that connects people, content, data, logins, etc. Whether your Facebook social activity has increased or… -
Philz Coffee, Free Wifi and Facebook Fans
23 Jan 2012 | 8:42 pmI spent time working at Philz Coffee yesterday (now in downtown Palo Alto – and if you haven’t enjoyed Philz… hurry. It’s amazing coffee). They provide free wifi and do something really simple and smart… and surprisingly unique. When you access the free wifi, you are prompted with a screen to acccept them terms & conditions. This is very normal: When you accept the terms, most companies redirect to you an ad or content hub of some sort (here is an example from Starbucks). Philz redirects you to their Facebook fan page. Simple. Clever. You are in Philz… -
14 SEO Tips for Startups
21 Jan 2012 | 5:57 pmNote: This article originally appeared on TechCrunch (“14 Steps to Successful SEO for Startups”). For startups, it is dangerous to entirely separate product and marketing – both strategically and organizationally. A great product isn’t overly useful without an audience. And a great marketing strategy can’t save a poor product. Product and marketing have to coexist. So when imaging, building and eventually launching your product, it is important to also hone the marketing strategy. There are five core channels: - Paid marketing (SEM, display, affiliates, etc) - Social & viral… -
Well This Appeared Atop my Facebook Newsfeed Today
18 Jan 2012 | 2:07 pm -
Be Actionable. Be Different. Facebook Listen & Read Buttons & Google Offers as Examples.
18 Jan 2012 | 12:03 pmBefore the holiday, I wrote that Facebook was testing “listen buttons” in the Ticker. I commented that it was sure to boost activity and conversions… but what happens when the ‘action’ graph expands and there are buttons galore? A couple thoughts / notes on that: click image for full-size 1. This is the first time I have now seen “Read” buttons. They look exactly like the listen button – but clearly focused on different actions, publishers and canvas apps. It really stands out. Again: what happens when the entire ticker is action-oriented? Is it…
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New Marketing and Interactive
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SOPA Threatens Internet Freedoms, Innovation and the Economy
16 Jan 2012 | 1:43 pmCongress goes head to head with tech-giants and the average Internet Joe in fight over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Everyone from Obama to your local start-up thinks SOPA will paralyze... An early pioneer in interactive media, sought after speaker and leading expert on search and social media marketing, Dean Whitney is the Founder of Dean Whitney Interactive. -
Driving Business with Affiliate Programs
9 Jan 2012 | 3:15 pmThe popularization of social networks transformed us from a society of passive media consumers into a highly segmented culture of content generators and on-demand end-users. An early pioneer in interactive media, sought after speaker and leading expert on search and social media marketing, Dean Whitney is the Founder of Dean Whitney Interactive. -
Finding Balance in the Age of Digital Overload
1 Jan 2012 | 1:17 pmIts a new year and a great time to talk about goals and balance. If you are like me your work is always with you. You wake up and check email on the computer, if you are not near the computer the... An early pioneer in interactive media, sought after speaker and leading expert on search and social media marketing, Dean Whitney is the Founder of Dean Whitney Interactive. -
Are Deal Sites a Good Deal for Merchants?
27 Dec 2011 | 12:00 pmWith over 600 group buying and deal sites in operation, businesses have more platforms to choose from than ever before. But, before they jump into forking over 50 percent of deal revenues to sites... An early pioneer in interactive media, sought after speaker and leading expert on search and social media marketing, Dean Whitney is the Founder of Dean Whitney Interactive. -
Speed Up Innovation with Crowdsourcing
19 Dec 2011 | 8:28 amThe term ‘feature rich’ and ‘experience poor’ is often cited when comparing products like Microsoft Word to Flickr. Most consumers use about 5% of the features available in Microsoft Word. Flickr,... An early pioneer in interactive media, sought after speaker and leading expert on search and social media marketing, Dean Whitney is the Founder of Dean Whitney Interactive.
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Direct Marketing Observations
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Chances Are You’ve Met Less Than 5% of the People in Your Social Network
25 Jan 2012 | 8:17 amThe difference between a friend, an acquaintance and the friends and acquaintances we have met online is blurring…Social media would seem to dictate or would assume that I’m supposed to develop or have developed these deep online, networked, connections, i.e. That I have met them. Jay Baer calls it false intimacy. Does it matter that I have not met them? Absolutely not. Or maybe it does… But maybe we should quickly look at what the definition of “connected” is. Check this out: con·nect·ed http://img.tfd.com/m/sound.swf (k-nktd) adj. 1. Joined or… -
Who does Google make it’s money from? A breakdown (Infograph)
23 Jan 2012 | 8:01 am© WordStream, a Google AdWords partner company. -
Internal Social Networks Versus Social Networks-Where Should You Spend Your Time?
17 Jan 2012 | 3:07 pmThe tug-o-war for your time when you participate on multiple social networks can be difficult. Who get’s it and who doesn’t? Who get’s the honor of your participation can also affect your impact because THAT will be where you spend the bulk of your time. Where should you spend your time? On the networks that matter to you or on the networks where you HAVE to participate? Does it matter if you create content or if you lurk? It might, though either exercise require an investment of your time. The fact is, the more networks you’re in, the more likely that your… -
Some Social Tools You Should Know About
12 Jan 2012 | 10:55 amThanks to the folks at imediaconnection, I give you 15 social tools you should know about Friend or Follow tells users whom they’re not following on Twitter. Conversocial.com helps users manage customer service at scale on Facebook and Twitter. Conversocial enables workflow for multi-person teams to tackle the consumer communication for large brands. NutshellMail users social network updates so they don’t have to login and check. Nice! UserVoice creates engaging survey forms on Facebook and other sites to solicit feedback from fans and visitors. MemoLane is a “virtual… -
How Do Organizations Get Better? Reward Simple Behavior
10 Jan 2012 | 1:40 pmI coach. I’ve coached for a number of years spanning every sport from basketball to baseball and I have to say with utmost confidence that most of my teams have had winning records and most of my players have learned something and have had fun along the way. But…There are always those teams and those players that either don’t get it, didn’t get it, or don’t want to get it. “It” being the magic that is winning, learning, growing and having fun. Success. It happens in sports. It also happens in the business world. I for one love sports and business…
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The Engaging Brand
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What is your resistance?
27 Jan 2012 | 2:21 pmSo often I work with businesses that almost fearful of taking the next step, who are frightened of failure or even fearful of success. I am always reminded of a story which Dad used to tell me Coach: What stops you noticing all the opportunities around you? Electrician: Fear of failure Coach: What would you like instead? Electrician: Confidence Coach: What stops you feeling confident? Electrician: Fear of failure Coach: What would you like instead? Electrician: Confidence Coach: Notice the loop? Now can I ask you - do you really want to change? Electrician: Yes I want to. I want… -
Why Social Media is a Load of Pollacks!
26 Jan 2012 | 11:46 am"I let the painting live" The words of Jackson Pollock and when you think about it, so relevant to the way we see social media today. Just like Pollock, when we are producing, curating, commenting on social media we are the vehicle for our personality....our values... In fact one could say "I let the ideas live" Why does social media frighten some people or even not work for some companies? If you are going to let your ideas live then you have to Create ideas time, create thinking time....haven't the time people say, I say ideas are the revenue generators! Have a strong sense of who you are… -
Human beings are weird
25 Jan 2012 | 12:12 pmI have now gained true insight after over 20 years in business. Human beings are weird! Social media is a wonderful example. We get the chance to converse with our consumers and then decide we don't have time, we get the chance to show our personality and yet produce generic messages, we get the chance to listen, yet we still prefer to tell! Questions we need to ask ourselves are:- What are we ignoring as an opportunity? What are we railling against...not for innovation but because we are humans? How can we turn this human reaction into a positive? I came across the following about Time… -
B2B - 4 Important SEO Tips
24 Jan 2012 | 11:40 amIf your business provides services to other businesses--perhaps you offer rapid prototyping or human resources services--then the way you market your company will be different from business to consumer (B2C) companies. These differences even extend to your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, taking basic SEO strategies and refining them to better suit your needs. To get to that point, though, you have to have a firm grasp of the basics. Following that, you must clearly define your goals. If you don't know where you're trying to go, you'll never get there. Most SEO campaigns are aimed… -
Show 369 - What is your business genome?
23 Jan 2012 | 12:20 pmShow 369 of The Engaging Brand business and marketing podcast is heretalking about social media, leadership and marketing and sponsored today by MozyPro Online Backup: Simple, Automatic & Secure Backup - for special offer try today! Andrea Kates joins Anna Farmery to discuss how to discover and exploit your business genome. Andrea is the founder of the Business Genome® project and author of the bestselling business innovation book, Find Your Next. (You can take a diagnostic test here) Why you should be finding your next...rather than looking at the past, in business What is the…
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Going Social Now
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Two steps forward, One step back
11 Jan 2012 | 5:36 amWorking with very large brands in large organizations means not knowing whether you're taking two steps forward, one step back or one step forward and two steps back in any given moment. We all like to say that there's light at the end of the tunnel but working within a marketing organization versus in an agency, the tunnel is much longer and sometimes the light can seem much further away. You're thinking about how decisions you'll make today will effect your brand three or four years hence.Yes, we absolutely live in a real-time world and we have to be hyper-quick. But at the same time… -
TV Ads' New Digital Role, HBR Piece
12 Nov 2011 | 3:38 pmTelevision advertising has undergone significant changes in the last 30 years. However, it is arguably on the verge of its greatest changes ever. From where I sit as the Global Head of Digital at PepsiCo Beverages, charged with navigating our brand's foray into the digital world, I see three big changes:The value we put on an advertisement will change as we seek to account for engagement metrics in the pricing.The narrative arch will change as we think of the advertisement as a trailer versus the whole story.Location-aware technologies will force a greater degree of engagement on a format… -
Physio-Digital + Cause + Shopper Marketing
27 Oct 2011 | 10:29 pmProbably one of the most exciting parts of working at PepsiCo Beverages is in seeing the physical and digital worlds come together especially as the whole cause marketing space gets more directly integrated with brand marketing. This PepsiCo 7-Eleven program is a perfect example of that and one that I find to be awesome. For every 20 oz. Pepsi product bought from 7-Eleven, we will donate five cents to the good cause. If the person also checks in using Facebook Places, we will double that donation. Feeding America provides emergency food assistance to those who are food insecure. Its network… -
A Love Letter from Brand Marketers to Silicon Valley (republished from Ad Age)
26 Oct 2011 | 8:40 pmFor too long, the digital industry has looked at brands like Pepsi simply as a monetization strategy. What's worse is that sometimes our digital friends view us as being uninformed members of the digital ecosystem - something akin to prey. Not only is that perception misinformed, its going to start impacting the bottom-line of many companies in the digital ecosystem.On the brand side, marketers cannot afford to play that role anymore. We need to show a much stronger return on all our marketing investments just as we recognize that traditional forms of marketing (ie banner ads) aren't as… -
Marketing in Steve Jobs own words. From 1997
7 Oct 2011 | 10:49 pmEnough said. Via Ad Age.
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Brass Tack Thinking
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The Great Irony of Social Velocity
26 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amI had a brilliant conversation with Justin Kozuch last evening on Twitter. If you don’t know Justin, you should. Smart, introspective, determined to find more in all of this, just like I am. I really like talking with him because he’s always looking more closely at something, which is a rare and wonderful quality in humans and it delights me when I find it. We were talking about feeling the need to “push the envelope” more in social conversations. I’ve even said this myself, many times, about needing to step into more uncomfortable territory. But as we were… -
The Power of Slow Thinking
21 Jan 2012 | 4:29 pmI had a bit of an epiphany this last year. Contentious discussions can be stressful for the best of us. Some people are formally schooled in the art of debate, and I am not one of them, so often I blamed my discomfort in confrontation or extended debate on the fact that I really wasn’t sure how to do it properly. Even watching debates online between other people makes me cringe. (At some point I realized that it was more because those ended up being mud-slinging, juvenile name calling fests more often than actual discussions or intelligent debates about valuable topics. But I digress.)… -
Take Back Your Attention
16 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amThe amount of attention we have to give is finite. The receipt of attention is earned, both initially to capture it, and continually to keep it. No one is entitled to it, ever. The online experience you immerse yourself in is, to a large degree, under your control. You can give your attention easily with a click, and add information to the stream you take in. But never forget that you can remove it as easily, and sometimes you absolutely should. I’m not a fan of the piling-on, lynch mob tactics that seem to be doled out as routine punishment for online misbehavior. I’m also not…
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NTEN
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Member Round Up: Working Together!
27 Jan 2012 | 3:02 pmFlickr:.reid.I’d like to start off this week’s member news by congratulating my colleague, Annaliese Hoehling. Many of you know Annaliese as a great resource for any questions regarding all aspects of NTEN’s resources and nonprofit technology in general. Last year she changed her focus at NTEN to became our Research and Publications Director, and she’s already receiving huge honors for her work. Stratton Publishing named her their “Publishing Trendsetter of the Year” for her management of the NTEN:Change Journal!I’d also like to thank the NTEN:Change Journal’s editoral… -
Last Chance: Advanced Social Media Decision-Maker's Toolkit Starts January 31st
27 Jan 2012 | 12:51 pmThere are still a few seats left for the "Advanced Social Media Decision-Maker's Toolkit". It starts January 31st, but there's still time to: > Learn more and register today. This class is for you if you're ready to step beyond the basics. Over the course of 5 trainings, we'll delve into advanced social media strategy and discuss how to use your social media for branding, deeper engagement, and integrated campaigns. We'll also explore how to measure your social media impact – and walk you through creating a social media policy, step by step. Series Sessions Include: January 31 - Branding… -
Sadly, This Version of 'Put a Ring on It' Isn't as Good
26 Jan 2012 | 5:48 pmThere are five weeks left in our quest to raise $10,000 to send 50 nonprofits to the 2012 Nonprofit Technology Conference in San Francisco this April. We're almost a quarter of the way there! At NTEN headquarters, we're doing everything WE can think of to raise that money. All I can say is, it's a good thing we've got you to help out! Our bake sale was crumb-y (get it?), mining for bitcoin took too long, and we struck out at our bowl-a-thon. This week, I tried my hand at the age-old art of busking. Let's just say that it wasn't my musical talent people were after. See how I fared, and… -
Register for IT Roadmap: Free One-day Tech Event in Chicago
26 Jan 2012 | 1:54 pmNTEN is excited to annouce the return of IT Roadmap to Chicago on Wednesday, March 21, 2012. IT Roadmap is a regional one-day technology event that features a conference program and an exposition hall with leading technology providers. >>Register for Free Today! This one day conference and expo presents some of technology's most-followed analysts and innovative solution providers, all focused entirely on building the roadmap you need in crucial areas of enterprise IT. >> Learn more! New sessions for 2012 include: Unified Communications and VOIP: the Road Ahead Mobility… -
Advanced Segmentation Techniques: What You Say Is as Important as Who You Say It To
25 Jan 2012 | 6:38 pmTherese Grohman Director of Marketing Event 360 Knowing who you're talking to is only half the battle. What you say to your supporters and how you approach them is equally important.
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PsyBlog
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Powerful People Feel Taller Than They Really Are
24 Jan 2012 | 11:05 amExperiment demonstrates how a powerful feeling feeds back into self-perception of height. Language can reveal all kinds of truths about our psychology. Take these expressions: He's the big man on this project. We look up to her. Lady Gaga is huge. He puts her on a pedestal. It's not hard to see the strong association here between size and power that's embedded in the way we talk about the relations between people. The reason why is almost too obvious to bother stating: larger people quite often do have more power. As children our parents, teachers and all our authority figures are taller than… -
Why Stories Sell: Transportation Leads to Persuasion
18 Jan 2012 | 12:10 pmPsychological research on persuasion suggests that stories which transport people are more likely to be persuasive. Marketers have known for years that stories are a powerful tool for persuading people. That's partly because stories (unlike statistics) are easy to understand. That's why politicians try to persuade us by telling stories about their vision of the world. They do spout statistics as well, but normally only in support of some kind of grand narrative. We instinctively understand that people resist being told what to do, but will respond to the moral of a story. So we try to… -
The Amazing Power of Regret to Shape Our Future
12 Jan 2012 | 10:41 amWhy people are reluctant to exchange lottery tickets, but will happily exchange pens. Regret might not make a list of the most powerful emotions. It would probably include things like anger, happiness, jealousy, sadness and especially for us English, embarrassment. We tend to think of regret as essentially a backward-looking emotion. We regret things in the past, like not trying hard enough in school, how we treated a friend or the things we said to our partner in the heat of an argument. In this sense you might argue that it's useless: why regret something you can't change? But regret isn't… -
Does The Weather Affect Your Mood?
5 Jan 2012 | 8:25 amDo grey skies make you blue or is it summer that gets your goat? Here in the UK the weather feels depressing. We're in the middle of winter in the northern hemisphere and it's cold and we're being battered by gales and torrential rain. The sun, even when it does show its face, is setting at 4pm. It's no wonder people in the street look fed up. But according to most of the research on the connection between weather and mood, they shouldn't be. I've covered these highly counter-intuitive findings before and the title of that article sums it up: Weather Has Little Effect on Mood. When you tell… -
Why Do People Yawn?
3 Jan 2012 | 8:18 amCould yawning be all about cooling down the brain? Err, don't people yawn because they're bored and/or tired? Yes, it's true people do yawn more at bedtime or after they've woken up and they do yawn when they're bored (people even yawn in their sleep). But yawning isn't that simple. If it was, how could you explain that some paratroopers yawn before their first jump, as do some violinists before they go on stage and Olympic athletes before their event (Provine, 2005). These are hardly situations in which people are likely to be bored. Many people believe that yawning gets more oxygen into…
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Usability Counts
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Roi Carthy: It’s Not All About the UX. Except It’s All About the UX.
26 Jan 2012 | 10:47 amA VC that in my opinion gets it right: Code cannot come before UX. Design the experience before you code it. Art takes time and has to be at the core of your product/service. If you don’t have a designer as one of your first three team members, well, in my humble opinion, you’re already in trouble. To illustrate, here are some details I assess when every new venture comes my way: Email structure, word choice, the signature, the amount of deck slides, the weight of the presentation, whether the dollar sign is placed before or after the amount, the choice of stock photography, whether MS… -
Fast Company: Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch
25 Jan 2012 | 10:01 amA must read: Culture is a balanced blend of human psychology, attitudes, actions, and beliefs that combined create either pleasure or pain, serious momentum or miserable stagnation. A strong culture flourishes with a clear set of values and norms that actively guide the way a company operates. Employees are actively and passionately engaged in the business, operating from a sense of confidence and empowerment rather than navigating their days through miserably extensive procedures and mind-numbing bureaucracy. Performance-oriented cultures possess statistically better financial growth, with… -
UXmatters: How Important Are UX Degrees and Certifications?
23 Jan 2012 | 9:48 amGreat post. It has answers from some of the leading UX practitioners, some of whom don’t have a degree. “A degree or a certificate isn’t going to magically get you respect, make you employable, get you on the speaker circuit, cure acne, or make you more attractive to the love of your life. A degree is not going to instantly improve your UX skills. Only lots and lots of practice can do that. All of the employers of UX professionals that I know—myself included—are looking for experience first and above all. However, that doesn’t mean a degree is useless.” … “Of… -
Are You a San Francisco UX Designer on Twitter?
21 Jan 2012 | 3:49 pmPing me. I’m revamping my Twitter lists, and want to add you to one. You can find me at @usabilitycounts. -
Job Posting: Senior Interactive Designer — New York, New York
20 Jan 2012 | 9:55 amHere’s a job posting that a friend contacted me about (Lingo and Actionscript probably aren’t strict requirements). Ping me if you’re interested. Also, ping me if you’re a visual designer or user experience designer in Los Angeles, San Francisco or New York. Recruiter friends of mine have 10 jobs open. Send me an email at pat@usabilitycounts.com. The Senior Interactive Designer is responsible for developing impactful design options and user interfaces in multiple platforms, including the development of prototypes, selling these ideas internally and to clients, and…
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Blonde 2.0's Blog
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Stop SOPA! Support SOBA!
19 Jan 2012 | 8:53 amWith the Internet revolt over SOPA and PIPA in full swing, we at Blonde 2.0 could not stand idly by and let this critical moment in the history of the Internet pass with adding our voice to those defending free expression on the web. We have decided to take action, and to that end we are responding to SOPA and PIPA with a proposed legislative initiative of our own: the Stop Online Boredom Act (SOBA). This is a new law that calls for harsh punishment for those responsible for mindless, boring content that is posted to the Internet. After all, if SOPA passes, everyone will be so terrified of… -
The Golden Age of Gaming Addiction
17 Jan 2012 | 7:34 amHow I feel about being a gamer in our society up until the past year can be summed up in 2 words: It sucks. I started out gaming at the early age of 5, but soon enough most of my friends gamed in one form or another, it’s the most regular thing in the world, right? A kid playing around with videogames, back then it felt like the most natural thing in the world, but even then I felt like something was amiss. I was always more dedicated, more emotional and more addicted (some would say) to gaming. My gaming addiction became clear around 11th grade. It was obvious that gaming… -
A Wedding – Social Media Style
5 Jan 2012 | 9:54 amIn the time that I have been working in social media, I have seen how social media has been used to help launch a company, promote a product or even to help organize a protest. Last week I saw how social media directly impacted an event in my life by making the world that much smaller. This past Wednesday, I was lucky enough to marry the most incredible woman in the world, okay so you might think that I am a little biased but the facts are the facts! So a little background is that I come from Johannesburg, South Africa and she is from London in the UK so we have family and friends… -
Spend New Year’s Eve Partying with Your Facebook Buddies from Around the World on .Friends
29 Dec 2011 | 10:55 amThis post was originally posted on socialmedia.biz on December 28th. You and your friends from all over the world walk into a bar on New Year’s Eve. The music is great, the bartender is friendly, and you and all your friends are dressed up in your favorite outfits. Your friend from London decides to pick a different song from the jukebox, your friend from Brazil decides to listen to the band instead, while the buddy you just met from Istanbul decides to play a cool YouTube video on the wall of the bar. You head out to the dance floor, whip out some amazing dance moves that are… -
Take A Trip Down Memory Lane With Facebook Timeline
21 Dec 2011 | 11:09 amPost written by Kevin Swaine I am not ashamed to say that I am, and always have been fascinated by time travel. Be it Doc Brown’s Delorean or the Doctor’s TARDIS, anything to do with time travel has me jumping up and down for more. You can imagine my joy when Facebook rolled out the Timeline option. One of the great things about working in a new media firm is that we found out about the Facebook Timeline a few months ago and I have been delving into it for quite some time now. It is no secret that we all live on Facebook nowadays. We have all seen and heard the statistics: if Facebook was…
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Media Culpa
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Edelman Trust Barometer 2012 says trust in social media is up
23 Jan 2012 | 12:24 pmThe latest installement of the Edelman Trust Barometer has now been published and as usual, it is interesting reading. This year, there have been some dramatic changes in the views of the public in most of the countries surveyed. Trust in government, business and NGO’s is declining while trust in media is rising. Trust in government shows an exceptionally sharp drop in the 2012 Barometer, after rising steadily for four years. In Sweden (“informed public”), trust in government is quite stable, dropping only from 64% to 62%, making Sweden the market with the fourth highest… -
Instagram now growing faster than Flickr
19 Jan 2012 | 4:28 amThree days ago I took a look at how many new photos users added on Instagram each day. By looking at the ID numbers of the photos I calculated that Instagram had now reached beyond 500 million photos and that about 4.5 million new photos were uploaded per day. Then I found a blog post from Instagram that summarized last year and in the post it says that at the end of 2011, 400 million photos had been shared in total on Instagram. This confirms that my calculations were pretty accurate (the 400 millionth photo was uploaded on Dec 7, 2011). If we look at the volume of photos during January… -
Instagram may reach 1 billion photos in April
16 Jan 2012 | 1:12 pmInstagram, one of my favourite apps, is growing like crazy. In September last year, I noted that users had uploaded 200 million photos, which meant that the growth rate in August was about 50 million photos per month. Now, it seems that users are adding the same number in just 11 days. According to my calculations, Instagram passed 500 million photos on Jan 2, 2012 and 550 million on Jan 13. That means that 4.5 million photos are uploaded each day to Instagram and at that speed 1 billion photos will be reached about April 20, or possibly sooner if the service continues to add new users. If… -
Your Facebook page is a litmus test of your brand’s health
9 Jan 2012 | 10:48 amSince I started blogging in early 2004, I’ve heard over and over again how brands have lost control of their reputation. Power has shifted away from brands and towards customers, employees and other individuals. With new publishing platforms, ordinary citizens have gotten the possibility to voice their opinions and influence businesses and organizations trough social media. Nowhere is this more evident today than on brand pages on Facebook. Due to the sheer volume of individuals that are present on Facebook, any people that have a bone to pick with a brand will almost automatically… -
How to create a Twitter background image from your Instagram photos
4 Jan 2012 | 6:57 amYesterday I posted my 200th photo on the photo sharing app Instagram. I have become slightly addicted to Instagram and enjoy sharing photos that I adjust with different photo filters, as well as looking at the amazing images published by other users. Now, there’s an easy way to create a background image for your Twitter account, either from your own Instagram photos, or from other people’s photos. Just go to InstaBG.com and authorize the app. Then you can create an image from your own feed, from another user’s ID, a category or a tag. You can choose size of the photos, order…
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Regular Geek
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Will Anyone Notice The New Windows Phone?
23 Jan 2012 | 7:39 amThis is a guest post from Jane Smith. One of the biggest questions for the tech industry in 2012 is the fate of the Windows-powered smartphones produced by Nokia, one of the latest entries into the ever-diversifying smartphone field. I say the fate of the Nokia Windows Phones is uncertain because most American consumers have given their phones a big “meh” thus far. To put things in perspective, let me give you an idea of how little pull the Nokia Windows Phone currently has in the U.S. smartphone market. Right now you can get a Nokia Lumia 710 Windows Phone at a Wal-Mart for free. -
Is The Web Really Just Links Or Is It Evolving?
8 Jan 2012 | 8:02 amLately, Dave Winer has been doing a lot of thinking. Dave has been around for a while, so when he starts thinking about interesting questions, we should all be listening. However, I am not saying that we should be agreeing with him, just reading and forming opinions. First, Dave complains about mobile apps and how they are not what the web is about: And all this business about apps is a real spoiler for suspension of disbelief. I’m clicking a link, expecting to learn more about what I was reading (that was certainly the author’s intent) but instead I get an ad for an app. If I… -
Why Should You Become A Software Engineer
1 Jan 2012 | 7:25 amLike any normal blogger, I obsess about my blog. How much traffic am I getting? Where is the traffic coming from? What search terms are leading people here? The search terms are most interesting when it comes to thinking about new content to write. Today, I am writing about a question I saw in the search terms, why should you become a software engineer? First, some background about my own journey into software development. When I went to college, my plan was to become a civil engineer. I took two semesters of physics and realized that the plan was not going to work. I found out that I really… -
A Look Back And A Look Ahead At 2012
24 Dec 2011 | 6:52 amAs the year comes to a close, everyone is posting predictions about the new year as well as reviewing their predictions from the prior year. Here at Regular Geek, I would like to look at the trends to determine what changed things and what trends we should watch in the coming year, not as predictions but more as an idea of things to look for. Last year, I wrote about the following trends, with some new comments in italics. Mobile Computing: People thought mobile computing was big with the advent of smartphones. With the addition of tablets like the iPad, mobile computing got a big screen to… -
What Happened To The 9 Programming Languages To Watch in 2011
19 Dec 2011 | 6:00 amLast year, I wrote a post entitled 9 Programming Languages To Watch In 2011. Now that 2011 is basically over, let’s see what happened to these languages over the course of the year. As a reminder, these languages were selected because I expected to see larger than average movement, either up or down. So, there is no Java, Ruby, Python or Objective-C. There are no other typically mainstream languages in this list. First, here are the comments I had on each language: Lua – The language is seeing some good activity on GitHub and StackOverflow. It has a solid Tiobe ranking, but more…
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Metrica
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Charity buzz – Gorkana’s Annual Charity Barometer
27 Jan 2012 | 6:36 amGorkana Group’s Annual Charity Barometer has just been published showing what an interesting year 2011 was! Sophie Hudson’s great piece in Third Sector highlights some key takeaways from the year. With over 620,000 press, broadcast and online pieces of coverage analysed The Red Cross came out top with the highest volume of coverage for the entire year with a whopping 38,590 pieces. Major world events helped to drive these volumes with news in March of the organisation withdrawing its workers from Benghazi, Libya over concerns of their safety due to the ongoing civil unrest. … -
The Friday PR and Social Media Cheat Sheet #021
27 Jan 2012 | 5:00 amIf you work in PR and are interested in the latest thinking on media monitoring, PR planning, media analysis and social media measurement, these are the must read stories from the last week. This week’s top PR and social media picks: Studies from the US and UK on the prospects for the PR industry confirmed what we already knew: us Brits are more pessimistic. More than a third of firms surveyed by the CPRF in the US anticipated higher budgets for 2012, buoyed by increased staff numbers and improved revenues. Across the pond, the PRCA‘S quarterly trends barometer reported that economic… -
The Friday PR and Social Media Cheat Sheet #020
20 Jan 2012 | 6:40 amIf you work in PR and are interested in the latest thinking on media monitoring, PR planning, media analysis and social media measurement, these are the must read stories from the last week. This week’s top PR and social media picks: New meme alert! 60 Completely Unusable Stock Photos (see below). A Wikipedia blackout raised awareness for the anti-SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) campaign. Cue unprecedented levels of ‘my dog ate my homework’. Find out how the internet works and how SOPA would ‘break it’. However, Mashable offered 12 Wikipedia alternatives for those… -
The Friday PR and Social Media Cheat Sheet #019
13 Jan 2012 | 5:47 amIf you work in PR and are interested in the latest thinking on media monitoring, PR planning, media analysis and social media measurement, these are the must read stories from the last week. This week’s top PR and social media picks: Gorkana hosted a breakfast with niche Financial Times offshoot FT Trading Room. Editor Jeremy Grant offers his market structure predictions for 2012 and his top tip for pitching PR stories below. As always there will be a full write-up up and video of the event on Gorkana PR next week. Can’t see the video? Click here. Is Facebook doomed to die? NYC… -
The Friday PR and Social Media Cheat Sheet #018
6 Jan 2012 | 5:59 amSnap you out of the New Year lull with the latest thinking on media monitoring, PR planning, media analysis and social media measurement. Here is this week’s Friday PR and Social Media Cheat Sheet! This week’s top PR and social media picks Apple’s head of design Jonathan Ive was awarded a knighthood in the New Years Honours list. Sir Jonathon (KBE) was instrumental in the design of the iPod, iPad and iPhone. Three trends from 2011 that will reshape digital news in 2012. The Guardian argued that users that choose their own news are less well read. ? Nike finally opened a…
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Mizz Information
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Why Having Staff Be Facebook Emissaries Is a Bad Idea
27 Jan 2012 | 11:24 amLately I've been seeing social media pros suggesting that, in light of recent changes to Facebook's algorithm, organizations start focusing less on Facebook Pages and more on having staff members use their own Facebook profiles to promote the organization's agenda. Call me cranky, but I think this is a terrible idea. The rationale behind this suggestion is that, as Facebook changed its news feed algorithm last fall, admins began to notice that posts from pages were appearing in fans news feeds less frequently than posts from individuals to whom people were subscribed. What does that mean,… -
Community Manager Appreciation Day
23 Jan 2012 | 10:56 amPhoto by elkokoparrilla, on Flickr Unless you are a community manager (and maybe not even then) you probably don't know that today is Community Manager Appreciation Day (CMAD). Well, guess what? It is! Two years ago Jeremiah Owyang suggested that the fourth Monday of January be a day to "take the time to pause, recognize, and celebrate the efforts community managers around the world to improve customer experiences." Three and a half years into my career as a community/social media manager, I can attest to the fact that it's a demanding, exhilarating, exciting, and life-encompassing job. It's… -
Movie Recap 2011
15 Jan 2012 | 1:59 pmPhoto by ToastyKen (I originally posted this on my other blog but am reposting here) It's that time of year again...time for my movie recap. In case you don't know this about me, I'm obsessed with going to movies. Not watching movies at home--too many distractions. But going to the movie theater. In 2008 I saw 50 movies. In 2009, I saw 53. Last year I made it to 57. So my number to beat this year was 57. Did I make it? Of course I did! This year's total? 64 movies. Gulp. Next year is going to be a bitch having to top that. Let me just preface this by saying that if you didn't go to a… -
I Will Stop the World From Ending in 2012
7 Jan 2012 | 10:01 amOk, sike, but I couldn't resist that headline, because the subject of the world ending in 2012 has been a hotly debated subject in my house for the past three or more years, ever since my daughter (now 15) saw the trailer for the movie 2012 on YouTube and became obsessed and freaked out. Did I mention she's a little OCD? All I know is that the world BETTER NOT end in December, or I'm going to have hell to pay for assuring her, time and time again, that she has nothing to worry about. So enough beating around the bush--I was really, really hoping to hide from this meme about what I'm going to… -
If This is What Being an A-List Blogger is, I'm Happy to be on the D List
2 Jan 2012 | 11:53 amI swore I wouldn't write about this and send traffic to her blog, because that's the last thing I want to do. But I can't stop thinking about it and feel stupid for being so affected by something written by a person I don't even know--or at least barely know (I did meet her once). I'm sure people will accuse me of linkbaiting, but honestly I don't care--the last thing I feel like is getting into a debate about whether or not it's ok to post pictures of practically your genitals (and I'm not kidding, so be forewarned before clicking that link) on what's supposed to be a business blog. Or…
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THE BLOGGER'S BULLETIN
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How to Choose Your Best Keywords Without a Search Tool
23 Jan 2012 | 10:08 amWhen you begin working on an online marketing campaign, you will immediately recognize the importance of using the right keywords to boost your content’s search engine optimization. Choosing the wrong keywords can lead to lackluster results for your website. So how do you find the ideal keywords for your business? Many people turn to online keyword search tools for help. These can be very helpful, however, there are a few things that you need to do before turning to one of these suggestion tools for your keyword research. Describe your business in simplified terms. When you sit down to… -
Work Motivation Tips to Help You Succeed
29 Dec 2011 | 3:47 pmIn order to succeed and be happy in our work lives as well as our personal lives, it is important to get motivated and stay motivated. Typically, being happy in one life will lead to happiness in the other. For some, though, it is hard to maintain the right balance needed to achieve this goal. There are people who view their work as a means of escape from discontent at home. Others are so miserable at work that home is seen as their refuge. This kind of imbalance can have a negative effect on both your home life and work life. This is why it is important to strike the perfect balance of… -
The Silver Linings of Hopeless Situations
29 Dec 2011 | 3:09 pmThere is a saying that you have probably heard or said that goes: For every cloud, there is a silver lining. It can be hard to give this quote much credence, however, when your own personal dark cloud is hovering above you, pouring cold rain down your back. We have all faced hopeless situations in our lives, whether it’s a failing marriage, a failing business, a failing poker hand, or countless other failures. Each unique situation seems dire, and the last thing you are willing to believe is that on the other side, there is a silver lining. It is hard for us to look at these situations in a… -
Methods to Finding the Source of Your Motivation
14 Dec 2011 | 11:28 amWe all suffer from a lack of motivation from time to time. Whether it is a project that needs to be done for work, a chore to do at home, or a personal goal that needs to be accomplished, it takes a boost of motivation to get your started on the path to completion. Without the proper motivation, success cannot be achieved in any task. Every person is different, so finding the source of inspiration is different for all of us. Once you know how to get yourself motivated, you can accomplish the things that need to be done. Visualizing your achievement can be a great way to motivate yourself. If… -
Online Content: How to Beat Your Competitors with SEO Content
18 Nov 2011 | 2:53 pmNo matter what type of business you have, you are going to have competition. Even more so when you have an online business. You might think you have the edge, but there will always be others out there looking to take the top spot in the industry. In order to take your place at the top of the heap- and stay there- you need to know what it takes to compete. When you start producing online content to support your business, it is important to have a strong understanding of search engine optimization. You also need to know who your competition is so that you can effectively compete. When you have…
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SiteFox
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Politics, Small Businesses, and You…
24 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amWe don’t often talk about politics here, but we came across this awesome infographic that is definitely useful for all small business owners. If you’re not sure who you’re voting for this year, check out the infographic below to see how each candidate stands on small business issues. I’m sure it will change and hopefully we’ll get some updates. In the mean time check it out and let me know what you think. How much of an impact does the candidate’s stance on small business issues impact your choice? Credit: FastUpFront – Business Loans Made Easy. -
The Ultimate Small Business Marketing Guide [Free Download]
9 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amLet’s face it. Online marketing is difficult to understand and even harder to execute successfully. There’s so much talk about using Facebook and Twitter or having a conversation with your customers. How are you, a small business owner, supposed to find the time to learn all the in’s and out’s of online marketing? That’s why we put together the SiteFox Marketing Guide. It’s a 99-page guide that explains exactly what you need to know about marketing your business online. It also includes a set of action plans to help you execute a successful online marketing… -
Definitive Guide to Word of Mouth Marketing
22 Dec 2011 | 11:16 amThink back to a time you had a problem you needed solved. How’d you find the business you’re using now? Most likely you did one of two things: searched a business directory (maybe online) OR you asked a friend for a recommendation. Having people recommend your business is the basis of word of mouth marketing. It’s doing something so memorable that people talk about you; it’s tied to customer service, viral marketing, and just being a business people like working with. How are you maximizing your word of mouth marketing? What are you doing to make sure people talk about… -
Our Marketing Tracking Document [Free Download]
20 Dec 2011 | 1:00 amWhen we first started marketing SiteFox, we realized that it wasn’t all about big marketing campaigns or messaging programs. We quickly learned that it was really about maximizing our returns from each channel. One of the things we did early on was setup a document to track each channel and gauge its efficiency for registering new clients. The efficiency is based off a number we derived after deciding on how much of our revenue we wanted to invest in marketing. We’ve been using the spreadsheet for a while now and it’s really helped us strategically invest money in ways that… -
Dos and Don’ts for Your Small Business Newsletter
15 Dec 2011 | 6:00 amAlthough social media gets all the buzz, email marketing still continues to be an extremely lucrative marketing channel. Businesses are continuing to grow their email lists and connecting with consumers through their newsletters. Making sure you’re creating an active newsletter list directly effects your revenue from your emails. Following a few core rules will make sure you get the most from your list and keep your subscribers happy and opening your emails. Do: Use a Professional Template The first tip is to use a professional template. You’ll notice that a lot of people use the plain…
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Weber Media Partners | Impressions Through Media
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Pinterest: The Power of Images
27 Jan 2012 | 11:47 amOver the past few years, there have been a mind-boggling number of technology innovations. So many, that it has our heads spinning. As for social networks this past year, the launch of Google+ was big. But, by all reports, the next big thing is Pinterest. Pinterest has over 4 million registered users as of this week and is growing rapidly. 1.5 million of the predominately female audience visit Pinterest every day – spending 14 minutes on the site on average. Alexa.com reports “Pinterest.com is ranked #133 in the world according to the three-month Alexa traffic rankings… The… -
The SOPA Debate
13 Jan 2012 | 10:59 amOn the surface, Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP (PIPA) sounds like a good idea – to punish those who pirate intellectual property. As an writer and artist, I am all too aware of the dangers of posting your work and then finding it elsewhere, without your permission. Imagine the cost implications for movie studios, record labels, and of course the individual who has few resources to go after the culprit. The idea behind this bill, according to those who have followed the debate, was sound. The result, however, has been described as a threat to free speech, web-related… -
The Pluses and Minuses of Google+ Pages
28 Nov 2011 | 12:08 pmGoogle+ business pages went public on November 7, and they are already making an impact on the social media landscape. The number of visitors to Google’s latest social media venture is up 25% this month, compared to October. Much of this traffic is a result of organizations looking to stake their claim in this new social sphere, even if they are not quite sure how this newest channel will fit into their existing social media plan. We here at Weber Media Partners excitedly dove into Google+ two weeks ago. The hard work came in the days after. This month, we are working on our plan to… -
An Explanation of Recent Facebook Enhancements
28 Sep 2011 | 2:01 pmWhether you use Facebook for personal reasons or as a business tool, you have probably noticed a lot of changes on the site since last Thursday, when founder Mark Zuckerberg unveiled them. (NOTES and WARNING: This is 1 hour and 40 minutes long. Fast forward to minute 7.5 if you want to avoid the stand up comedian pretending to be Zuckerberg). There has been an uproar from some users, but there always is. Change is hard for some, but it is inevitable, especially if Facebook wants to remain in the top spot as a social networking destination. User complaints abound. “Too cluttered and… -
The Real Cost of Social Media Info Graphic
15 Aug 2011 | 12:54 pmAt Weber Media Partners, we love info graphics. This one is so interesting we are going to post it even thought it is enormous. Thank you to Focus.com for putting this together.
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Community Building
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How independent is your online community?
19 Jan 2012 | 3:37 pmA great community manager can build a great online community. That being said, a community shouldn’t be reliant on one person for its success. Yes, it needs a leader – but it shouldn’t depend on that leader for its daily survival. Here’s a quick and easy way you can determine just how independent your community is – find your community’s total post count, and figure out how many of those posts were made by you. When you’re building a new community from scratch, it will be largely reliant on its manager – you need to encourage the development of… -
Don’t draw attention to your community’s weaknesses
11 Jan 2012 | 6:40 pmMovie-Vault does a great job at highlighting its weaknesses. Take a look at the homepage; as of Wednesday January 11th, in the left column we see 67 RSS readers and 55 Twitter followers. In the articles section, we are repeatedly reminded that nobody is commenting on the articles -there are four articles all with a large button proclaiming ’0 Comments’ (apart from one article lucky enough to attract the attention of a spammer). Furthermore, on every article we have the opportunity to be the first to ‘Like’ the content on Facebook. Not all online communities have the… -
Online communities should highlight quality, not quantity
22 Nov 2011 | 3:33 pmWoot does a great job with its online community. Not only does the community content appear prominently on the homepage, the site highlights what it considers ‘quality posts’ – only posts it deems to be useful, interesting or otherwise valuable to the community make it to the homepage. Click to enlarge Furthermore, when you delve into a product discussion thread, things look a little different. Before you even see the discussion thread, you see the quality posts. Click to enlarge If you scroll down further, you get to the actual discussion thread. In a typical forum… -
Creating a mission statement for your online community
5 Oct 2011 | 5:07 pmIt’s impossible to be a great community manager if the community you manage doesn’t have a mission statement. Without a mission statement, how do you know what kind of culture you’re trying to develop? How do you know what kind of content should be encouraged? How do you know what kind of members you want to attract? A mission statement is critical if you want to build a successful online community. The mission statement will influence your community’s rules and guidelines. It will determine how you grow and it will remind you (and your members) of the… -
Hold your horses, community manager!
17 Aug 2011 | 1:23 pmOne of the most important traits of a good community manager is patience. You need to be patient with members, you need to be patient when encouraging relationship building and you need to be patient waiting for conversations to develop. Unfortunately, patience is rarely seen on the list of desirable skills for a community manager (normally because employers want quick results). Consequently, I come across a large number of online communities where the community manager is effectively running the show. As a community manager, you shouldn’t be at the top of the ‘Top Posters’…
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Danny Brown | Social Media Marketing Blog
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Collaborative Marketing and the Natural Progression to Real Customer Satisfaction
26 Jan 2012 | 2:52 pmI’ve been thinking a lot about collaborative marketing lately, and how we can turn co-existing businesses more into partners and less about missed opportunities. I think there’s a great untapped market for someone that really wants to grab collaborative marketing and run with it. For example – imagine you’re going on a trip. You have to fly to get there, so there are a few processes you need to go through before, during and after: Buying your ticket. Driving to the airport. In-flight activities. Hotel or accommodation when you land. Rental car. These are just the basics – I’m… -
The Only Thing That’s Dead Is Your Crappy “Everything Is Dead” Meme
22 Jan 2012 | 10:06 pmI’m a little tired. Not physically. I could always do with a little more sleep, but then so can everyone. No. I’m more tired about the constant “The End of PR”, “The End of Marketing”, “The End of Print” and “The End of Advertising” missives that seem to be flying about at the minute. I can’t open my email subscriptions without the latest link shouting out “The end of…. Where now for Industry X?”. I’m an avid blog reader and use Alltop regularly to find interesting stories from my industry and beyond. Yet it seems that there’s an “End of…” blog… -
Before We Believe You
19 Jan 2012 | 8:04 pmWe buy products and services every day. Some we need, some we don’t. But we’ve heard good things about them so we buy them. Who have we heard good things from? Our friends. Our family. Our colleagues. People we trust. Why do we trust them? Because they’re not a mystery to us. They don’t wear masks. They don’t hide behind veils. They don’t try and fool us with trickery. They simply are. You’re in business. You have a blog. You have a podcast. You want to be popular. You want people to like you; connect with you; follow you. You want people to trust you. We will. Just don’t wear… -
Hope, Change, Belief – The 12for12k Story and How You Can Be a Part of It
16 Jan 2012 | 11:52 amBack at the end of 2008, I had an idea for doing something through social media to help charities. Thanks to some amazing friends and people like you that supported with your time and donations, that idea turned into a great example of how we can all make change if we really want to. The 12for12k project has raised over $100,000 for various charities to date – an amazing figure, given the “buy-in” was deliberately low, and the project took an enforced absence during most of 2010 and 2011. The reason for its success? You, and the power of the crowd when there’s… -
Introducing Social CRM Insider
13 Jan 2012 | 10:57 amOver at Jugnoo, our goal is to help educate business owners on the social web, and really help them both understand and improve their visibilty on it. Part of our approach is to offer resources that will act as a go-to for news, best practices, tips and awareness for all the various parts that make up today’s business scene. Recently, we launched the first salvo in this in the form of Social CRM Insider. A blog dedicated to the increasingly important area of customer relationship management in the social media space, Social CRM Insider will show why this is such a key part of any…
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Connect - Digital Marketing Expertise from iCrossing
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Google privacy announcement: “will benefit us…I mean users”*
26 Jan 2012 | 9:47 am[*not an actual Google quote] On Tuesday Google announced via its blog that from 1st March, more than 60 of its privacy policies will be helpfully consolidated into one, easy to read document. What a fantastic idea! We all know how sensitive the issue of internet privacy has become and anything that provides transparency in a simple way has to be of great benefit to internet users. But before we shake Google by the hand for doing the honourable thing and distinguishing themselves from privacy flouters like Facebook, let’s investigate what this privacy update actually means…are Google… -
Is Google using gamification to increase engagement on Google+?
23 Jan 2012 | 8:54 amA new game of Google maps will be available for Google+ customers next month. Below is a screenshot of the video called “Play Your World with Google Maps” released by Google a few days ago. It is not a surprise that Google and other large companies such as Nike, McDonalds or eBay amongst others are taking the online gamer community very seriously. Let’s take a look at the numbers: Gamer community stats According to Jane McGonigal, author of the book ‘Reality is broken’ the online gamer community –including console, PC and mobile phone gaming – counts for: More than 4m gamers… -
The BIG Fight – Internet Privacy vs Google Analytics 5
20 Jan 2012 | 6:14 amFollowing the connect post on the content battle by Jeremy Head there is another head-to-head brewing in 2012… With the old Google Analytics (GA) interface being phased out later this month, I take a look at the duel between Internet Privacy and Google Analytics that is likely to be more heated than ever in the coming year. Analysts like myself are preparing to wrestle with reduced data samples and doubts over the reliability of tracking data in Google Analytics. [The purpose of this blog post is to inject an element of humour whilst identifying some of the new GA5 features and… -
Google addresses sites with too many banners
20 Jan 2012 | 5:31 amHave you ever clicked on a search engine result and been presented with a page heavily laden with adverts above the content you are looking for? Well over the coming weeks Google will be rolling out a new algorithm update, the direct target of which will be these pages. The algorithm change is being referred to as a “page layout algorithm” and is in response to complaints that Google has been receiving from its users. It looks as though it will work in a similar manner to the Panda updates that we have seen in previous months. The algorithm will assess the amount of advertising above the… -
Hidden Facebook messages
20 Jan 2012 | 4:15 amIf someone told you that there is a hidden folder of messages waiting for you on the internet, full of elapsed party invites, unclaimed competition prizes, missed connections and even job offers from months ago, would you believe them? Of course not. But this is no scam or hoax. Facebook – that very website you rely on to keep you in touch with friends, family and important messages like these – has been deciding on our behalf which personal messages we are likely to want to see, and which it thinks won’t be of interest to us. The messages we receive notifications for on a daily basis…
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C R U C E S
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Mobile Marketing Class: Day 8 – Guest Lecture by Founders of Forkly
27 Jan 2012 | 4:53 pmLast night we had Martin May & Brady Becker of Forkly come in to guest lecture. Martin & Brady are an excellent example of new business and are on some level, the competition for marketing students. They are technologically enabled, business savvy entrepreneurs. They are the kind of business people that make marketing students want to be able to write code. Martin & Brady also founded one of the first location-based social networks – Brightkite – which is now sadly, defunct. (Not their fault.) Because of their experience with Brightkite and now Forkly, they are… -
Technology kills! (video)
27 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amGreat video highlighting which products will die in the near future because of technology. Change is hard . . . -
How touchscreens work (infographic)
26 Jan 2012 | 6:28 am -
Forkly (video)
25 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amI’m excited to have Martin May & Brady Becker guest lecture in my class tomorrow night. I posted about their new venture back in September and here’s a video outlining @Forkly. -
Mobile Marketing Class: Day 7 – SMS
24 Jan 2012 | 11:11 pmTonight we talked about the SMS marketing. We covered the fundamentals around launching a marketing campaign but I quickly followed those fundamentals up with recommendations that an SMS agency be hired. Someone like Mozes and DOTGO are adept and handling the sheer joy that are the carrier playbooks. For those of you lucky enough to never have suffered this process,the playbooks are a set of rules that each carrier adheres to. They are different between carrier to make things as painful as possible and because of this, a basic campaign can take up to three months to get approved. We then…
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Ben Werdmuller von Elgg
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Die, Hollywood, die!
22 Jan 2012 | 5:23 pmPaul Graham’s Y-Combinator request for startups that will kill Hollywood has opened up a can of exploding radioactive mega-worms – and this time, they’re angry. In the wake of the Internet industry’s fight against SOPA and PIPA, he posed the problem: The main reason we want to fund such startups is not to protect the world from more SOPAs, but because SOPA brought it to our attention that Hollywood is dying. They must be dying if they’re resorting to such tactics. [...] How do you kill the movie and TV industries? Or more precisely (since at this level,… -
Grassroutes: how three students helped save the Internet
19 Jan 2012 | 1:31 amLike many of you, I blacked out my site for the protests against SOPA and PIPA. These are bad laws that describe themselves as being anti-piracy but will hinder business, destroy jobs, undermine the working of the Internet, and – to add insult to injury – won’t stop piracy. Khan Academy has a great overview; my previous post about it is over here. In this post, though, I’m going to rave, because I’m majorly impressed. The major feature of my SOPA blackout page was a simple widget that detected your location, listed the representatives you needed to call to tell… -
Identity is the operating system
15 Jan 2012 | 4:38 pmI’ve got a phone number: +1 (312) 488-9373. Feel free to call or text it. If I’m walking around, you’ll get me on my Samsung Galaxy S II. If I’m in transit (but not driving), you’ll probably get me on my iPad. If I’m at my desk, I’ll answer and take the whole call through my laptop. For you, the experience of contacting me will be exactly the same (give or take some background noise). For me, the experience fits my context: I can make and receive calls and texts on any of my devices. The same is true for email. Consumption works the same way. All my… -
SOPA and PIPA: how lawmakers are out to take my job
12 Jan 2012 | 8:17 pmI joined both the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union today. I also give regularly to the Open Rights Group in the UK. I urge you to do the same. SOPA and PIPA – the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act respectively (PDF links) – are legislative acts that undermine the structure, culture and universality of the Internet. As Stanford Law Review points out, they’re unconstitutional and fundamentally in opposition to the principle of free speech: This not only violates basic principles of due process by depriving persons of property… -
Occupy Facebook: innovation in the era of social protest
29 Dec 2011 | 7:57 pmWired reports that a group involved in the Occupy movement is working on its own decentralized social networking platform: “I don’t want to say we’re making our own Facebook. But, we’re making our own Facebook,” said Ed Knutson, a web and mobile app developer who joined a team of activist-geeks redesigning social networking for the era of global protest. Dave Winer notes that it probably won’t succeed: There is no market for that. Facebook is the Facebook for the 99 percent. The goal should be to make something open and non-monolithic that provides many of the most valuable…
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Suzemuse - Create. Share. Learn. Be Brilliant. Personal Blog of Susan Murphy.
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The Experimentation Experiment
27 Jan 2012 | 6:07 amBack in 1998, I had just graduated from a multimedia production program at Algonquin College. In that 6 month, post-graduate course, we learned all about design and development of interactive CD-ROMs, which was still a great skill in those days. The Internet was just starting to become popular, but nobody really knew where it was going at that point. As a result, we had a grand total of 1 day of HTML training in our program. The moment I had my diploma in hand, I realized that the Web was probably going to be a big deal. I headed to the bookstore and spent what little money I had on a… -
3 Ways to Reduce Online Noise and Get More Done
23 Jan 2012 | 7:40 amThe world is a noisy place, and it’s only getting noisier. If you’re like me, you remember a time when there were only a couple of TV stations (in fact, when I lived in the Arctic as a kid, we only had ONE channel!). You remember a time when you had one telephone, and if it rang, and you weren’t home, it just kept ringing. The caller would just have to call back later. There were no answering machines. If you were on the phone, and someone tried to call you, it didn’t go to voicemail – the caller got a busy signal. Because you were…busy. The mail… -
You Gotta Speak Up – Finding Your Voice in a Sea of Information
19 Jan 2012 | 8:21 amOkay class. First thing I want you to do is watch this video of Marlon Brando. For real. Then come back. Great stuff, eh? That interview was taped in 1973. Brando admits to being a little “long in the tooth”, but that doesn’t stop him. He wasn’t one to give many interviews, but when he did, gosh, he gave great ones. My husband Greg sent me this last night, and I watched it three or four times. I couldn’t get over the incredible insight Brando had. Remember, this was a good 20 years before the Internet, and about 30 years before social media started to take hold. -
Announcing “Just Hit Publish” – My New e-Book
16 Jan 2012 | 5:05 amThe thing I hear most from my students, clients and online friends is that they don’t know where to start when it comes to creating online content. They are swimming in a sea of information, and consuming as much as they can, but when it comes to creating, they fall short. They just never quite get around to starting their blog because they think they have nothing interesting to say. They want to post a video, but aren’t sure where to start, and feel shy about talking on camera. They think podcasting is a great fit for their communication style – but the weeks and months go… -
Re-creating Time
12 Jan 2012 | 4:33 pmHow busy are you? No really…how busy ARE you? If you’re like most people, you’re so busy you barely have time to think. You feel like you’re always playing catch up, and you never quite get there. Yep. Me too. I like to be busy more than just about anything – that’s probably why I have a full time business, a part time teaching job, two fairly big volunteer commitments, and a pretty active family and social life, offline and online. I usually have a pretty good handle on my time – in fact I pride myself on my time management skills. But this past…
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Citizen L. aka Laurent François on Social Media
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3 simple things more important than Social Media skills
18 Jan 2012 | 12:29 pmThis week, I had the pleasure to discover again 3 simple things that were far more impactful on my consumer journey than Social Media skills: a service provider (plumber) called to inform me that he was on his way to my apartment: how come delivery guys for e-business never tell you when they’re in? I’ve been looking for hours a bloody serial number on a bloody heater: I still don’t understand how it’s possible that a missing number drives a whole value chain down, as the sales I had on the line could not tell me what to do. Non-sense. I gave tips to a pizza delivery… -
TV, Social Media, and the reasons why we should watch TV
12 Jan 2012 | 3:39 amAnother article for Social Media Today on the reasons why TV is the main crossroad for Social Media. Check this out! -
Social Media & Suicide
9 Jan 2012 | 12:00 amI wrote a post on Social Media hopes to fight against the very first social fact, suicide. And it’s on Social Media Today, of course! -
2012 Sarkozy campaign weakness: digital communication
4 Jan 2012 | 7:33 amThis morning, the French political party UMP (they run for President Sarkozy) tried to generate a buzz as François Hollande (his main opponent for 2012 – at least we hope it’s not Marine Le Pen- a socialist) was supposed to have declared that Sarkozy is a “dirty guy” (sale mec in French).UMP politicians tried to widen the rumor and generated some appearances in front of TV teams. What’s interesting is that in France, in order to make a news BIG, you still need to wait 8pm, and our TV prime-time for news (we only have one time zone, remember ). But even… -
Social Media guidelines: constraint or true asset?
30 Dec 2011 | 9:22 amAs I’m pretty happy to have joined Social Media Today Advisory Board, I’ve just written a post on Social Media Guidelines: do they really matter? enjoy and happy new year!
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sassholes
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Everything I Know About Business I Learned From THE TOXIC AVENGER!
22 Jan 2012 | 7:57 pmLights, Camera, Action! Early in my career I spent 7 years working for Troma, the low budget film studio probably best known for the cult Classic, The Toxic Avenger… As I am sure you know, The Toxic Avenger is the heartwarming story of Melvin, a lowly mop-boy, who, teased and taunted, falls into a vat of radioactive waste and emerges as… The Toxic Avenger - The First Superhero from New Jersey! (And affectionately called "Toxie.") Making movies is hard work, especially making movies on a shoestring budget… (OK, eventually we were able to advance from shoestrings… -
Zen and the Art of Ultrabooks...
19 Dec 2011 | 10:08 pm(Note: this is a sponsored post that originally appeared at Dadomatic.com, but the words and opinions are all mine.) It is fitting that Asus calls their new Ultrabook line "Zenbooks." Just one look and you can see that it is a device that exudes a sense of calm and balance, purity and power. An early entrant in the Intel Ultrabook category, the Zenbook is thin and sleek, capable and fast. It is the Ying and Yang of portable computing: thin and light enough to take with you everywhere, yet powerful and feature rich enough to function as a primary computer. Actually,… -
A Hollywood Tale: From Screenplay to Podcast to...
27 Nov 2011 | 11:32 am(Disclosure: This post is a shameless plug to ask you to consider subscribing to my new podcast, Wunderkind! and, if you are so inclined, help me to spread the word about it. Wunderkind! is the podcast of an original comic-adventure screenplay, written and performed by me.) If you've enjoyed my posts here at over the years, I'd greatly appreciate your help in spreading the word about my new fiction podcast, Wunderkind! Since it was originally written for the screen, I am performing Wunderkind! as a screenplay and generally retain the protocols of a screenplay format, with… -
Feeling Full After A Half-Marathon
8 Nov 2011 | 9:24 pmThere is something incredibly human about running. According to many articles, books and talks, we are made for running. Our erect biped being makes running as natural for homo sapiens as flying is for birds. We used to run as a tribe, chasing our prey over vast distances until it collapsed from exhaustion and the running man conquered the savage beast without a blow. Whole villages ran to follow the hunters to the fallen spoil. Perhaps that is why I found running in a race to be such a deeply satisfying experience, and a deeply emotional one...it is in our DNA... -
New Podcast Fiction: Wunderkind!
16 Oct 2011 | 10:51 pmFor almost two years now I have officially been a podcaster as a co-host of the Cast of Dads podcast along with C.C. Chapman, Michael Sheehan, Brad Powell and Max Kalehoff. While I love being one of the Cast of Dads, I have always wanted to try my hand at podcast fiction. Finally, I have have dusted off something I've written that I think will lend itself well to the podcast medium, and I am announcing the launch of a new serialized podcast of an original comedy screenplay, "Wunderkind!" I am very fortunate to consider many of the highly creative and innovative podcasters friends…
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Social Networking for Newbies
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How to Back Up Your LinkedIn Profile and Recommendations
27 Jan 2012 | 7:51 pmThis is another one best practice to do on a regular basis. I had the misfortune of losing my original LinkedIn account and I lost over 180 recommendations. I had backed up my contacts and my summary but not my recommendations. The reason I hadn’t done that is because I wasn’t aware that you could do that. So one silver lining in my losing my original LinkedIn account is that I learned that you CAN back up your recommendations and I can now share that with you Please watch this short video on how to back up your profile and your recommendations. -
Changing Ownership of a LinkedIn Group
23 Jan 2012 | 8:22 pmI received the following question today: There is a group on LinkedIn that I would like to “take over” It is an Alumni group in San Diego. I am the current President and we want to use to promote alumni events. The person who set it up has not posted in over a year and they probably won’t care. Is there a way I can find out who set it up or who is the admin and contact them? Can they add me as an admin like you can on FB? Or, can they just give me ownership of the group so I can post, grow it, etc? The answer to all three questions is YES, YES & YES. This video shows… -
Tagging your LinkedIn Contacts
17 Jan 2012 | 11:00 amOne reason why LinkedIn is a place where many executives have a presence is because it is relatively more difficult for spammers to send their pitches. This is because you’re limited to sending messages to 50 people at one time. So if you have a large number of contacts, sending a message to all of them is very time intensive. While the 50 people limitation is great for reducing spam, it is also a major hindrance when you have legitimate messages that you would like to send to your contacts. One way to make it easier for you to send RELEVANT messages to large numbers of contacts is to… -
Making it easy for people to invite you to connect on LinkedIn
12 Jan 2012 | 11:23 pmI recently invited a large number of offline connections to connect with me on LinkedIn. Since I wanted to personalize the invitation, I chose to send the message from my contact manager as opposed to LinkedIn. Using this method allowed me to send multiple invitations at once and using the mail merge feature, personalize each one with the person’s name. In order to make it easier for people to connect with me, I created a link that took them directly to my invite page – click here to see it in action. In the video below I show you exactly how to create your own link so that you… -
Using the LinkedIn Status Update Effectively
6 Jan 2012 | 8:24 pmUpdating your status on LinkedIn can both help and hurt you on LinkedIn. Used properly, they can be a very powerful component of your LinkedIn strategy. On this post I’ll focus on how they can help you. Your updates should be used to increase your and/or your network’s Visibility / Credibility. You can also use the updates to promote – as long as they are subtle! Remember that people on LinkedIn want primarily relevant information and connections. They don’t want to be sold! I recently posted that I had booked a presentation while traveling abroad to the U.K. (I live…
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GROWMAP.COM
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Small Business Trends Book Awards Nominations Close January 31, 2012 #smallbusiness
27 Jan 2012 | 9:01 pmThere is still time to make sure your favorite small business related book is nominated (or your own!) for the Small Business Trends Book Awards – but only until Tuesday, January 31, 2012. Don’t take the chance of being shut out by waiting until the last minute. Head over there NOW and make sure your favorites are listed. If you’re an author that goes double for you. Small Business Book Awards Twitter Chat Join all our fellow book lovers including Anita Campbell from @SmallBizTrends and our blogging collaborators @Ileane @mmangen @VernessaTaylor @CoachNotesBlog and many more… -
Social Networking, LinkedIn, Blogging and Music
26 Jan 2012 | 3:18 pmThis is a guest post by Manuel Marino where he shares how he has combined using LinkedIn for connections with blogging to build a community of artists helping artists. Is it possible to merge an artist’s talent with social networking, adding some blogging spice for a perfect mix? My name is Manuel Marino and I’m a music composer and producer, but I consider myself an all around artist, blessed with many talents, from music to painting, graphics and design. I have many websites, most important are my weblog about music and arts ManuelMarino.com and my studio homepage… -
Future of Engagement: Video Content Creation
25 Jan 2012 | 6:39 pmClick Image to Find out more about Spark Media Solutions In the latest episode of Future of Engagement, Murray Newlands interviews branding expert David Spark (@dspark on Twitter), founder of the custom publishing company Spark Media Solutions which provides custom content marketing services. David and Murray discuss how content including video content creation works for business. They go beyond creating videos to how to use them to share your content and build relationships through blog outreach, guest blogging, and relationship building using social media. “To be shared, your content… -
Social Media Monitoring and Management with Alerti
19 Jan 2012 | 7:05 amAlerti: How it Works This is a guest post from Murray Newlands sharing a new social media monitoring and management solution. Social Media Monitoring It’s the new year, and if you’re like me, you’re taking a good, long look at your business goals and the services you use to achieve those goals. If your goals include lead generation, networking, becoming a thought leader, engaging in more conversation, or understanding your competition better, then I want to introduce you to Alerti social media monitoring and management service. This short (under 2 minutes) video shows how to set up… -
SOPA Blackout Strike Already Started; Why Major Sites and Blogs Went Dark in Support
18 Jan 2012 | 2:04 amIf you haven’t heard about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) so far, most are bound to have noticed Tuesday, January 18, 2012 when they were unable to get to many of their favorite sites from Wikipedia to Reddit to WordPress to Mozilla to Craigslist. NEW: Where do members of Congress stand on SOPA MUST WATCH VIDEOS: CBS C/Net Complicit in Piracy SOPA LOSING SUPPORT VIDEO Do not fall for the red herring that these bills – both SOPA (in the House) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) (in the Senate) are ONLY about stopping “renegade pirate sites”. ANY site could be taken down!
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TheWayoftheWeb
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Why it doesn’t matter if not all user-created content is great…
23 Jan 2012 | 4:20 pmYoutube users are currently uploading an hour of content every second, or 60 hours every minute. Assuming 0.25% of all content being uploaded is great content, that’s 3.6 hours of amazing videos every day. That’s 25.2 hours of great content per week, with the average TV viewing in a UK household somewhere between 20 and 30 hours per week. Pretty amazing, and also why the follow-up attempts to enact laws such as SOPA and PIPA will occur with regularity in the U.S, and the influence of the U.S will be increasingly felt on every country around the world which might be encouraged or… -
How to kill a cultural icon…
22 Jan 2012 | 7:44 amThere’s a classic Bill Hicks routine which states that as soon as you appear in a commercial for a product, you are removed from the artistic cannon forever. And I struggle to think of a time when applying that role would have caused me to miss out on something particularly great – although the age-old tradition of celebrities popping up in seemingly random adverts in countries like Japan mean they may be some examples. But what happens when the stars aren’t human, but characters in a story which has become immensely popular and adopted by millions around the world with… -
Good service, bad service and social media
13 Jan 2012 | 11:03 amI went for a quick shopping trip at Bluewater yesterday, and it once again highlighted how important it is to align the whole customer experience of your brand, including your products, service levels and marketing. A comparison of three retail and social media experience sum it up nicely: Store 1: Uniqlo: I’ve heard various things about Uniqlo and browsed their stores, but this was the first time I’ve intended to make a purchase, having seen numerous mentions of their selvage jeans (Selvage refers to the method of stitching, if you’re not a denim geek). And the level of… -
Why artists want to kill ‘content’, and why they’re wrong…
12 Jan 2012 | 1:25 amA massive and heinous crime has been committed by the internet against writers and artists. And it isn’t piracy, electronic distribution or increased competition for attention. If you really want to offend a creative person, just watch their response to the prose, film and art they create and love being referred to as ‘content’. First it was businesspeople talking about content as something to fill the empty space between adverts. Then those SEO types came along and messed around to game the search engines and fool users. And now there’s a growing army of marketing… -
It should be ‘Joy in Books’, not ‘Joy of Books’
11 Jan 2012 | 1:18 amA number of people have been sharing a cool video which features animated books moving around a Toronto bookstore. It’s named ‘The Joy of Books’, and it’s a well-made, enjoyable creation which is fun to watch, as you can now see: But possibly as a result of the title, a few people are using it as an example of why print is in some way superior to an electronic version. And that’s rubbish, quite frankly. There are two elements of books that elicit joy: What’s in the book What surrounds the book None of that is inherent to print, eReaders, parchment,…
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Connection Agent
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Search My World with Google – so what?
13 Jan 2012 | 6:39 amSo, Google has now introduced a new feature in search, whereby you not only search the public web, but can view results from your Google+ network. Good on ‘em. I hope they keep experimenting, keep evolving. Some stuff Google has tried has failed; other approaches have taken off. Google’s DNA has this feature: no status quo. Push forward. This new feature will stick if it provides long-term value. If not, they can just turn it off (and you do have a show/hide switch to toggle if you wish). People may be tempted to moan that Google is monkeying with their main “search”… -
Just Bring Great People Together
11 Jan 2012 | 11:22 amI was having a lively phone conversation yesterday with Alli Worthington, the force-of-nature behind Blissdom and too many other things to list. Her philosophy behind the Blissdom conference? To paraphrase: We just bring great people together and see what happens. Not that there isn’t structure and clear direction – there is – but there’s also an existential element of anticipated goodness that can’t be predefined. Huh. In fact, it’s a business model I seek to practice, but I never quite heard it put that way before. It doesn’t sound like a business… -
Be Your Own Boss, Barefoot-style!
9 Jan 2012 | 7:55 amFor quite some time, I’ve interacted with Carrie Wilkerson (The Barefoot Executive) on-line, and it’s our privilege to welcome Carrie this week as a guest host on LeadershipChat (did you know that LeadershipChat is now on Facebook? <—Join us there to extend the conversation!). Carrie has recently released a book called, not surprisingly, The Barefoot Executive (Amazon link), and it’s a winner. Of course, part of the reason I loved this book so much is that we’re both on the same wavelength, desiring to see more people find professional fulfillment by starting… -
Who Are Your Influencers?
5 Jan 2012 | 7:23 amI’m a solopreneur. But I’m never alone. Why? My influencers – one of the great benefits of social networks. Yesterday – as I have done regularly in the past – I had a question about one of my business approaches. I was able to reach out to a handful of trusted advisers – quality people like Tom Martin, Jay Baer, Greg Hartle, Tom Clifford, and others – and immediately get very valuable feedback. They’re part of my brain trust (which also includes many women, by the way – wonderful collaborators like Lisa Petrilli, Meghan Biro, Jane Chin,… -
Not All Business is Good Business
30 Dec 2011 | 7:56 amI don’t remember where or when I first heard it, but that phrase has stuck with me like white on rice: Not all business is good business. Some projects that seem to promise high revenue may (in reality) equal low profit – or a loss. Some work is, if you step back and be objective (closing your ears to the siren song of the dollars), outside your sweet spot, or beyond your current capacity. And some clients aren’t worth the trouble – they create for more chaos than benefit. Been there? Your company and that piece of business – it’s not always a match. Do you…
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Fast Wonder: Online Community Management
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Companies and Communities Book Sale
3 Jan 2012 | 11:00 amI published the book, Companies and Communities: Participating without being sleazy, in March 2009. For some reason, people are still buying it, despite it’s increasing age! I just paged through it, and while a few sections have information that just isn’t relevant now, there is still some good stuff in it. However, there is enough outdated content that I just can’t justify the original price tag, so I decided to permanently reduce the price while I decide if I want to take the time to update and revise it for a second edition. Here are the newly reduced prices Paperback… -
2011 Year in Review: Travel and a Cookbook
31 Dec 2011 | 12:00 pmEvery year, I like to write some kind of year in review blog post. I started writing these in 2007 as a way for people that I don’t talk to very often to keep up with what I’ve been doing, but I’ve found that it helps me see what I’ve accomplished (or not accomplished) that I can use to reflect on what I want to do in the next year. You can find the 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 editions if you want to see how this year compares with previous years. 2011 in Review In general, I stayed much more focused this year. In past years, I’ve had a tendency to become exhausted and… -
Blogging Elsewhere
30 Dec 2011 | 1:59 pmHere is a summary of links to my posts appearing on other blogs over the past couple of months while I was mostly neglecting all my blogging What Dawn Eats* Buy the cookbook (available in paperback, kindle edition or PDF)! Kindle Edition of What Dawn Eats is Available Thai Peanut Sauce Traditional Vegan Coleslaw Beans and Greens Roasted Root Vegetables Tizen.com* Welcome to Tizen! *Disclaimers: Tizen: I am a full-time employee at Intel and contributing to Tizen is part of my job. What Dawn Eats is a Fast Wonder LLC venture -
Blogging Elsewhere
6 Aug 2011 | 10:48 amHere is a summary of links to my posts appearing on other blogs over the past couple of weeks. GigaOM’s WebWorkerDaily* The Indie Web: Who owns your identity? Think differently to improve productivity How to be prepared for death in a digital age Make sure your passion for work is productive How to minimize the impact of 5 common distractions What Dawn Eats* Buy the cookbook! Get $2.00 off the cookbook using discount code: 4V76EQLR Olive Tapenade Tofu Rancheros Mexican Coleslaw Quick and Simple Chili Cilantro Lime Black Beans Bacon Avocado Lettuce and Tomato Sandwich MeeGo.com* MeeGo… -
Crunching the numbers: Open Source Community Metrics at OSCON
30 Jul 2011 | 12:19 pmDave Neary and I co-presented a session about metrics at OSCON on Wednesday based on what we have learned so far from doing the MeeGo metrics. Description Every community manager knows that community metrics are important, but how do you come up with a plan and figure out what you want to measure? Most community managers have their own set of hacky scripts for extracting data from various sources after they decide what metrics to track. There is no standardized Community Software Dashboard you can use to generate near-real-time stats on your community growth. Like most open source projects,…
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Mike's Lifestream
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Ordered after reading some excellent reviews of book by @padday.
27 Jan 2012 | 5:50 pmTweet -
Only good work leads to doing more good work
26 Jan 2012 | 1:50 pmTweet via pinterest.com -
Silencing the mob. Good luck with that.
25 Jan 2012 | 12:55 pmTweet -
Great art up on the walls here, naturally.
25 Jan 2012 | 7:22 amTweet Taken at Twitter UK -
Apple’s profits have exceed Google’s entire revenues. Wow.
24 Jan 2012 | 4:54 pmTweet
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WordPress.com News
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Chrome Users: Try the WordPress.com Extension
27 Jan 2012 | 1:54 pmWant to receive WordPress.com notifications instantly, even when you’re not on WordPress.com? Add the new WordPress.com extension for Chrome and as soon as you get a new follower or a new like on one of your posts, a notification will appear in your browser: Simply click the icon to view your latest WordPress.com notifications: Start following new blogs without visiting WordPress.com The Chrome extension also makes it easy to follow sites from your WordPress.com account by displaying a Follow button whenever you’re browsing a site that has an RSS feed. Clicking the Follow button… -
Your Stats Have a New Home
26 Jan 2012 | 10:46 amAre you addicted to checking your site stats? You are not alone. The stats dashboard has always been one of the most popular admin screens. It’s gratifying to know that people are visiting your place online. With the WordPress.com front page evolving into a one-stop shop for posting, exploring, following and reading blogs, it seemed natural to put your blog stats there, too. Stats are becoming more and more about interacting with your readers and other bloggers. You’ll still see your summary stats and chart on your main dashboard, and the full stats page in your dashboard will… -
Reblogging is Back!
22 Jan 2012 | 1:27 pmAs we mentioned last week, you can like and reblog posts directly from your reader, which displays a stream of all the updates published on all the blogs you follow from your WordPress.com account. We’ve also brought the reblog button back to the toolbar that appears at the top of the screen when you’re logged into WordPress.com. Note that you’ll only see the like and reblog options while you’re looking at individual posts. For example, you’ll see this on the left side of your toolbar while viewing http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/read-blogs: And your… -
New Theme: Newsy
20 Jan 2012 | 12:18 pmIt’s been an extra big week in the news ’round these parts, so much so that the launch announcement of our latest premium theme seems like an extra extra good way to headline our Friday. Newsy is a versatile business and news-friendly theme that offers up to ten different layouts, four footer columns, custom link and accent colors, and a custom site header. Brand and content-focused editorial teams will love publishing with this theme. Newsy: Home Page Designed by Themify, Newsy comes with an impressive set of Theme Options that afford you a great deal of flexibility with how you… -
Read All Your Favorite Blogs in One Place
19 Jan 2012 | 6:04 pmIf you feel like it’s a chore to keep up with all your favorite blogs, you can now read posts from all the blogs you follow (even the ones that aren’t on WordPress.com!) in one convenient place on the WordPress.com home page: Your reader displays all the posts across all the blogs you follow in the order they were published, with the most recent content appearing at the top. You’ll see an excerpt of the introduction to each post, the first image in the post, and thumbnails of any other images that the post contains. You can even like and reblog WordPress.com content directly…
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Social Media Bird Brain
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Re-Viewing and a Review
25 Jan 2012 | 2:00 amImage via Alfred Hitchcock Geek One reason I have thought about ending this blog is because I didn't think I had anything in particular to add to the cacophony of advice and insight from people who have made giving advice and insight a profession (and do damn well at it). My own insight has never seemed to me to be particularly... insightful. Maybe it's because I live in my head that I -
Pin It! Pinterest & Your Small Nonprofit
19 Jan 2012 | 2:00 amI thought it was time to tell you how much I like Pinterest and why I think it's good for your small nonprofit, but I was late off the mark and more than a few folks beat me to it. Over at Nonprofit Tech 2.0 there's a great tutorial for how to get your not-for-profit set up on the site as well as a bit about how Pinterest is being used by savvy nonprofits. Then skip over to Frogloop where -
Protest Against Censorship
18 Jan 2012 | 2:00 amThe internet has been a 'place' where we have all be free to share our ideas. Some of them haven't been good and there's no doubting that there are some pretty freaky people doing things they shouldn't be doing. But making Google, Yahoo, or YouTube and other companies responsible for policing and then deciding FOR us what is fair use and what isn't, won't make the bad people go away -
Ask and Answer - A Tale of Two Oranges
11 Jan 2012 | 9:15 pmTwo Oranges by Carolyn Texera Sometimes it isn't a question of apples and oranges, but a question of two different flavors of oranges. The small nonprofit where I'm currently contracting couldn't decide whether the solicitation letter they were sending out should have the ask upfront or in the middle. The way I wrote the initial letter, the ask was upfront, since my experience has been that -
Using an Honest and Open Hand
4 Jan 2012 | 9:07 pmEnd of the year and beginning of the next year are the times you'll see a lot of prognostication about trends. I've never been much for resolutions or predicting the future - I figure you don't resolve to do things, you do them or you don't. And the future is just too blurry; things happen that you can't foresee that throw your careful analysis of trends into the garbage disposal. Whirr. Whirr.
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Social Media, Internet Marketing, and Life connected | Josh S Peters
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HOW TO: Optimize the OG:Description Tag for Search and Social
6 Jan 2012 | 3:40 pmThe first question that comes up about the OG:Description tag is “What is OG:?” In this case it does not mean Original Gangster. OG stands for Open Graph which is a tagging protocol (OGP) that is quickly spreading and being adopted across the web as a new standard (you can learn all about OGP at the Open Graph Protocol site). The second question is “What’s the max character limit of the OG:Description tag”? Short answer, there is none. Long answer 160-300. The actual OG:Description tag has no character limit. It’s a meta tag so there’s virtually… -
TwittFaced is now available on Kindle, Nook, and iBook!
27 Dec 2011 | 11:28 amNow available on Amazon, Nook, and Apple iBooks TwittFaced is now available on Kindle, Nook, and iBook! For all you lovers of digital media, Twittfaced can now be read on almost any smart phone or ebook/digital book reading device. To get your digital copy of Twittfaced just click on one of the links below. Kindle Nook PDF iBooks (search for it in the app / iTunes bookstore) For you old-school paper lovers, use one of these links to get a hardcopy Amazon Barnes and Noble Thanks for reading & thank you for all the support we’ve gotten over the years with the book. -
No Bullshit Social Media Review
26 Dec 2011 | 11:45 amHere is the no bullshit review of No Bullshit Social Media… Buy This Book (aff). It’s that good. Stop reading and go get it. Still wondering why you should buy this particular book on social media? Well, for starters Jason Falls and Erik Deckers pull no punches in this social media business book and quickly get you into the right mindset for their book by breaking down the difference between social media hippies and social media marketers. “Joining the conversation and engaging with your customers, providing value to earn trust and influence, and other gospels they… -
Microsoft Office for Android and iOS? Adobe holds the answer.
20 Dec 2011 | 11:53 amI recently read an interesting article on The Guardian about Microsoft releasing apps for the iPad. Being an Android and windows user this piqued my interest, hoping there would be some some mention of an MS Office release for Android. Apps like Quickoffice HD are alright, but they still have a lot of flaws. They don’t render everything perfectly, some of the work done on a phone or tablet doesn’t look right when re-opened on the PC, and there is a lot of missing functionality. Still, it’s better than nothing. The Guardian article points out several times that… -
Book Review And Giveaway: The Real Truth About Social Media
6 Dec 2011 | 11:06 amThe real truth that “cuts through the bull shiitake of social media…” huh? We’ll see about that. When I first heard about this book I thought “oh great… another.” Though after a quick read I changed my tone. The Real Truth About Social Media is packed with unique insights and real world perspectives it’s an invaluable addition to any social media library and a must read for any true professional. Not because it’s information you don’t already know, but because it reinforces what every social media professional should…
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Corporate Eye
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The Great 2012 CSR Revolution
27 Jan 2012 | 3:03 amThe Great 2012 CSR RevolutionSo let’s do another little survey here. Hands up anyone who’s crossed Gypsy Rose’s palm with silver in the hope of having their fortune told? No-one? Oh, maybe one person at the back. Well, it doesn’t surprise me, we’re not really into such superstitious claptrap these days. Nevertheless, every year every CSR practitioner seems to feel they too can be Gypsy Rose. Crystal balls get polished and predictions made. If you’re lucky, there may even be a waft of incense in the air .. or is that just over-ripe pot-pourri? -
Which Brands Spent the Most on TV Sports Advertising in 2011
25 Jan 2012 | 10:52 pmWhich Brands Spent the Most on TV Sports Advertising in 2011In the United States, advertising during sports programming can be a pricey investment, but it works. That’s why so many brands invest so heavily in national TV sports advertising. According to Nielsen, national television sports advertising rose to $10.9 billion in advertising expenditures between Q4 2010 through Q3 2011. That’s up from $10.3 billion during the same period a year prior. Interestingly, Nielsen also reports that the bulk of those advertising dollars are going to cable sports programming, which is growing… -
Brands Realize There Is More to Social Media Marketing Than Twitter and Facebook
23 Jan 2012 | 8:46 pmBrands Realize There Is More to Social Media Marketing Than Twitter and FacebookMore eyeballs doesn’t always equate to better return on marketing investments, and that applies to social media marketing just as it does to more traditional forms of marketing. Sure 800 million people are on Facebook, so it’s not surprising that 94% of marketers surveyed during a December 2011 study conducted by Awareness Inc. indicated they would use Facebook to market their brands in 2012. However, marketers are finally starting to realize that bigger isn’t necessarily better. In 2012,… -
Advertising Options Icon Puts Positive Spin on Behavioral Targeting
20 Jan 2012 | 10:28 pmAdvertising Options Icon Puts Positive Spin on Behavioral TargetingBehavioral targeting is a lifeline for advertisers who want to make sure their ads are seen by the right audiences and drive the highest return on investment. However, consumers aren’t on board with behavioral targeting. They see it as an invasion of privacy. The Digital Advertising Alliance is trying to change that negative consumer perception with a new campaign, website, and “Advertising Options” icon pictured to the left. The series of ads show a banner ad trying to find the right customers who actually… -
Cannes Recognizes Branded Content is Hot with New Award Category
18 Jan 2012 | 7:31 pmCannes Recognizes Branded Content is Hot with New Award CategoryBranded content is at the top of every brand manager’s to do list in 2012, and this year, branded content will get its own category for recognition at the week-long Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. For the first time, Branded Content & Entertainment Lions will be awarded at the festival as will Mobile Lions for mobile creative work. The world of branded content has evolved significantly over the past few years, and the Branded Content & Entertainment Lions competition should include some great…
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Social Media Marketing UK - Brands and Social Media Blog
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Zeebox - the companion app that could drive social TV and two-screen in 2012
9 Jan 2012 | 1:15 pmSocial TV is a personal interest of mine. Although not blogged here, I have presented my thoughts on social TV and have been fortunate enough to work on projects for clients such as BBC (Strictly Come Dancing), UKTV Gold, Alibi, Dave and the successful Dynamo: Magician Impossible on Watch; to developing Call of Duty TV for Activision to support the promotion of Black Ops and MW3 using Facebook as the broadcasting platform. The area of focus for this post is the consumption of the TV companion app, in particular Zeebox. The announcement today (09.01.12) that BSkyB have invested in the app is… -
Social media and technology NOT to blame for the UK riots
15 Aug 2011 | 11:38 amFollowing on from the the many articles written about the UK riots and social media’s involvement, I felt compelled to share an article about my understanding of the cause and effect that lead to the UK riots. Looking back I hope that anyone searching for information about social media in association with the UK riots will read the text below and thus have a better understanding of events proceeding. Yes, social media was used during the riots both for good and bad, but to lay the blame at technology and Generation Y is incredibly short sighted and to not understand the wider context. -
The need for more careful planning with Facebook
18 Jun 2011 | 12:53 pmThis is a post I have been meaning to write for a while. What has prompted me to pull my finger out is that I have increasingly found myself screaming WTF?! all too often and becoming quite frustrated with the lack of good planning when it comes to campaigns and communications, particularly when Facebook is selected as a core part of the campaign. Let me explain… I recently went away on a holiday with my pals. There were 5 of us. All of us have smart phones. 3 of us are on Facebook. I use Facebook frequently. My other two friends use Facebook just to check photos… -
Facebook sponsored stories
23 Mar 2011 | 12:58 pmThe webinar from Facebook on sponsored stories today was very straightforward, and primarily targeted at a media buying audience. For more information and case studies please visit: www.facebook.com/sponsoredstories www.facebook.com/marketing Background Businesses are organising their marketing around people, looking for moments that people are talking about a product or service. Word of mouth is effective but is not predictable or scalable. With sponsored stories you can capture the stories people are talking about in the news feed. People trust their friend’s stories and thus with… -
Social engagement - Yahoo Labs’ Facebook Like Log Study
10 Mar 2011 | 7:01 amYury Lifshits and Yahoo Labs have recently released their Facebook Like Log Study and it is well worth a look into what news stories consumers engage with. The study is an analysis of how Facebook users interacted with 100,000+ articles across some of the leading online media outposts. Understanding content popularity; more specifically what content motivates your consumers to engage with, is an essential part of content strategy. This study helps to illustrate the importance of demand analytics, as well as social media optimization. Key take outs from the study are: placing more marketing…
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Marketing Conversation
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The anachronistic social media agoraphobic
26 Jan 2012 | 7:00 amTo follow up on my last post, Being pretty isn’t enough for social media success, I wanted to discuss what I like to call Social Media Isolationism or Social Media Agoraphobia. And there are two forms of this sort of isolationism: invitational and exclusionary. They both mean you don’t venture outside your own four social [...] To follow up on my last post, Being pretty isn’t enough for social media success, I wanted to discuss what I like to call Social Media Isolationism or Social Media Agoraphobia. And there are two forms of this sort of isolationism: invitational and… -
Using Consumer Loyalty to Determine Your PR Medium
24 Jan 2012 | 1:23 pmPublic relations in the non-digital world can certainly be a messy and complicated affair. If your business is looking to offset bad press, respond to a story, advertise business speaker for conferences, or highlight a new promotion there are numerous strategies for properly conveying that message to the public. But regardless of the content, the [...] Public relations in the non-digital world can certainly be a messy and complicated affair. If your business is looking to offset bad press, respond to a story, advertise business speaker for conferences, or highlight a new promotion there are… -
Creating A “Unique” Social Media Experience
23 Jan 2012 | 3:16 pmThese days, it often seems as though every person with a business or a product has chosen to market their idea via social media. The impetus behind this is completely understandable: social media is cheap, highly accessible, and provides access to a wide demographic of current and potential consumers. A business loses nothing and stands [...] These days, it often seems as though every person with a business or a product has chosen to market their idea via social media. The impetus behind this is completely understandable: social media is cheap, highly accessible, and provides access to a wide… -
Where’s the social media beef?
21 Jan 2012 | 10:28 amI’m hungry. A burger sounded good. Any West Coast suggestions? While you ponder, check out this week’s social media infographic from Bundlepost Social Media. Yes, I know there’s many Wendy’s advertisement connotations but it’s also an interesting way to look at the substance of strategy and execution in online marketing. Okay enough brainstorming time, where [...] I’m hungry. A burger sounded good. Any West Coast suggestions? While you ponder, check out this week’s social media infographic from Bundlepost Social Media. Yes, I know there’s many… -
Chris Abraham- television debut
20 Jan 2012 | 1:26 pmOur esteemed leader had his television début on Washington Business Report a few weeks ago on WJLA ABC7. He was invited on by Rebecca Cooper because she stumbled upon the Abraham Harrison website and liked our humor and our business. So, here’s the video of the segment for you to check out: Happy Friday! Related articles Abraham Harrison featured on Washington Business Report (chrisabraham.com) Abraham [...] Our esteemed leader had his television début on Washington Business Report a few weeks ago on WJLA ABC7. He was invited on by Rebecca Cooper because she stumbled…
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ChrisKenton.com
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Coincidence: When Real is Better than Real
25 Jan 2012 | 1:50 amTo me, coincidence is like magic. It makes you see the world in a way that is slightly unreal. Better than real. Like real could be a whole lot better than you think. A good coincidence makes you think, makes you look for the unseen thread that strings a strand of random events together like pearls. Like ghost stories, there’s a time for telling stories of coincidence, and they never seem to lose their magic with the telling. Recently my wife and I have been talking about the need to encourage my son to write. My wife is a librarian, I’m a writer, so we kind of figure our son… -
What it Means to Fall
2 Sep 2011 | 1:54 pmA couple of weeks ago I took a spectacular fall while mountain biking. I was pushing the limits on one of my favorite trails, riding full speed through a forest of redwoods, when my front wheel lost traction and I hit the deck. I slid about 20 feet through roots and rocks before rolling over the side of the trail and down a steep hill. I wound up with deep gashes on both arms and one knee, a wide swath of trail rash from shoulder to ankle, and what would later turn out to be a couple of fractures to the bones that make up my left shoulder. It now ranks among the top 5 falls since I started… -
Remembering Maya
20 Aug 2010 | 7:53 pmMaya Machnicova I attended the memorial last Saturday of a former employee, a young woman named Maya Machnicova. Memorials are always a reminder of basic truths we tend to ignore, or simply forget, and Maya’s passing in particular has made me think a lot about the subtle ways people impact my life. The push and pull of primary relationships is obvious—parents, spouses, children, business partners—they’re like heavy planets that shift our trajectory whenever they come into orbit. But what about the coworkers we spend a few hours with each day? There are hundreds of people in my life… -
Facebook’s Engineered Privacy Loopholes
14 May 2010 | 4:51 pmFacebook is getting a lot of attention over its privacy policies for a variety of reasons. Depending on who’s offering up the criticism, the complaints include: They change the rules too often. The rules are too convoluted and too hard to figure out. The rules err on the side of sharing private information without permission, so Facebook can profit. So far, Facebook seems to be Teflon. The fun and attraction of engaging on Facebook outweighs most people’s concern about privacy–assuming they understand the privacy risks. But I, for one, am starting to get creeped out. And my… -
iForce
29 Apr 2010 | 2:08 pm
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Steve Kayser's Riffs, Tiffs and What Ifs
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Building Yourself a Better Brain
24 Jan 2012 | 12:09 amAn interview with Dr. Rick Hanson, neuropsychologist and author of the bestselling Buddha’ Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love & Wisdom. It has been translated to 21 languages and spent over 300 days on Amazon’s list of top 100 best-selling non-fiction books. Dr. Rick has a new book out called Just One Thing: Developing a Buddha Brain One Simple Practice at a Time. He has taught at Oxford, Stanford and Harvard and his work has been featured in BBC, NPR,, US News and World Report.. -
Best of STORY and Storyteller Interviews 2011
4 Jan 2012 | 12:35 pmRobin Hood, Batman, Hoop Dreams, Zanskar, Bagger Vance - they're all here. Learn from best-selling authors, screenwriters, storytellers and movie-makers Steven Pressfield, Pen Densham, Michael Uslan, Frederick Marx and Robert McKee. -
Good Intentions Gone Bad!
1 Jan 2012 | 5:42 pmFeaturing an interview with Lynne McTaggart, author of "The Intention Experiment." I fully intended to keep my 2012 New Year's resolutions. I knew it would be hard. But I had good intentions. I had good intentions. Really. I lasted ... -
Son of a Pitch!
19 Dec 2011 | 12:50 amHow could the absolute worst pitch of all-time lead to anything positive? This one did. It was a miracle and soulfully enriched beyond belief. It was meant to be passed on. -
So This is Christmas
18 Dec 2011 | 3:05 pmSo fast. Another year past. 2011 gone. 2012 soon upon. How did you do? What did you do? What did you do that really mattered? Have you even thought about it that way? Or …
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Uber.la - tech reviews, opinion and wit
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Pinterest and the Power of Social Bookmarking: Tag Yourself (Web Design is Dead)
27 Jan 2012 | 11:43 amBack in the day, deli.cio.us was a huge deal. Tag, bookmark, group, and share every bookmark you create on the web. Network with others, subscribe to peoples bookmarks, look though someone's taxonomy. It was a huge geek fest and it was entirely text driven, and thus is was fast. Several services followed to try and [...] -
Just Click It: Jan 27, 2012; blogging for cash, google can suck, Pinterest, SEO checklist, Facebook vs. Self Esteem
27 Jan 2012 | 6:38 amHere are some social and social media topics you should be on top of: Twitter, Google, SEO, Problogger. -
What's Your Twitter Language? What Do You Tweet? Fun & Easy Way to Find Out
26 Jan 2012 | 4:25 pmYou can learn a lot about your tone, and habits from looking at your wordcloud (the words you use most) and tagcloud (the #hashtags you use most). -
How Entrepreneurs Succeed: Learning the Hard Way That An Idea Is Not a Business
26 Jan 2012 | 8:18 amIdeas are easy. We've all had breakthrough idea and then done nothing with them. It's the entrepreneur who has figured out how to evaluated and execute on the good ideas. -
The 11th and 12th Disciplines of Social Media: Pinterest and Instagram
25 Jan 2012 | 12:54 pmYes Ferris, there are two other social networks that you need to pay attention to if you rely on consumer marketing in any way. I have joined both of these networks/sites/apps (whatever you want to call them) in the last week. Here are my thoughts and recommendations. Pinterest and Instagram.
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Digital Marketing Blog // Digital Operative
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Why SOPA Sucks and Why You Should Care
18 Jan 2012 | 1:52 pmToday is a new day for the color black. Today it drapes itself across some of the most visited websites across internet to oppose something called SOPA. According to EFF.org, it states “The Internet blacklist legislation—known as PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House—invites Internet security risks, threatens online speech, and hampers innovation on the Web.” What companies went black today? Google Wordpress Wikipedia Mozilla Firefox Amazon – supporting with black banner to right Boing Boing Nicekicks – I like this site… -
Big three stories of the week!
13 Jan 2012 | 8:14 pmThough Friday the 13th is generally considered an unlucky day, it is Friday and it can’t really be that bad. Here is the weekly round up of the top tech stories that you can’t miss this week. One story will affect your search engine optimization plans, one will effect your holiday shopping next year, and the final will make you rethink about mobile marketing. 1. Google launches “search plus your world” Google continues its move to social networking dominance by launching “Google search plus your world”. Now, we all know that Google is the undisputed king when it… -
Once Upon A Timeline
27 Dec 2011 | 12:56 pmWhat to do about the Facebook Timeline The Facebook Timeline is coming and there is not too much you can do about it. I don’t mean coming in the sense that it will soon be released (it already is), I mean it is coming in the sense that you are soon going to have one – like it or not. Facebook has made it clear that Timelines are the way Facebook is going and these will basically be the story of your life. Are you ready for the story of your life to be displayed? Is your company ready for the story of its existence to be displayed? How will this affect your digital marketing plan? What… -
Retargeting is Coming to Get You!
22 Dec 2011 | 4:22 pmWhat is Retargeting? Overview Retargeting is one of the hottest trends in online marketing right now and at DO we use it to help businesses grow. This online marketing technique combines many of the strengths that online marketing offers and puts them into one package. In the hands of a savvy digital marketer retargeting can: • Hypertarget customers on a product level • Keep your business in the customer’s mind after they have left the site • Target just the customers who have shown interest • Increase conversion and click-through-rates of your ads Many companies offer this… -
3 Digital Gifts to Give Your Favorite Geek!
16 Dec 2011 | 3:09 pmWe all know it is a major pain to schlep around the mall. You have to deal with the parking, face the crowds, and turn down the free samples at Panda Express. All of these hassles can take their toll on even the jolliest elf. However, here at Digital Operative we are thinkers, planners, and strategists and we want to help you beat the holiday madness! We put on our thinking hats to help you avoid the dreaded mall trip and be the one who gives the “cool” gift this year. We think that some of the best presents this year will be from the online community and taking advantage of how easy it…
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Seldom Seen Kid
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Wikipedia Blackout Wednesday
17 Jan 2012 | 2:17 pmWednesday will see Wikipedia, joined by a host of other websites including search giant Google, ‘blackout’ or protest against SOPA, the anti-priacy bill that is currently going through the US legislative system. The aim of the exercise is to highlight how the bill will hinder consumers online. Interestingly though, Twitter will not be taking part in the initiative. Dick Costolo, Twitter CEO said: @digiphile @jayrosen_nyu that's just silly. Closing a global business in reaction to single-issue national politics is foolish.— dick costolo (@dickc) January 16, 2012 However,… -
How To Create The Perfect Foursquare List
13 Dec 2011 | 2:02 amElliot Pearson was recently featured on Foursquare’s Follow Friday for his list of London’s indepdendent coffee shops. Here, he shares his advice on how to make the perfect Foursquare List. The much-requested list feature is now rolled out across the Foursquare platform and has opened up much of what Foursquare aims to encourage and provide. While there are many uses for which this feature excels, from recommending places you’ve visited to friends right through to ordered guided tours and treasure hunts, it is easy to neglect key aspects that make a list a worthwhile experience… -
Top 10 Music Blogs of 2011
9 Dec 2011 | 2:34 amWhat are the top ten music blogs of 2011, I hear you ask? Well, I’ve had a think about all of those that I’ve read regularly and listened music from avidly and whittled down to a little list that I hope you find time to investigate further! Aquarium Drunkard – everything you need to know about music you’ve never heard of. Awesome. yvynyl – simply, pick the best stuff, share. Great. Abeano – award winning music blog, it wins awards for a reason… Pinglewood – primarily video based, highly under rated Off Modern – great collection of new… -
Kred
5 Dec 2011 | 2:22 amKred is the latest tool designed to measure your Twitter influence, built by the good folks at Peoplebrowsr. The Good Stuff In the version I’ve had a play with, there are several sections choc-full of data to play with. Overview: This is your dashboard that gives you the headline, ie, your score and recent activity; who you’ve retweeted, conversations you’ve had, who has mentioned you etc. Activity: This is where it starts to get very cool. One of the best things about Peoplebrowsr is the ability to segregate by community – Kred has taken this technology too. This… -
Facebook Buys Gowalla
2 Dec 2011 | 7:00 pmFacebook have bought Gowalla, according to CNN. The world’s most formidable social network has snapped up the US location based social network, for an undisclosed sum. According to CNN: “It’s a perfect match,” said the source, who asked not to be identified because the deal has not yet been publicly announced. “As far as the big picture, Gowalla’s vision is about people telling stories, and Facebook’s vision for Timeline is about stories about important moments in life.” Given Gowalla’s struggle to break through in the battle against rival…
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Don't drink the koolaid
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Coopertition and the State of US Travel Tourism
26 Jan 2012 | 11:26 amLast week I attended the ONE Travel Conference for Shopping, Dining and Cultural Tourism in Orlando. I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect, but the speaker line up looked good and I thought the conference’s focus on shopping, dining and cultural heritage made sense; it certainly hit our agency’s sweet spot in consumer marketing. The women who co-presented the conference Rosemary McCormick, President of Shop America Alliance and Sheila Armstrong, Executive Director of U.S. Cultural & Heritage Tourism Marketing Council are a formidable pair with surprising energy, a… -
Ads from a Consumer’s Perspective
18 Jan 2012 | 12:26 pmI recently went to the San Diego Auto Show and it was awesome! I remember my dad dragging me along to the Los Angeles Auto Shows as a kid. Aside from the time I got to spend with him, I never had an interest in any of the cars or what was going on. The San Diego Auto Show changed my mind. My car is 9 years old now and I’m starting to think – maybe I should get a new car? I definitely have a couple of years left on my 2003 eclipse, if I want them. But seeing all the new cars made me seriously think about making a purchase. As a person who has worked in media my entire life, and… -
3 core advertising trends to watch in 2012
12 Jan 2012 | 11:15 amHello 2012. The year flew by fast didn’t it? Do you feel overwhelmed with all the information out there these days? Things are changing so quickly it’s hard to keep up, even for the super techno genius. Even though technology is evolving at light speed, what we really need to pay attention to is how to use these tools to best communicate with our target audiences. As marketers we need to understand the audiences we intend to interact with and how we can best achieve a valuable interaction. Technology will continue to evolve and offer us different avenues to communicate, for commerce, for… -
Logos, typefaces and ruminations
6 Jan 2012 | 8:40 amAwhile ago I watched a documentary on the creation of Helvetica. I was glued to the TV. The efficiency, the directness, the flexibility and the simplicity of it is fascinating. My wife on the other hand thought my watching the documentary only added to the list of things that make me weird to her. So be it. It made me think how things we consume daily on the surface appear very simplistic but when you scratch below that surface there is complexity. Helvetica is the most used typeface in the world. The theory behind its design was about efficient communications. No serifs to… -
Twelve Social Media Trends for 2012
3 Jan 2012 | 7:07 amThe truth is, you cannot really predict what will happen next week in social media, but nonetheless here are 12 predictions and thoughts we have going into 2012. 1. Content is (still) King - Over the past few years we’ve seen brands become their own publishers and content curators. The trend will continue in 2012, and brands will find more and more ways to integrate content with commerce and their communities. Brands with the most authentic, engaging, integrated, and useful content will find the most success. Those who tumbl just to tumbl will not find the digital community they hoped…
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Technology & Marketing Law Blog
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Top Internet Law Developments of 2011
27 Jan 2012 | 11:45 amBy Eric Goldman As usual, I'm running late with my year-end recap. This post begins with my countdown of the... -
Federal Prosecution Over "Threats" on Craigslist – US v. Stock
26 Jan 2012 | 6:04 pm[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] US v. Stock, Cr. No. 11-182 (W.D. Pa.; Jan. 23, 2012) I blogged about a case... -
Facebook Boasts/Taunts Undermine the Legal Defense for a Fight at a House Party--In re DLW
25 Jan 2012 | 11:21 amBy Eric Goldman In the Matter of the Welfare of: D.L.W., Child, 2012 WL 171412 (Minn. App. Ct. Jan. 23,... -
Comments on United States vs. Jones: What's Old is New Again (Guest Blog Post)
24 Jan 2012 | 5:37 pmBy Ethan Ackerman with comments from Eric U.S. v. Jones No. 10–1259 (U.S. Supreme Court; Jan 23, 2012) In 2005... -
Comments on the Golan v. Holder Supreme Court Ruling (Guest Blog Post)
23 Jan 2012 | 4:53 pmBy Tyler Ochoa In a decision that favored the 1% (copyright owners) over the 99% (consumers and the public domain),...
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Nashville SEO Social Media | Web Marketing
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Twitter Updates for 2012-01-28
28 Jan 2012 | 3:00 amFor all my friends who have liked this page, thank you for your support! # TY! RT @whiterose_is: #FF @Pedrunsky @rolandoofa @iamgonzzo @dopeyphoto @JMargary @jlamoraleja @oceania_nevaeh @MaLuZiiTaah @MetalmanAl # Gets harder and harder to tweet/follow as much as I used to when every harry, dick and tom are posing as "experts" when they're really not # LOL haha nah you're good my friend :) RT @2live4him: @zioneyemedia I'm not posing as an expert. I'm an expert poser. # RT @designfollow: Building Manageable Growth on the Web http://t.co/X6OB8BHC # RT @designnewz:… -
Twitter Updates for 2012-01-26
26 Jan 2012 | 3:00 am33 Best Responsive WordPress Themes http://t.co/yh6L7I9Z # -
Twitter Updates for 2012-01-25
25 Jan 2012 | 3:00 am50 Beautiful and Inspiring Logo Designs by Noupe http://t.co/MvR2nQNP # -
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-01-22
22 Jan 2012 | 3:00 am@JustparaDOX am sorry to hear that but unfortunately I am unable to assist. Dunno If u installed too many plugins or inserted wrong codes # @JustparaDOX bro I have not done anything on the site since you took over, I have left it or you to handle since the launch # CMT isn't doing itself any favor on making themselves look legit and "modern." Redneck Vacation? Bayou Billionaires? Enough said. # @YoungCtrill @MyNameIsBizzle @Lavoisier_MC 1st degree?? WHAT???? # @YoungCtrill @MyNameIsBizzle @Lavoisier_MC That's not cool at all… We need to redeem them back # Pages With… -
Twitter Updates for 2012-01-21
21 Jan 2012 | 3:00 amPages With Too Many Ads "Above The Fold" Now Penalized By Google's "Page Layout" Algorithm http://t.co/8Slbn9T0 #
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FreshNetworks Blog
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Why Capital One and American Express are the top financial services brands on Facebook
27 Jan 2012 | 6:51 amTweetCapital One and American Express are the top financial services brands on Facebook, according to a chart compiled by social media analytics tool socialbakers. While Capital One’s Facebook page features within the top 150 brands on this list, and the American Express Facebook page is just outside it, the next most successful financial services brand on Facebook is US based direct banking and payment services company Discover, which charts at the 300 mark, saying a lot about the use of Facebook among global financial services brands. In fact, this forms a large part of the… -
Why internal culture is much more important than employee social media guidelines
26 Jan 2012 | 5:16 amTweetImage via Wikipedia January has seen a spate of people tweeting things they shouldn’t – from Diane Abbott to Ed Miliband in the UK to countless people working for brands across the world. We’ve also seen a renewed debate in the UK about how the professions should use social media – notably about teachers befriending their pupils on Facebook. One way that many organisations deal with this is to create social media guidelines but even more important than any guidelines you might right is the internal culture change needed to real to make yours a true social… -
Social media for financial services: Wedbush Securities firm-wide social media use
25 Jan 2012 | 4:43 amTweetSocial media use in the financial service industry is a tricky area given the issues around compliance with regulations and risk. This is why I was interested to read that Wedbush Securities, a privately held financial services and investment firm based in USA, has announced that they will give the “green light” for firm-wide adoption of social media. With 100 offices across the United States, employees at Wedbush Securities are now free to craft their own networks and conversations, and so can move away from “canned responses”. It’s certainly a bold… -
Creating engaging content: US department stores Barneys vs Saks in social media
23 Jan 2012 | 7:58 amTweetThey’re two of the most iconic department stores in New York, but just how well are Saks Fifth Avenue and Barneys using social media? We used Social Bakers to take a look at these two US retail giants and see whether they are making the most of their brands online. Despite being a mere ten minute walk down the street from each other, Barneys and Saks are already miles apart when it comes to Facebook fans. Whilst Saks has a healthy 288,000 fans, Barney’s has almost half with 162,000. But as we all know, it’s not just about how many ‘likes’ you’ve got but what you do with them… -
‘Search, plus Your World’: Why your social search strategy will fail without Google+
19 Jan 2012 | 5:07 amTweetHere at FreshNetworks we’ve been keeping a close eye on the significance of Google+ for brands. We were very excited about the arrival of Google+, and predicted, a back in July last year, that it would impact social search: …”Potentially, in the future, this could mean that the more popular pages from within your Circles could outrank those pages that are better optimised in the traditional sense of the word.” The launch of Google’s new personalised search results display, known as ‘Search, plus Your World‘ means that this has indeed become…
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shesgotclients.com
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5 Failproof Tips to a Kick-Butt Preview Call
26 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amOne of the absolute best ways to launch a new product, program or service is to hold what’s known as a “preview call”–a content-rich call “previewing” your upcoming offering and enticing your listeners to invest with you. Initially, your job is to get as many people as possible to show up on the call–but that’s just the start. Once you’ve got their attention, there are several very specific AND strategic things you can do to ensure your call brings in the maximum number of sales. Where do you begin? It all starts with telling your story. -
The 5 Characteristics of Your Juiciest, Most Ideal Clients
19 Jan 2012 | 8:30 amIn marketing, business owners hear over and over that they should only be working with their best, most ideal clients. It sounds great in theory…and the word “ideal” sure sounds nice. But what does it really mean? Depending on what kind of business you are in, the answer can vary of course. But when you really get down to it, some common characteristics apply–whether you’re in dog grooming or high-end fashion design. It’s really a matter of upstream versus downstream. Take a look at these 5 characteristics and see if you know what I mean by that: 1) They… -
Free WordPress Call: End Your Website Frustration Starting January 25…
16 Jan 2012 | 1:30 pmIt’s been a while, but I’m bringing back my always popular, nearly FAMOUS, zip-zilch-ZERO COST WordPress training call! So…read on if you’re ready to end your website angst once and for all. You know you need a website if you are going to succeed at marketing online. You may even have one already…but you’re just tired of the time, cost and aggravation associated with it. Or, maybe you don’t even have a website or blog yet, and as every day goes by without one, you know you are wasting valuable time you could be using to market yourself and your business. That’s why I’ve… -
3 Ways to Revitalize Your Marketing with Video
12 Jan 2012 | 8:50 amA few years back, video was referred to as the “next big thing” on the web. Today, I think it is clear to most small business owners that it has definitely already arrived. In terms of marketing, video can no longer be ignored. If you’ve been waiting to jump on board, the time truly is NOW. While some people still feel a bit shy about appearing on camera, it’s crucial to understand just how dramatically video can accelerate the “know like and trust” lifecycle. See, there’s a lot of noise out there on the web, and it’s become tougher and tougher… -
3 Ways to Leap Your Income With Leverage
5 Jan 2012 | 4:06 pmThis week’s video tip is all about how to add more leverage to your business. In my time working with small business owners, I’ve realized that their needs and goals change depending on what stage they are in in their business. In the start-up phase, especially the first 12-18 months, the priority is simple: it’s about getting clients and bringing in revenue. But once they build up that client base, priorities start to shift, and it becomes more about ensuring that growth continues. And there comes a point that without leveraging your time and talent, growth cannot be…
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Online Marketing Blog
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Online Marketing News: Women Dominate Community Management, Google Privacy, FBI Social, Twitter Censorship, McD Hashtag Gone Wrong
27 Jan 2012 | 5:40 amThe 2012 Community Manager Report Community Manager is an essential, yet still uncharted territory for many companies that are expanding their presence on the social web. What should you know about the current state of this position? 67% of Community Managers work for a brand The most popular city for Community Managers is New York 65% of Community Managers are Female Be sure to check out the rest of this report presented by Social Fresh. Google & FBI: All Your Social Data Are Belong to Us For non-geeks, here’s the reference (Zero Wing video) “Google Privacy Changes: What… -
5 Basic SEO Troubleshooting Tips for Content Marketers
26 Jan 2012 | 9:34 amContent Marketing Not Performing? Troubleshoot SEO Basics. This post is a preview of a new downloadable guide I will be offering for those who pre-order Optimize by March 13, 2012. The full guide will have screenshots, examples and more “SEO Deep Dive” advice. If you want the full, illustrated Content Marketing SEO Troubleshooting Guide, visit OptimizeBook.com to pre-order and subscribe to our mailing list for more details. Content Marketing at its core is about planning information that is thoughtful about the needs and interests of target customer groups as they take the… -
Optimize Your Social Media Schedule: 4 Tips for Avoiding the Social Media Time Suck
24 Jan 2012 | 6:56 amMaking the time to execute on a social media strategy can rattle even the most experienced marketers. Unlike traditional marketing, social media marketing can present many different challenges and distractions. According to a study by eMarketer 73% of marketers say finding the time to create content as their biggest marketing challenge. I recently ran a poll of @TopRank Twitter followers to get a sense of how they spend their time online. I asked “If you had only 20 minutes a day to spend on social media what would you focus on?” Some of the answers we received were:… -
11 Ways to Get Smarter & Stay Current in a World of Social Information Overload
23 Jan 2012 | 6:41 amOnline Marketing is all about information. And people. Making connections that solve marketing problems in today’s environment of social and technological innovation can be challenging. Like many readers of this blog, a big part of what I do as an Internet Marketer centers around being able to consume large amounts of information or better, the right information, synthesizing it and using insights to help others make sense of the challenges and opportunities they face with marketing on the web. As an author, frequent speaker at industry conferences, advisor to clients and the people who… -
Online Marketing News: Say NOPA to SOPA, Google+ Strikes Again, Coca Cola “Gets It”, Twitter Gobbles Up Summify
20 Jan 2012 | 6:31 amThe Social Job Seekers The social media job market is hot! This infographic visualizes the 2011 Social Job Seeker Survey that was conducted by Jobvite. It examines who the job seekers are and how they are utilizing social media to find jobs. Some interesting statistics you may not be aware of: 61% of all employed Americans are open to a new job or actively looking for a new one. 4 out of 10 job seekers are “Super Social” and have 150+ contacts on Facebook, Twitter, or Linkedin. 1 in 6 job seekers found their last job through an online social network. This Week in News About Google…
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Lava Row
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Case Study: Veridian Credit Union’s “Surprise Squad”
6 Jan 2012 | 3:18 pmAt Lava Row, much of our work with clients takes place behind-the-scenes: helping companies build an internal social media team, providing employees with best practices training for social platforms, brainstorming online integration with existing marketing and communication projects. But every so often, we have the opportunity to work with our clients on end-to-end digital media strategy, bringing an idea to life and helping that idea become viral through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs and more. We have worked with Veridian Credit Union, Iowa’s largest credit union, for about a year… -
So you want to work in social media?
2 Dec 2011 | 3:33 pmPhoto via labnol.org. Here at Lava Row, we cross paths with college students on a pretty regular basis. We sit on panels at universities, speak in front of student groups and participate in local networking events with students. Nathan served as an adjunct instructor at Drake University, teaching an Internet marketing course to upperclassmen. Norah graduated from college a year ago, and remains involved in Drake’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication as a graduate. As we’ve met incredible, driven students from schools across Iowa, we’ve answered one question more than… -
Upcoming workshop: 2012 Social Media Readiness
22 Nov 2011 | 10:59 amPhoto via birgerking On Tuesday, December 6th, we’re hosting a day-long 2012 Social Media Readiness workshop, designed to give businesses small and large an in-depth, advanced outlook on the social media landscape over the next 12 months. Tickets are $129 per person – this includes five hours of content, a catered lunch and beverages. We cap the session at 20 participants to make sure everyone has time to have their questions and concerns addressed. To reserve your seat via Eventbrite, you may use the order form below or click here. The session is structured around six common… -
Onward, Hillary Brown!
18 Nov 2011 | 8:11 amPlease join me in congratulating Hillary Brown as she embarks on a new adventure with The Integer Group’s public relations department, starting on Monday, November 21st. Hillary joined Lava Row in the summer of 2008 and she’s been a major factor in growing the business and keeping our clients happy. We’re really going to miss her expertise, attention to detail, extreme work ethic and upbeat presence in the office. Hiring your first employee is a terrifying thing. You go from being responsible for killing just your own food to making sure another human being gets paid. Twice… -
Business Blogging 101
11 Oct 2011 | 11:26 amIf you’re like most companies, it can often be a struggle to divide your time and resources between Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social platforms; to add blogging on top of that seems impossible. But maintaining a blog for your business can actually help connect the dots between your various social presences and provide you with meaningful content to share! In our next Lava Lunch series workshop on Wednesday, November 30th, we’ll share examples of how various organizations of all sizes have used blogging to reach their audiences — from moms to liquor fanatics.
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Platform Wars
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The Amazon Playbook
7 Jan 2012 | 1:47 pmVenkatesh Rao has a very good overview of Amazon's strategy focussing on the coherence and long-term thinking of Jeff Bezos.Interestingly he discounts Apple as a similarly strategic player, which I think undersells Jobs somewhat. (Though I also suspect this may be a rhetorical trick of Rao's to get a rise out of his readers.) Meanwhile Robert Cringely highlights the parallels, casting Bezos as the natural heir to Saint Steve. -
What Is Google+ Really About?
4 Jan 2012 | 10:17 pmVincent Wong's presentation is entertaining and plausibly right.tl;dr : Applications socialised -
Why Do Professional Programmers Use Macs?
18 Dec 2011 | 3:28 pmSomeone just asked this question on Quora. My answer ballooned somewhat :1) Historically, Macs were the preferred machines of desktop publishing and graphic designers, then web designers. As the web became an increasingly important platform (relative to "client-server" on Windows et al) individuals and companies who had started in web-design area became more prominent - think of the rise of 37 Signals and Ruby on Rails - and brought their Mac-ness with them. 2) When Apple shifted to OSX they made it a real Unix. In the late 90s, one of the attractions of Linux was that it was the only… -
Microsoft Remembers ...
16 Dec 2011 | 7:44 pmMicrosoft remembers that it's a software company.(Earlier thoughts) -
The Inside / Outside Dialectic
10 Oct 2011 | 1:32 pmMark Bernstein has an interesting post on Steve Jobs's Apple.
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Content Matters
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Innovate, Don’t Legislate
23 Jan 2012 | 10:08 amIt’s an oft-repeated tale. An industry gets disrupted by upstarts with new technologies and business models. The incumbents act quickly – turning to their legal team for advice. Litigate and legislate and the typical responses that come back. The approach to SOPA and PIPA is hardly new. We’ve seen this play out many times in many industries, most notably in the music recording industry. But in each case, the approach ultimately fails. Sure, it may slow the erosion of your business, but in the end a broken business model is still broken. And all of those efforts to solve the problem… -
Blackout SOPA
11 Jan 2012 | 8:29 amIf you're like me, your twitter stream for the past few days has become a sea of avatars all with the #BlackoutSOPA banner at the bottom. At last count, nearly 5,000 users have updated their avatar with the message. To show your support, simply click the BlackoutSOPA link to update your avatar with a single click. Of course, showing support for the BlackoutSOPA project is simply a gesture. Your Senators and Representatives, even those who are on Twitter, are unlikely to see you in their stream. That said, a number of major web companies (including some little companies like Google, PayPal,… -
Bandwidth Usage is not an Occupy Issue
6 Jan 2012 | 9:21 amThe New York Times today has gotten lots of attention for a ridiculous headline on a poorly written story: Top 1% of Mobile Users Consume Half of World’s Bandwidth, and Gap Is Growing The story itself is kind of silly. Yes, it's a fact that a minority of users utilize significant amounts of bandwidth on mobile devices. That's not new - in fact, it's why AT&T, Verizon and others have put caps on what were previously unlimited data plans. Yet in the story, the writer compares consumption of bandwidth to consumption of oil: The United States, with less than 5 percent of the world’s… -
Mad Men 2011 aka digital ignorance redux
5 Dec 2011 | 8:35 amI’m looking forward to a new show that’s targeted to hit the small screen (in whatever form it may be) in the year 2041 - Mad Men 2011. The premise sounds pretty cool – they flash back to the year 2011 and look at the ad agencies and media companies of the day and – full of anachronisms and the seemingly bizarre behavior of the day. Like the current Mad Men series, it will have infidelity and corporate infighting, but what will make the show special will be those flashbacks to 2011. No, I’m not speaking of the retro fashions. And it’s not the fossil fuels that powered their cars… -
The Verge Offers a Compelling Vision for Online News
2 Nov 2011 | 9:36 amTo much anticipation, consumer tech blog The Verge launched yesteday. The Verge is the newest site in the newly named Vox Media stable, joining SB Nation, and is led by Joshua Topolsky and much of his editorial team from Engadget along with publisher Marty Moe. Engadget, of course, was the leading gadget blog on the web (and, at one time was the top overall blog in terms of traffic). Josh and much of the Engadget team left as AOL closely integrated the blog into the Huffington Post organization. SB Nation had already made a name for itself through its dual focus on great editorial content and…
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FUEL LINES Fueling Ad Agency New Business Through Social Media
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Leo Burnett Still Wins Ad Agency New Business 40 Years After His Death
25 Jan 2012 | 9:22 amLeo Burnett is one of the most enduring ad industry legends. He broke all the rules. Even after 40 years since his death he is still winning new business for his agency. “The Burnett agency has accomplished something that has eluded so many other businesses: It has managed to keep the spirit and drive of its founder alive and well almost two decades after the founder himself passed on.“ Rita Koselka of Forbes To celebrate Leo Burnett Worldwide’s 75th anniversary, Lobo, an animation and design studio, produced this animated spot. It is based on a speech given by Mr. Burnett… -
Bob Hoffman: 101 Contrarian Ideas About Advertising
24 Jan 2012 | 9:49 amAn ad agency principal who is an example on how to use content marketing and social media to build awareness and new business opportunities for your agency. I am a Bob Hoffman fan. I have read everything he has written, from his book The Ad Contrarian, to every ADWEEK and blog post article and now his new book, 101 Contrarian Ideas About Advertising. Bob is the CEO of Hoffman/Lewis advertising located in San Francisco and St. Louis. Bob has created marketing strategies and advertising for some of the world’s most successful companies: McDonald’s, Toyota, Shell, NBC, Pepsico, Bank of… -
B-2-B Agency Gains New Business from a Narrow Niche and Social Media
16 Jan 2012 | 9:41 amSocial media can end the anxiety of creating a niche and differentiation for ad agency new business. John Sonnhalter, CEO of Sonnhalter, a B2B ad agency located just outside of Cleveland, OH, shares an example of an agency that found a way to finally “draw a line in the sand” and openly declare his agency’s area of expertise for a particular market. John was able to first ‘test the waters before jumping in’ by creating a ‘niche blog’ clearly targeted to a very specific audience. Sonnhalter’s primary ability was knowing how to reach the… -
It is time for ad agencies to pay attention to Pinterest
13 Jan 2012 | 10:01 amPinterest has great potential for ad agencies: storyboards, branding strategies, concept ideas, campaign ideas, design ideas, even organizing agency pitches. Time Magazine named Pinterest one of the top 50 websites for 2011. It is one of the hottest new social media sites with enduring specialties that qualifies it as the next ‘Twitter.’ Its value through venture financing has soared from $40 million to over $200 million in only a few months. Pinterest (pronounced to rhyme with interest) is a vision board-styled social photo sharing website and app where users can create… -
How to Qualify Leads for Ad Agency New Business
11 Jan 2012 | 10:16 amTo begin a successful agency new business program one of the first steps is to identify and qualify your best prospects. A business development person without leads is like a fish out of water. Neither can survive very long. Yet … Only 30% of B2B marketers know the names of decision makers in the companies they are targeting. The RAIN Group It is imperative that you know who your prospects are or you are wasting time, energy and valuable agency resources. Here are a few things you should know: Your agency’s best target market (industry, geography, size, etc.). Specific names of…
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Kneale Mann
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Does This Scare You?
27 Jan 2012 | 5:44 amIn 1999, the Cluetrain Manifesto was ahead of its time and in a lot of respects it remains there. Like so much of the book, one passage that is even more relevant today... “We are not seats or eyeballs or end users or consumers. We are human beings and our reach exceeds your grasp. Deal with it.” They Are The Future. We Must Deal With It. Kneale Mann visual credit: phdworldwide -
Is it Business or a Hobby?
24 Jan 2012 | 6:12 amIn the last four or five years, I have met more entrepreneurs than the previous two decades. Some is through my work and some is the time spent on the social web. We can get intoxicated by the numbers and paralyzed by the activity. Many have confided that they have spent a lot of time trying to build their online presence yet business isn’t where it needs to be and it’s time to get serious. Building business takes time and hard work. Building a strong online presence for your business can seem like an endless climb. Collaboration: Working together to achieve a goal, a process where two or… -
Clay Shirky says SOPA and PIPA are Bad
21 Jan 2012 | 10:25 amMillions have been vocal online lately about two pieces of legislation in Congress in the United States. One is SOPA - the Stop Online Piracy Act and the other is PIPA - the Protect Intellectal Property Act Mainstream media have been trying to figure out a way to stop us from sharing (and in some people’s minds, stealing) content for years. This has taken the Napster issue to a level no one ever imagined. If you create content, I think you should be compensated. But it's not as simple as to label us thieves with a sweeping piece of legislation. Mega sites like… -
No One Wants a Boss
20 Jan 2012 | 5:30 amAs our days are filled by commiserating about that stuff that may be missing from our work, we must look at the top. If you work long enough, you will eventually be given more responsibility and perhaps other people who will look to you for direction. Most don’t want you to dictate their actions but rather guide them and back them up. A friend emailed me this week about her boss who feels compelled to raise his voice in every meeting like the alpha male pounding his chest to remind the minions who’s in charge. Perhaps you've met this guy. Collaboration Personified Simply because people… -
Fear Be Gone
17 Jan 2012 | 9:12 amThe human mind is a marvel of engineering we may never understand. We can run countries, survive 127 hours trapped in a cave or overcome monumental odds. Our brain can also keep us from succeeding, present obstacles that may not be there and create deep depression. In business, you know that everyone in your company has a powerful force that can create magic and solutions. It can also produce damage and destruction manifested in subtle ways such as sick days, wasted meetings, lack of leadership, butt covering, that’s not my department and I didn’t get the email. I’m busy can quickly…
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Social Networking Watch: News on the Social Networking and Social Media Industry
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Interview With Social Media Pro, Ben Stroud
26 Jan 2012 | 3:02 pmSNW INTERVIEW - Jan 26 - Ben Stroud was social media manager at Ministry of Sound and now works for GMG Radio. He blogs at thewhatnoise.blogspot.com. - Mark Brooks What social media initiatives are you most proud of?When I started at Ministry of Sound, the keys to the social media cupboard were dusty to say the least. I felt as a Content Coordinator (as I was at the time), it was my responsibility to start engaging with our audience on social platforms. I was blown away by the response, especially when the club was threatened with closure in 2010. Now, thanks to the great, hard work they've… -
Mail.Ru's Social Network Mulls Selling 3% Stake Pre-IPO
25 Jan 2012 | 1:38 pmTOTAL TELECOM - Jan 25 - Vkontakte.ru part-owned by Russian Internet company Mail.Ru Group confirmed reports that is looking for a minority investor prior to a possible IPO. Vkontakte.ru founder, Pavel Durov, considers an IPO a possible option in 2012 or 2013 and that the company isn't in talks with Mail.Ru and search engines Google or Yandex over the sale of any stake pre-IPO. "But we may sell a small share - about 3%- prior to the IPO to increase market capitalization before the IPO," he said. See full article at Total Telecom See all posts on VkontakteSee all posts on Mail.ru -
Facebook Halts Secondary Markets Trading, IPO Coming Soon
25 Jan 2012 | 1:31 pmMASHABLE - Jan 25 - Facebook halted trading of its shares in secondary markets for three days starting Wednesday, a possible indicator the company’s long-awaited IPO is coming soon, according to a report. According to a recent report, Facebook’s $100 billion IPO is expected to hit in late May. Facebook shares have been trading on the secondary markets for years. Under U.S. laws, such trading is possible if there are fewer than 500 investors. by Todd WassermanSee full article at Mashable See all posts on Facebook -
VKontakte Donates $1 Million To Wikipedia
25 Jan 2012 | 12:44 pmNEWS.AM - Jan 25 - Head of the Russia’s VKontakte social networking website Pavel Durov donated $1M to the Wikipedia. Wikipedia launched an annual campaign to collect donations for the maintenance of efficiency of the resource in November, 2011. See full article at News.am See all posts on VkontakteSee all posts on Wikipedia -
Badoo: A Very Social Network
25 Jan 2012 | 12:18 pmWSJ - Jan 24 - Badoo isn’t well known in the U.K. or U.S. but the service is big in France, Italy, Spain and Brazil and operates in 180 countries. Russian-born serial entrepreneur Andrey Andreev founded the service as a run-of-the-mill social network in 2006. Badoo, he says, is like a nightclub on your phone. The most popular age group is 25-34 years old, although one-third of users are over 35. This latter group spends the most money. It has 7 billion page views a month, and ~1 million users online at any time. The company is profitable and did one round of funding. $30 million from Finam…
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HighTalk
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Google Decides to Kill Privacy
26 Jan 2012 | 9:43 amRemember when Google adopted “Don’t Be Evil” as its unofficial motto? You’ll find that little ditty at a yard sale next to a Bay City Rollers album and a skinny leather tie decorated like a piano. Because this week Google announced it was drastically changing its privacy policy and the side of sharing – and [...] -
Getting Rational on SOPA
25 Jan 2012 | 2:43 pmThe debate on the Stop Online Piracy Act (known as SOPA) has jumped the shark. SOPA and its companion bill Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) were both shelved recently by Congress and the Senate after a frenzied protest by dozens of websites and Internet companies including Google, Wikipedia and Facebook. The goal of the bills [...] -
Tackling the Woes of Social Measurement
20 Jan 2012 | 7:57 amThe biggest woe in social media is measurement. No one has figured it out. There are no standards. There are hundreds of measurement tools. There are all kinds of metrics and statistics that can be measured. The great thing about social media is that you can measure everything, but the worst part of social media [...] -
What the Heck is SOPA?
18 Jan 2012 | 1:38 pmIf you’re online today – or on Twitter or Facebook – you’ve likely seen the acronym SOPA. You may have also noticed that several website including Google, Wikipedia and Yahoo have altered their sites to protest SOPA. Check out the blacked out Google logo above. What’s going on? SOPA stands for the Stop Online Privacy [...] -
5 Tips for a Social Media Crisis
17 Jan 2012 | 4:43 pmYou can take this to the bank: If you are a brand then you’ll experience a social media crisis. It’s inevitable. Look at it this way. No brand in existence – not even the most popular and best-loved brands in the world – has ever avoided a negative phone call, a snarky email, a compliant [...]
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Sydney: Unfiltered.
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Badass Asparagus and Garlic Linguine
24 Jan 2012 | 7:06 pmOn our weekly trip to Plowboys Market, I found some gorgeous asparagus, but it was a bit on the skinny side. Having been craving it lately, I picked it up anyway. Now, I guess I should preface “skinny asparagus” with a story. Back in the day, I was a bartender at Charley’s Steak House in Tampa, Florida. It was a DiRona award-winning restaurant, one of the top ten independently-owned steakhouses in the nation, blah blah blah. We had asparagus. And it was huge. I’m talking asparagus that was as thick as a Crayola marker sometimes. Think about it. That’s a big stalk… -
From Cutaway to 3Ring
24 Jan 2012 | 5:17 pmFor those of you outside of the skydiving world, there are, to my knowledge, two publications that are dedicated to all things air sports: the USPA’s Parachutist magazine, as well as the super-funky, uncensored Blue Skies Magazine. While I haven’t been published in the former, I am pleased to share with you my third installment in my “The Beginning of the End of My Flourishing Career” column for Blue Skies. While they do have an online presence, Blue Skies saves the good stuff for the magazine. You can (and should) subscribe here. Seriously – even if you aren’t a skydiver,… -
Is it there? Square? Landable?
17 Jan 2012 | 8:32 pmFor those of you outside of the skydiving world, there are, to my knowledge, two publications that are dedicated to all things air sports: the USPA’s Parachutist magazine, as well as the super-funky, uncensored Blue Skies Magazine. While I haven’t been published in the former, I am pleased to share with you my third installment in my “The Beginning of the End of My Flourishing Career” column for Blue Skies. While they do have an online presence, Blue Skies saves the good stuff for the magazine. You can (and should) subscribe here. Seriously – even if you aren’t a skydiver,… -
Why We Chose the Omega VRT350HD
15 Jan 2012 | 5:30 pmNote: we paid for our juicer fair and square. Omega is not paying me to write this post. This is me, spewing mad love for my Omega VRT350HD since so many people have emailed and Facebooked me about what’s what and what kind of juicer they should get. I don’t know if it’s just because we’ve been juicing for a few months now or if it’s the new year or if I’ve always had a bunch of friends interested in juicing and just never realized it, but I’ve had an influx of emails and Facebook messages and tweets about which juicer to get and why we chose the… -
Avocado Tuna Salad aka Heaven in Disguise
9 Jan 2012 | 12:41 pmI love tuna salad. I really, really dislike mayo. So, I decided to add avocado to my usual tuna salad mixture. Typically, if I’m in a hurry, I’ll grab a packet of tuna, chop up some onion, add some celery salt and a tablespoon of hummus, stir it all up in the packet and hit the road. But, when I’m planning ahead, it turns out a bit better. This one has avocado instead of mayo – healthy fats. Red onion, celery, hard boiled egg… it’s all good up in here. You can go all low carb on it but either mixing it in the packet (hard to do with lots of…
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Jeff Korhan - New Media and Small Business Marketing
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Google+ for Small Business: An Interview with Chris Brogan
26 Jan 2012 | 12:37 pmIn this interview, New York Times bestselling author Chris Brogan offers insights into the power of Google+ for small businesses. Google+ is an emerging social network that promises to challenge Facebook – especially in regards to its benefits for businesses. While Google+ is only a fraction of the size of Facebook, it is indeed backed by Google – the corporation that controls 2/3 of all search on the open web. Search results are and will be increasingly influenced by what is shared on the social networks. However, much of the sharing on Facebook is completely invisible to Google… -
Innovate or Die – The Race to The Top
22 Jan 2012 | 8:30 pmImagine a web with perfect search capabilities – one in which consumers have access to everything they want to know about your business and others just like it. Knowing that, would you operate differently than you are today? You can hope your prospects will not discover other sources that are cheaper or better than yours, or you can accept that the day will soon come when they will know all that you do – and more. Competition is something that keeps business owners and marketers up at night. They bemoan that some are trashing their markets by offering pricing at which nobody can… -
Facebook Contest Engages Small Business
20 Jan 2012 | 7:57 pmOnce in a while you come across an opportunity that is a no-brainer – such as receiving FREE stuff. Facebook wants to help small businesses, and they believe the best way they can accomplish that is introducing you to the benefits of Facebook advertising. FREE Facebook Advertising So, they have launched a contest, one that will earn you up to $150 of FREE Facebook advertising just for signing up and attracting at least 100 new Facebook fans before the contest closes on April 1st. If you are especially ambitious, you may wish to go for the opportunity to be one of ten small businesses… -
Creating Addictive Marketing Content
18 Jan 2012 | 10:03 pmOne of the distinguishing qualities of successful marketers is they are passionate students of human behavior – more specifically, buying behavior. Human beings have innate tendencies that lead to actions – some favorable, and others not. Addictions are unfavorable behaviors that can develop very innocently. For example, exercise is a positive action that people take to improve or sustain their vitality. Yet, even exercise can become an obsessive and unhealthy addiction, one that can lead to fatigue and a number of other imbalances. What you are really interested in is not… -
Presentation Skills for Marketers
17 Jan 2012 | 8:02 pmSuccessful marketers know that presentation skills are just as important as the message – maybe more. The reason for this is every message is subject to interpretation, and the better it is presented the more likely the audience will draw from it the necessary elements that are going to be of value to them. Media used to be the domain of specialists. Some had expertise in radio, television, newspapers, and other forms of print. Now we are surrounded by media – which means anyone in business needs to develop the skills for using it well. This also means that every small business is…
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Michael Durwin
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Product Review: Hague Mini Motion-Cam Stabilizer
25 Jan 2012 | 9:41 pmI did a little research on camera stabilizers because I found any moving footage was every choppy. I’ve known about Steadicam for years, they were used in both the MTV and Pantene commercials I worked on. I needed a Steadicam for my iPhone! I had no idea if such a thing existed but lo and behold it did! Sort of. Most stabilizer manufacturers make a prosumer device for small, light weight consumer cameras, perfect for an iPhone. I checked out reviews, specs and videos for stabilizers from Steadicam, Hague, Lensse and some great DIY stabilizer videos. Seeing as how I don’t have a… -
Review of Splice and SlowMo
23 Jan 2012 | 1:28 pmWhile working on my iPhone film, I’ve been testing various editing applications, many of which I’ve mentioned already. I wanted to share more detailed info on a few of them. Tis post covered SlowMo and Splice. The former is strictly for slow motion, the later handles editing and slow motion. I won’t be reviewing Splice as an editing tool, you’ll see why soon. SlowMo SlowMo is pretty basic; shoot or load video, slow it down, purview and export the final footage. Splice Cool opening page and easy interface for an app that handles editing, cropping, slow motion. As you… -
A New England Love Story Documentary Part 5
22 Jan 2012 | 1:07 pmI finally got a chance to do some lighting tests using my SIMA (SL-10HD) LED light. It connects via cold shoe to my AR-4i, OWLE, or my iPhone via its connector arm and iPhone tripod adaptor. The SIMA uses 2 AA batteries, has no DC input. It comes with an arm that allows you to attach it to a tripod, or tripod adaptor-equipped iPhone. It provides 600 lumens for 45-60 minutes. Here are some test photos and a test video. Share and Enjoy: -
A New England Love Story Documentary Part 4
16 Jan 2012 | 7:44 pmI spent the day working on my script. I had been using Evernote for writing until it became useless. When typing the app froze, when saving it crashed. Apparently users have been having this problem for months with no resolution. So, I switched to Pages, Apples version of Word. Unfortunately there is no movie script app and formatting in the iPad was seriously slowing me down. I spent some time today checking out script writing apps on the iTunes store. There weren’t many, only 2-3 of the apps below are for film script writing, and I found one other under “script”, but that… -
A New England Love Story Documentary Part 3
15 Jan 2012 | 7:30 pmIn this post I discuss a creative block that almost led me to drop my entire story line and start from scratch. Luckily, I had an epiphany. I also ran into a technical issue, I expect it’s the first of many, but resolved as well. It was a good week. Share and Enjoy:
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Web 2.0 - Articles - Zimbio
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The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More (Hardcover) tagged "web 20" 9 times
23 Jan 2012 | 8:36 amThe Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More (Hardcover) tagged "web 20" 9 times The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More (Hardcover)By Chris Anderson Buy new: $16.21531 used and new from $0.01 Customer Rating: Customer tags: business(70), long tail(48), marketing(43), internet(38), economics(37), internet marketing(35), longtail(28), amazon(15), web 2 dot 0(11), wired(9), web 20(9), entrepreneurship(6) more info... -
Latest social media course covers all 4 major websites.
3 Jan 2012 | 11:34 pmHere is one comprehensive course that covers all you need to know about getting free traffic, leads, and increased sales from the 4 biggest social media sites: FaceBook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter. You’ll discover and learn PROVEN methods that work, including: Access to step-by-step video training on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter. “How to” guides for driving traffic and leads from all of the major social networks. Everything needed to master the user interfaces for all the major networks. The insider secrets of community building. Easy ways to track and measure Social Media… -
December 2011 Contest Sponsor For RHA - elearnSecurity
13 Dec 2011 | 10:22 pmWin 1400$ Worth Of Ethical Hacking Trainings - Contest For DecemberDue to a tremendous response of readers and huge number of participants of the last contest"Vote for RHA and Win Facebook Hacking Course", we decided to setup another contest for RHA readers. We have partnered with ElearnSecurity.net and arranged a contest for our readers, The winners will be handed over with prizes worth up to 1400$.RewardsBefore we inform you about the Contest participation details, We would like you to know about the rewards and prizes which the winners will get their hands On.[1ST PRIZE]… -
Eastren Bank Of Bangladesh Database Hacked By Sen Haxor
13 Dec 2011 | 11:02 amEastren Bank Ltd. Bangladesh 's Website is vulnerabale For SQL injection, this vulnerality Found By Sen haxor, Sen is a Member of indian Stealth Army, he Hacked into websites Databaseand Leaked bank user's Name adress, Mobile number fax and emails you can check it here http://pastehtml.com/view/bh6y1088p.htmlHacked exposed Username and password of website with SQl injection username : administratorpassword : X23@tH%4Sd (its a Hash You need to crash it For login in website)click here to view the Injcetionwebsite : www.ebl.com.bd -
How Did Some Biggest site look in Past?
12 Dec 2011 | 10:53 amSince the rise of the Internet in the ’90s, the web has shown no signs of slowing down. We’ve watched the birth and evolution of social media, e-commerce and online video entertainment.It’s hard to imagine that the treasured websites we all use today were at one point just scribbles on a piece of paper, or the brainchild of a 19-year-old college student. With the help of the Wayback Machine, which provides screenshots of any website imaginable from its inception until now, we’re can view the original designs and content of the most visited websites in the world.1. GoogleWhile the…
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@miketrap
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Photo
26 Jan 2012 | 3:04 pm -
Positioning A President: A Marketing Case Study
26 Jan 2012 | 2:28 pmHolland-Mark’s branding approach is based on the observation that people have a tendency to boil things down to One Simple Thing™. We all do it, it’s part of our genetic code and an important adaptation to a modern world overrun by complexity. We do this not only for brands (Volvo = Safety, BMW = Performance, Zappos = Service,) but for Movies (Rocky = Inspired, Notebook = Chick Flick, Platoon = Intense Downer,) Musical Artists (Elvis = Rock & Roll, Sinatra = Swinging Crooner, Katy Perry = Catchy Tune / Body of A Comic Book Villain,) and just about everything else. We even do it for… -
For my money, the best ever.
25 Jan 2012 | 8:04 pmFor my money, the best ever. -
This is the hero video for a brand campaign by Deschutes, a...
25 Jan 2012 | 1:55 pmThis is the hero video for a brand campaign by Deschutes, a Mountain region brewer who’se been growing steadily as a regional player out there. I’m a little torn between finding it beautiful (which it is) to finding it creatively self-indulgent (which it may be.) Remembering this is a brand video… what do you think of it? What do you think of this style of online “hero” video, at the center of digital marketing programs? Deschutes Landmarks (by NORTH) -
How To Teach Your CEO Social Media
25 Jan 2012 | 12:14 pmWe do a lot of work with CEOs at Holland-Mark, and some of that work is focused on helping them understand, use, and leverage social media to advance their business agendas and personal brands. We’ve learned a few things along the way about what works in bringing a CEO up to speed on Twitter et al, and about the value of a CEO who “gets it” to the business they run. If your CEO is something short of Lauzon-esque in his or her mastery of the medium, here’s the best advice we have. 1. Start with empathy. Business is tough on us middle-aged white guys these days. We’re just cavemen.
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Phil Gerbyshak
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Create a Facebook Business Page – Step by Step
26 Jan 2012 | 9:30 amIf you’ve always wondered where the step by step instructions were for creating a Facebook business page, look no further than this presentation. I presented this as a training session for business owners in Racine, Waterford, Rochester, Burlington and the surrounding areas. Feel free to download it, print it out, and share any tips you have for making it even better. Create a Facebook Business Page – Step by Step View more presentations from Phil Gerbyshak If you’re looking for someone to train your organization to use Facebook more effectively, or need training on any… -
Can Your Business Achieve Operational Excellence – an interview with Kevin Duggan
19 Jan 2012 | 4:30 pmWhat is operational excellence, and how can your organization achieve operational excellence? While at first I thought this would be only for big business, in the 45 minutes (27 of which is below for your listening pleasure) I spent with Kevin Duggan, author of the new book Design for Operational Excellence, I realized this is DEFINITELY for small businesses. Take 30 minutes and listen to Kevin’s insights about how you can use operational excellence in your business. Chances are, you’ll be very happy you did! -
Social Search is here for Google
16 Jan 2012 | 8:45 amLast week, Google announced (to MUCH fanfare online, but little fanfare offline) that they will be using more social search in their search engine ratings. What this means is you will see, if your friends and/or you are using Google+ (or other Google products) and you are using Google to search that you’ll see more personalized results from people in your network. Google calls it “Search Plus Your World” and it’s pretty interesting. Rather than bore you with all the details, here’s a 70 second video from Google explaining the change a bit more. Can’t see… -
Happy Birthday Meet-Meme
13 Jan 2012 | 8:30 amMeet-Meme, my favorite social media trading cards are turning 1 this month. Well, 1 year old is how old their retail website is. They’re actually almost 2 years old. Happy birthday!! If you’re not familiar, below are my cards (front and back). After the pictures, I’ll explain why I love them so much. Click on them to see them in full size. I love these cards for MANY reasons, but here are a few that stand out. Why I Love Meet-Meme Social Media Trading Cards 1) Size matters – I love the fact they are oversized and are as big as a baseball card (hence the term social… -
Get Some Purple Goldfish to Amp Up Your Customer Experience from @9inchmarketing
11 Jan 2012 | 8:45 amToday is the official launch day for my friend Stan Phelps’ new book What’s Your Purple Goldfish? 2 weeks ago I did a fantastic video interview with Stan to share with you today. Murphy’s Law being what it is, only Stan’s half of the audio was recorded. So rather than give you Stan answering questions you can’t hear, I read my own lips, typed them up, and added Stan’s responses, to provide you with this transcription of our conversation. Before I share the interview, I wanted to share something: I didn’t believe Stan would ever find 1001 Purple…
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Simon Mainwaring
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Why effective branding is about doing, not telling
26 Jan 2012 | 10:46 amImage: Absolut/Fader I had the pleasure of speaking at the San Diego Ad Club last week after Dan Burrier, the Chief Innovation Officer at Ogilvy and my former boss on the Motorola account. Not only is Dan a friend and someone I greatly admire, but he said something that evening that struck me very deeply. He said that branding is now more about the “doing” than the “telling.” I think Dan is absolutely right. For too long, branding as practiced by advertising agencies has been focused on the Big Idea that, well told, will connect emotionally with a customer and… -
What’s the real value of the We First Social Branding Seminar?
23 Jan 2012 | 10:07 amWe’re now in the final week of registration for the We First Social Branding Seminar and I wanted to share some thoughts as to its real value to your business. There are so many conferences and training events to choose from, and your time and resources are so precious, that it’s important to know why this one is any different. The idea behind the seminar is to make sure your brand (whether they’re a non-profit, a start up, a social entrepreneur, social enterprise, mid-size company or Fortune 500 brand) doesn’t get left behind in this fast changing marketplace by… -
How social technology will change your world, literally.
18 Jan 2012 | 10:24 amI wanted to share this video with you that features David Kirkpatrick, the author of The Facebook Effect, talking about the impact of social tools and technology on the way consumers and citizens around the world are demanding change. He does a wonderful job of articulating how the internet has heightened awareness around the world of economic inequality, and how social media has given citizens and customers all around the world an unprecedented platform to have those grievances heard. Specifically, David does a very effective job of framing a series of questions that every brand must… -
Honoring Martin Luther King Jr.: Using social media to realize his vision of economic equality
16 Jan 2012 | 10:35 amImage: AP In honor of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, I’m sharing the epilogue to We First in which I reference famous words from his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech that still ring true today. Economic equality was an important part of his vision and legacy, and while strides have been made, we still have far to go. It is my hope that enlightened and purposeful brands can help to better share prosperity and create a fairer, more equal and sustainable global community. I opened this book [We First] by asking the question: Is this the world you want? For the many reasons… -
This week in social media: Google+, citizen activism and the future of journalism
13 Jan 2012 | 10:11 amLast week I had the pleasure of joining other guests on This Week in Social Media with host, Robert Tercek. As always, it was a lively discussion ranging from the rise of Google+, to citizen and consumer activism, to the future of journalism. I hope you enjoy it.
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Social Media University, Global
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Teachers Tweeting for Support and Inspiration
21 Jan 2012 | 6:29 pmToday’s Washington Post has a nice story about how teachers are using Twitter to connect with each other and get just-in-time training. Here’s an excerpt: After her first year teaching history in a public high school in the District, Jamie Josephson was exhausted and plagued by self-doubt. Teaching had been more grueling than she ever expected. Law school began to sound appealing. Then she stumbled onto Twitter. In the vast social network on the Web, she discovered a community of mentors offering inspiration, commiseration and classroom-tested lesson plans. “Twitter essentially… -
Packers’ Highlights and an 80s Flashback
15 Jan 2012 | 8:17 pmThe red-and-white Packers from Austin had a better weekend than the green-and-gold ones from Wisconsin. The Austin boys traveled to Rochester for a game with Century High Friday night, and both team entered the game tied for first place in the Big Nine conference with just one loss. Here is the late Friday Sports Extra from the local TV station, KTTC, where one of my high school contemporaries, Pat Lund, is the sports anchor. Pat was a member of the Rochester Mayo high school team. He graduated in 1982, a year after I graduated from Austin. The segment starts with a recap of the… -
More Video Fun: The Alley Oop
11 Jan 2012 | 7:35 amIn follow-up Social Media 220: How to Customize Your YouTube Player, in which I showed how to tailor your users’ experience of the embedded YouTube player using this tool, here’s a fun personal video. Last night the Austin Packers basketball team, on which my son Joe and nephew Tom are starters, had the largest margin of victory for an Austin basketball team in at least the last decade, as they cruised to a 74-19 win against winless Faribault. The starters played less than half of the game, but here’s the highlight taken from the four-minute compilation, as Joe took a… -
Social Media 220: How to Customize Your YouTube Player
9 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amI have been interested in using a YouTube player to display some of our Mayo Clinic videos on our Mayo Web sites. One concern is that at the end of an embedded YouTube video, a list of related videos is automatically displayed at the end. Here’s an example of a brief video I did to document my newly cleaned office as I prepared to start fresh in 2012: With a quick Google search, I found this site, which makes it really easy to customize your player. Among the changes you can make are: Autoplay (have the video start automatically when the page is loaded) Hide the video title Hide the… -
Where’s Lee?
8 Jan 2012 | 5:56 pmThis isn’t an allusion to my travels; I’m staying in Minnesota for the whole month, with no trips scheduled until February. It’s about this video we did through our Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media, in cooperation with our colleagues in the Office of Women’s Health and our cardiology group. I wrote the lyrics to this parody of Tommy TuTone’s 867-5309/Jenny and was the Executive Producer, and Makala Johnson from our team shot, edited and coordinated production. We had a great team for the project, including a band and back-up singers drawn almost entirely from…
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Are We Connected?
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Pre Friday Fun: UninspiredPhotoStock
26 Jan 2012 | 11:52 amI was looking for a snarky fun image to upload to my facebook profile. I did a quick google image search for Creative Commons things I could use and was struck by all the really good and inspiring photos coming from sites like iStockPhoto. Since I couldn’t find a ‘boring’ picture of ‘boring’, I was inspired to make a fake image. What’s more uninspiring than a plain grey image? I even faked the watermark. But then, like most things swirling in my brain I thought, “Why not?” So I went over to Tumblr and started… http://uninspiredphotostock.tumblr.com/ All images… -
Facebook Page Basics: Setting the Default Tab
25 Jan 2012 | 7:00 amOne of the best things about having a Facebook Page is the ability to direct a new visitor to any one of your Tabs first. That means that anyone who has not yet LIKE’d your Page or not currently signed in to Facebook can be directed to your Wall, or Info, or Photos or any of the Tabs your Page currently has. If you are really cool, your Page has a specific Tab (App) custom built to convert visitors to LIKE’s like these people do: http://areweconnected.com/facebook/ You can’t do that with your Profile. You can’t do that with a Group. You can’t do that with an…
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Wilder In HD
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From The VAR Guy: Juniper Rebrands Channel Program Juniper Partner Advantage
18 Jan 2012 | 2:22 pmI really admire what I'm hearing about Juniper, and it's revamped channel program. Rather than just pushing their products and certifications down their VARs' throats, they appear to genuinely want to help them develop their businesses and help with their overall success. Juniper appears to be behaving more like a partner than a vendor. Juniper Rebrands Channel Program Juniper Partner Advantage: I’m at the first-ever Juniper Networks Global Partner Conference here at the Mandalay Bay hotel and casino in Las Vegas, where the networking company is laying out its channel strategies for the… -
LifeSize Tweetup showcases use of social media and video collaboration
12 Jan 2012 | 11:41 amLifeSize hosted a Tweetup today to field questions about its new Connections product. The audience submitted questions via Twitter using the hashtag #AskLifeSize, and the questions were answered on a live video stream via LifeSize Video Center. Excellent use case for both social media and video collaboration. Click the link below to check it out.LifeSize Social MediaThanks for subscribing to my feed. Please feel free to contact me any time at sean.wilder@gmail.com with any feedback. -
Five Steps to Overcoming SMB Objections in the Cloud
9 Jan 2012 | 1:12 pmNice post on The VAR Guy about how to position the cloud to SMB clients. It reminds me of the long road to widespread adoption of voice over IP. It didn't really take off until we stopped talking about the technology and started talking more about the benefits. The same goes with video. It's not about 1080p or 60 frames per second. It's about richer collaboration and ROI.Five Steps to Overcoming SMB Objections in the Cloud: As a VAR, you know it makes sense to offer cloud-based services to your small and mid-sized business (SMB) clients. The cloud allows you to provide SMBs with… -
WilderInHD on LifeSize Corporate Blog
9 Jan 2012 | 10:17 amI was honored today with a guest post on LifeSize's corporate blog at VideoConferencingSpot.com. Check it out: http://www.lifesize.com/videoconferencingspot.com/?p=3250Thanks for subscribing to my feed. Please feel free to contact me any time at sean.wilder@gmail.com with any feedback. -
For Telecommuters (which means everyone): No VPN? No problem for LifeSize
14 Oct 2011 | 2:17 pmGreat feature about how we are all telecommuters now. Whether we go to a physical office or not, many of us do a lot of work from home or while mobile and use devices that would have been banned by IT just a few years ago. The article also discusses how VPN connections are starting to go out of fashion. One challenge not having a VPN connection presents is the ability to communicate via video back to the home office. Very few companies are comfortable with forwarding ports to permit video traffic to traverse their firewall. Fortunately, LifeSize has two great solutions to meet this…
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The Social Media Guide
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How to Really Make Money with Clickbank
23 Jan 2012 | 5:10 am(This post follows on from an earlier post of mine – Earning Money with Clickbank).The following is the business model I use to make decent money every week with Clickbank.I encourage you to read though the whole thing because this model works and has been proven over and over by myself and other affiliate marketers. While this model shows how to make money with Clickbank, the model can be applied to any other affiliate network or product (even a blog). I just happen to like Clickbank because information is one of the easiest products to promote and sell on the Internet.Hit And Run… -
4 Free Twitter Tools You Should Be Using
22 Jan 2012 | 4:05 amThere are tons of Twitter tools out there, you’ve used some while others you’ve never even heard of before.Some you have to download and some cost money but what are the best free browser based Twitter tools out there?Here are a list of four:Twilert:If you’re interested in who is tweeting about your product or website, or just want to know who is tweeting a specific word, Twilert is perfect for you.This very simple but useful tool alerts you via email when that word or hashtag is used.Twilert allows you to decide how often you want to receive these emails. So if you want to… -
How to Supercharge your Email Signature
18 Dec 2011 | 4:45 amHow many emails do you send per day?Probably too many, like the rest of us. And how many emails have you seen with over-sized and unattractive email signatures that doing everything except get you to click on them?Well, those days are over.WiseStamp gives the average business owner, blogger, or online marketer the chance to have an attractive and high-performing email signature that not only catches the reader’s eye but also keeps everyone up to date on the company’s latest social updates.WiseStamp integrates with all major Webmail services: Gmail, Yahoo!, Hotmail, AOL, and supports… -
How to Link your Facebook Profile to your Facebook Page
12 Dec 2011 | 2:25 pmSince purchasing FBinfluence I have learnt some nice tips to help drive traffic to my Facebook Page.Here is a simple one I would like to share..If you are like me you have your regular “day job”.. and on-the-side you blog, or have a home/small business.Personally, I would rather link to my Facebook Page (form my Profile) than to my “real employer”.. that is what LinkedIn is for.And plus, rather than annoy my friends by continually asking them to Like my page.. I can link to it (my Page) and any of my friends who checkout my profile will see this link (to my Page).Let… -
FBinfluence Review – Your All Inclusive Guide to Facebook Marketing
11 Dec 2011 | 11:21 pmI recently bought myself a copy of FBinfluence and have so far found it to be one of the best investments I’ve made in a long while.FBinfluence is the new wildly successful Facebook marketing and strategy videos by world renowned Facebook guru, Amy Porterfield.Amy was instrumental in designing, building and growing Social Media Examiner’s Facebook Page to 69,000+ fans. Amy is the co-author of Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies and a Social Media Strategist for entrepreneurs and small businesses. Many consider Amy the go-to person for all things Facebook Marketing.With 12+…
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The Tyler Hayes
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Reading on the Web Needs Its iPhone
27 Jan 2012 | 3:22 amReading on the Web Needs Its iPhone: Wherein Rian Van Der Merwe disparages, or rather describes how advertising is disparaging, the current state of reading on the Web. These certainly aren’t new thoughts to web designers, developers, or just plain-old lovers, but they remain as important as ever. -
'Exact Nonsense'
27 Jan 2012 | 3:11 am'Exact Nonsense': Penn Jillette, in his book God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales: There is no god and that’s the simple truth. If every trace of any single religion died out and nothing were passed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all of science were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure it all out again. (Via Kottke.) -
'How Much Do Music and Movie Piracy Really Hurt the U.S. Economy?'
25 Jan 2012 | 3:10 am'How Much Do Music and Movie Piracy Really Hurt the U.S. Economy?': Answer: No one has any idea. That PIPA and SOPA can get as much traction as they did without an answer to this, the most basic question, is frightening. (Via MG Siegler.) -
'Perspective'
25 Jan 2012 | 2:52 am'Perspective': Farhad Manjoo: Apple’s profits ($13 billion) exceeded Google’s entire revenue ($10.6 billion). (Via John Gruber.) -
Yep
21 Jan 2012 | 2:53 amYep: Jonathan Coulton: Make good stuff, then make it easy for people to buy it. There’s your anti-piracy plan. (Via Merlin Mann.)
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SociableBlog : Social Media Blog
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Plink – Earn Facebook Credits for Dining-Out or Purchasing Offline
27 Jan 2012 | 8:05 amConsumer appetite for Facebook Credits is rapidly growing. To satisfy that appetite, consumers now have a new opportunity called Plink, the first Facebook Credits-based loyalty program that rewards Facebook members for dining and making purchases at their favorite restaurants and offline retailers. Through Plink, Facebook members will be rewarded for dining-out at their favorite restaurants, [...] -
Code Wars: PHP vs Ruby vs Python – Who Reigns Supreme [INFOGRAPHICS]
26 Jan 2012 | 3:35 amSoftware programmers are particular about their programming language preferences – and most can tell you exactly why they like one over another. Three programming languages in particular are the rage these days. Column Five created this infographic with Udemy to compare Ruby, Python, and PHP to see how they stack up. PHP (current version 5.3.8) [...] -
Do You Really Have a View Of The Customer? How Social Media Can Catch You Out!
25 Jan 2012 | 10:26 amIt is critical for contact center agents to have access to every interaction with an individual customer, whether it comes from email, telephone, SMS, Twitter or Facebook, if the organization is to be able to respond appropriately. This was one of the themes discussed at the recent Genesys Social Media and Customer Services Summit in [...] -
Popsicare – Telehealth App for Blood Pressure and Risk Factor Monitoring
25 Jan 2012 | 4:29 amPopsi Cube, a company dedicated to clinical research, has developed in collaboration with Withings Popsicare, a new computerized solution for the capturing and sharing of pulse and blood pressure data and medical questionnaire directly from the patient’s home. The capture of medical data from home and its transmission to health professionals in real time is [...] -
Why Google Should Identify Transient Content on Webpages
25 Jan 2012 | 3:45 amTracking cookies. Advertising links. The things that make every web user spit teeth. Is there a way for Google to get around them? According to a nice article I read by a guy called Bill Slawski (@bill_slawski), yes. In theory it is possible for Google to crawl a page and then recrawl it a few [...]
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Social Networking Watch: News on the Social Networking and Social Media Industry
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Interview With Social Media Pro, Ben Stroud
26 Jan 2012 | 3:02 pmSNW INTERVIEW - Jan 26 - Ben Stroud was social media manager at Ministry of Sound and now works for GMG Radio. He blogs at thewhatnoise.blogspot.com. - Mark Brooks What social media initiatives are you most proud of?When I started at Ministry of Sound, the keys to the social media cupboard were dusty to say the least. I felt as a Content Coordinator (as I was at the time), it was my responsibility to start engaging with our audience on social platforms. I was blown away by the response, especially when the club was threatened with closure in 2010. Now, thanks to the great, hard work they've… -
Mail.Ru's Social Network Mulls Selling 3% Stake Pre-IPO
25 Jan 2012 | 1:38 pmTOTAL TELECOM - Jan 25 - Vkontakte.ru part-owned by Russian Internet company Mail.Ru Group confirmed reports that is looking for a minority investor prior to a possible IPO. Vkontakte.ru founder, Pavel Durov, considers an IPO a possible option in 2012 or 2013 and that the company isn't in talks with Mail.Ru and search engines Google or Yandex over the sale of any stake pre-IPO. "But we may sell a small share - about 3%- prior to the IPO to increase market capitalization before the IPO," he said. See full article at Total Telecom See all posts on VkontakteSee all posts on Mail.ru -
Facebook Halts Secondary Markets Trading, IPO Coming Soon
25 Jan 2012 | 1:31 pmMASHABLE - Jan 25 - Facebook halted trading of its shares in secondary markets for three days starting Wednesday, a possible indicator the company’s long-awaited IPO is coming soon, according to a report. According to a recent report, Facebook’s $100 billion IPO is expected to hit in late May. Facebook shares have been trading on the secondary markets for years. Under U.S. laws, such trading is possible if there are fewer than 500 investors. by Todd WassermanSee full article at Mashable See all posts on Facebook -
VKontakte Donates $1 Million To Wikipedia
25 Jan 2012 | 12:44 pmNEWS.AM - Jan 25 - Head of the Russia’s VKontakte social networking website Pavel Durov donated $1M to the Wikipedia. Wikipedia launched an annual campaign to collect donations for the maintenance of efficiency of the resource in November, 2011. See full article at News.am See all posts on VkontakteSee all posts on Wikipedia -
Badoo: A Very Social Network
25 Jan 2012 | 12:18 pmWSJ - Jan 24 - Badoo isn’t well known in the U.K. or U.S. but the service is big in France, Italy, Spain and Brazil and operates in 180 countries. Russian-born serial entrepreneur Andrey Andreev founded the service as a run-of-the-mill social network in 2006. Badoo, he says, is like a nightclub on your phone. The most popular age group is 25-34 years old, although one-third of users are over 35. This latter group spends the most money. It has 7 billion page views a month, and ~1 million users online at any time. The company is profitable and did one round of funding. $30 million from Finam…
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Costa DeVault
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Will iBooks Spell “The End” for Conventional Textbooks?
26 Jan 2012 | 11:43 amThough my college career may have ended several years ago, I vividly remember how my shoulders ached after long days of lugging textbooks all over campus. But now that Apple has debuted the “textbooks” category in its iBooks app, it’s only a matter of time before book-induced muscle pain is a thing of the past. As Mashable reported, Apple users downloaded 350,000 books from partners McGraw-Hill, Pearson and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in the first three days the category was available. And with book prices starting at $14.99 or less, it’s no surprise that cash-strapped students find… -
Downtown Arts District Receives a Free Mobile Site
9 Jan 2012 | 11:28 amThe column inches have been tallied … and the results are in! In 2011, Costa DeVault garnered more than 55,750 column inches – and hundreds of thousands of dollars in ad equivalency value – for our clients. Shanon Larimer, vice president of global marketing at Baker Barrios, had the closest guess, and as a result, he had the honor of naming the Central Florida nonprofit that will be receive a free mobile website. We’re happy to announce that we’ll be working with the Orlando Downtown Arts District to create a mobile website that will keep all their members informed on the go. -
Ad Trends for 2012
4 Jan 2012 | 11:03 amToday, The Wall Street Journal had an interesting forecast section regarding ad trends for 2012. Predictions include advertising executives flexing their technology muscles, consumer-made customized products, more foul-mouthed ads and the marketing world embracing the mobile experience. Christian Haas, executive director at Goodby Silverstein & Partners, stated, “In 2012, advertising will be more than ever the intersection of technology and storytelling.” We’ll be looking for these trends while watching the ads in the Super Bowl this year. With a 30-second ad going for $4 million,… -
Happy Holidays!
22 Dec 2011 | 4:19 pmFrom our Costa DeVault family to yours … Have a wonderful holiday season! -
Coca-Cola’s Thirst for Social Media Success
20 Dec 2011 | 1:53 pmIf I had to guess which Facebook pages are the most popular, I would chose Justin Bieber, Disney and MTV (not in that order). While they are on Facebook’s Top 100 Most Popular Facebook Pages In The World list, the chart toppers surprised me. Currently, Coca-Cola is the most popular brand page on Facebook. Companies such as MTV and Starbucks aren’t even listed in the top 20. A recent USA Today article examined the ways in which Coke has begun to dominate the social media realm. Through the creation of smart phone applications and the use of contests and giveaways, the brand reached an…
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Social Media Minute with @EHayen
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Roaming gnome spotted in Columbia, SC #gnome #MastGeneral #hotspot
27 Jan 2012 | 12:48 pmTaken at Mast General Store Posted via email from Social Media Made -
iSkin mania #apple #cases #iPad2 #iPhone4s
25 Jan 2012 | 9:54 amTaken at ERA Wilder Posted via email from Social Media Made -
"iTunes" #antique #hobby
24 Jan 2012 | 5:04 pmTaken at iPhone 4s Posted via email from Social Media Made -
Love #art #home
24 Jan 2012 | 3:42 pmTaken at iPhone 4s Posted via email from Social Media Made -
New iPhone addicts.. Add Pinterest to that bag of goodness
23 Jan 2012 | 5:00 pmPosted via email from Social Media Made
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prTini
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5 Questions with Outback’s Social Media Team
27 Jan 2012 | 9:20 amOutback's social media team, Becky and Dan Our seats in the press box. For this week’s “Follow Friday,” I’d like to introduce you to Outback’s social media team. As you might know, Outback invited me to attend the Outback Bowl and spend New Year’s in Tampa. (Pictures here.) Because they were willing to share the behind-the-scenes activity, I gained a new appreciation not only for their social team, but also the restaurant as a whole. And, as a bonus, Outback offered some gift certificates for me to giveaway to the prTini readers who asked the best… -
B2B Case Study: Sparking Results Through Social Media
25 Jan 2012 | 8:01 amEver been in a meeting where someone tries to convince you that social media won’t work for B2B? They’re wrong. And this case study from Madison Electric Products (a Geben Communication client) is proof. More than just a tagline, “Innovation that Works” is the driving force behind Madison Electric Products’ approach to business. In fact, it’s this commitment to innovation that led Madison to launch the Sparks Innovation Center, the industry’s first crowdsourced, collaborative approach to product development. (Madison’s industry isn’t part of the… -
DJ Lessons: Remixing and Sampling in PR and Social Media
23 Jan 2012 | 2:00 amRandom fact that you may not know: My husband was a DJ in college. Seriously. He owned a DJ business that paid his college tuition. Perhaps that’s why, even today, we both have a great appreciation for remixes, mashups and interesting sampling. My appreciation for this mix of skill and creativity isn’t limited to just music though. What am I talking about? Let me explain … Did you catch Nike’s FuelBand launch last week? How about the Marty McFly “Back to the Future” shoe announcement? Both events displayed a masterful grasp of showmanship, suspense …… -
HOW TO: Create a Brand Blueprint in 4 Steps
20 Jan 2012 | 2:10 amThis week’s Follow Friday post is a guest post from Nick Westergaard, a smart branding guy who calls Iowa home. I met Nick at a conference last year and we immediately hit it off. Here’s what I like about Nick: He’s super smart and savvy, but isn’t one of those people who feels the need to constantly let everyone know how smart he is. I appreciate people who are confident enough in their skills that they let their work speak for itself. So, without further adieu, follow Nick on his blog and Twitter. And read on to as he offers some insights about brand building …… -
Picture worth a thousand words? Now, a thousand words fit into 140 characters.
13 Jan 2012 | 10:06 amContinuing the Follow Friday series, today’s post is from Harrison Kratz. Why should you connect with Harrison? I appreciate that he’s a real go-getter and someone who just makes things happen. But, there are lots of young, ambitious people. Harrison stands out to me because he’s not only trying to further his personal career. He’s also trying to help other people grow and improve, whether he’s actively participating in #prstudchat (a Twitter chat and Facebook group connecting students and pros), or taking Tweetdrive national. Connect with Harrison on Twitter and…
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AiskhronKerdos
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Pre-tour AMERICAS Area Conference 2012
8 Jan 2012 | 9:37 amL’offre Fêtez la Saint-Valentin à New York 4 jours / 3 nuits pour 2 personnes en chambre double deluxe à l’Hotel Mulberry à New York Voir liste des dates de séjour directement dans le texte Cliquez sur “Acheter” pour faire votre choix Petits déjeuners inclus Vols inclus Vols directs depuis l’aéroport de Zaventem jusqu’à l’aéroport JFK à New York Hôtel situé à proximité des quartiers de Chinatown et de Little Italy dans le centre de Manhattan Chambres confortables avec minibar, salle de bains de luxe, TV avec câble et de grandes… -
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Tech in Asia
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A Review of the Xiaomi M1 [VIDEO]
27 Jan 2012 | 7:00 amthe Xiaomi M1 We’ve done a fair amount of reporting on Xiaomi’s M1 smartphone, and apparently I got caught up in the hype, because a little over a month ago, my wife and I both bought one. I wanted to actually use it for a while so I could offer a review based on a longer period of use, and put it through the rigors of life as a cell phone in China. Here’s my fill review in video, but if you dislike watching things (or are on a Youtube-challenged connection), scroll down for the text review below. In short, I’m really impressed with the phone. Prior to the Xiaomi, I… -
Japanese Voice App ‘Line’ Continues Meteoric Rise, Hits 15 Million Downloads
27 Jan 2012 | 4:09 amIt was just one month ago (almost to the day) that Japanese mobile messenger application Line surpassed the 10 million downloads milestone. And now today, Naver Japan, who operates the popular app, is announcing that Line has reached 15 million downloads (pdf) just a month later. While the app has about 5.5 million of its downloads from Japan, it has prover popular elsewhere in Asia (Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore) and is starting to gain some traction in Europe as well. You can see Line’s impressive growth in the chart below [1] which shows both iPhone and Android downloads since… -
Apple’s Siri Can’t Understand Chinese [VIDEO]
27 Jan 2012 | 12:55 amApple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) voice recognition feature Siri, which appears on the iPhone 4S, can’t understand or speak Chinese. Perhaps it’s learning. But for now, despite most users probably knowing of this limitation before purchasing, it’s a frustrating omission. That’s probably why two young Chinese nerds made the amusing video, below, about the language barrier that stands between them and their digital assistant. Even without subtitles, you can sense the comedically exaggerated frustration at not being understood by your pricey smartphone. My favourite part is… -
Japan’s NEC Cutting 10,000 Jobs – Is Apple’s iPhone to Blame?
26 Jan 2012 | 9:50 pmNEC Medias PP, for Docomo Some startling news coming from electronics maker NEC in Japan, who reportedly said yesterday that it will be cutting 10,000 jobs from its workforce, with most of those coming from its mobile unit. A report from Reuters cites competition from foreign players in the smartphone space, including Apple’s iPhone, negatively impacting NEC’s business in Japan. The report went on to say that NEC has cut its annual projected sales by almost a quarter to five million phones, and that the company would post a net loss of 100 billion yen (or $1.3 billion) for the… -
Why Earth and Humanity are Doomed
26 Jan 2012 | 9:00 pmNormally, I’d be looking for some news to write up right now. But during Chinese New Year, there really isn’t any, so instead, let’s take a second to talk about how we’re all doomed. Dooooomed! OK, that might be a bit of an overstatement. But maybe it’s not. This morning, given the lack of news, I was browsing 17Startup looking for a new startup to check out, and was struck by just how few tech startups there are working in the public interest rather than for profit. If you’re looking for more informative graphs about how startups in China break down, you…
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Capture the Conversation
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Why Instagram is Perfect for Brands
16 Jan 2012 | 10:51 amA question that is often asked of those who work in social media is, “what’s next?” Nowadays, it seems that if you don’t have a Facebook and Twitter presence you are among the minority. Most companies have adopted the major networks as their social platforms, but once those networks are saturated where should we turn to make an impact? While there are many social networks that would fit into this conversation (Google+, Pinterest, Tumblr), there is one in particular who’s growth and engagement is already attracting brands. Instagram is now the world’s… -
Get Facebook Parent-Child Features
6 Jan 2012 | 2:50 pmIf you work for a company that has dozens or even hundreds of locations, it’s been a nightmare to figure out how to best use Facebook places to your advantage. Sure you want to try some check-in deals, but you have no idea how to claim/admin/manage all of the individual locations. Luckily for you, Facebook is rolling out a new functionality called Parent-Child. It allows you easily claim, administrate, and manage places pages and check-in deals for brands with more than five locations. There are a few huge benefits to Parent-Child: Locations Tab: As seen on pages like Sanrio… -
How Tablets Will Change Social Networking
20 Dec 2011 | 11:06 amDespite their relatively short time in the marketplace, tablets are gaining in popularity and gearing up to become major competitors to e-readers, netbooks and even laptops. This holiday season has seen a particularly heated battle between a variety of manufacturers and models, and sales are expected to soar. As more people begin to access online content through these new mobile devices, businesses will have to rethink their marketing and social-networking strategies to adapt to new ways this information is accessed. Here are a few ways that tablets will likely change social networking and… -
Mixology: Business Intelligence and The Marketing Mix
19 Dec 2011 | 12:00 pmIt’s that time of year again, where most organizations are finalizing their business objectives and marketing strategies for the upcoming year. Given the uptick in consumption of digital media and mobile communications, it’s no surprise that an increasing number of companies are crafting budgets that funnel resources towards digital communications and away from traditional mass media buys. Yet in the last week there’s been a flurry of social chatter about the importance of unplugging and the irrelevance of market research. Thank you very much, Gizmodo and Anna Wintour, respectively. -
Photo Friday: New Office Awaiting
16 Dec 2011 | 3:09 pmHere at Room 214 we are wrapping up the final few weeks at our current office. We’ve been in this space since 2008, and it’s very exciting to be moving on to a new location. Our new office is will eventually be equipped with fancy new conference rooms, and informal meeting spaces… not to mention room for us to continue growing as a company. We wanted to pass along a quick photo preview of the new office space as it is being built. We can’t wait for the move!
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Justin Levy
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Getting in Shape and Achieving Success in Social Media
5 Jan 2012 | 12:46 amYou’ve decided that this year will be your year to get into shape. You’re going to hit the gym a few days per week and start eating healthier. You stop by the gym and sign up for a new membership plan with the towel service and free personal training consultation. After getting a new membership card to add to your keyring, you leave stop by your local sporting goods store to pick out your new workout clothes. You grab a few tops, a few shorts, new super comfortable socks and a pair of running sneakers. On your way out, you grab all of the new health and fitness magazines from… -
Three Words for 2012
1 Jan 2012 | 10:20 amIt’s that time of the year again where we look at the new year full of vigor and motivation, ready to take on everything that the upcoming year has to offer. However, it’s so easy to get bogged down and sidetracked from accomplishing our goals that by the time we look up again, the year has already escaped us. This is why for the past few years I’ve joined Chris Brogan and several other friends in choosing three words that will serve as my guiding pillars for the upcoming year. These three words will help me to accomplish the goals that I have set out for myself, both… -
Developing Routines and Finding Time
25 Nov 2011 | 10:49 amMaking anything a routine is hard. This becomes harder as the demands on our time increase. And with increased demands on our time come increased stress to accomplish it all and it becomes easy for things to fall off of our plates, even when we have the best intentions. It can feel like you’re in a never-ending struggle of trying to always make something in your life a routine. You may work hard at making getting back to the gym part of your daily routine and once you do that, you’re now working at trying to get more sleep or spend 20 minutes reading a book every day. In my case,… -
It’s Not About the Platform
5 Jun 2011 | 11:43 amA favorite hobby of many in this industry seems to be telling people that they’re doing “it” wrong, whatever “it” is in the given conversation. Now that Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr are out ahead as the major social networks, it becomes harder to debate social platforms, though it definitely still occurs, especially with location-based platforms. One area that has never ceased to die down and has continued to be hotly debated is blogging platforms. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t read a conversation online debating WordPress, Tumblr and… -
Using Impressions as a Success Metric
3 Jun 2011 | 4:30 amBefore getting into my thoughts on whether or not media impressions are a useless success metric, this post was inspired by Rob Clark’s post over on Dave Fleet’s blog on whether or not “share of voice” is a useless PR metric. One thing that has struck me lately is the reliance on “media impressions” as a measure of success in PR campaigns. For those that don’t know what media impressions are, they are the number of people who MAY have seen an article, heard something on the radio, saw it on TV or read it on a website or blog. The impressions are…
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Digigen & The TinMan
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Art and Computer Science: A Google Obsession
17 Jan 2012 | 3:42 amAlthough Google have gone way beyond challenger status into a market leader across all their products, they still remain incredibly obsessed at the core of their business. Obsessed with delivering technology which enables users to use the web more effectively and efficiently. Obsessed with uniting up all their platforms to give seamless consumer movement across all of them. This obsession runs deep. I found an interesting article on the Daily Mail which showed Eric Schmidt’s obsession with things which are sadly way beyond his control. (yes – interesting + Daily Mail together in… -
Obsession – A starting point from Steve Jobs
16 Jan 2012 | 7:46 amI don’t think you can start any understanding of obsession without looking at the people that are driven by it. Although it may seem obvious to some, it is also completely right to start this theme of obsession with a quote from a man that was driven by it, Steve Jobs. -
New Monthly Theme – Obsession
16 Jan 2012 | 7:28 amDigigen & The TinMan is going to take on a new format. Over the next few months you will see the blog evolve into a magazine blog. Although look and feel won’t change drastically, what I will be doing is focusing on a monthly theme which will help guide content throughout the period. Each monthly theme will be dictated by three things: - Being Topical. It might not be a subject people are talking about, but it may be a trait that has been shown through someone or something. For example, I chose “obsession” for January, because it feels like having found myself deep into… -
Creating Great Work: Willem Van der Hoven
12 Jan 2012 | 5:54 amFound this interesting video on the eatbigfish.com website. If you haven’t read the book by Adam Morgan and are interested in setting up your own brand, which I am, then you should read it. It is packed with great ideas and examples of how to build a better, more exciting brand. The video from Willem Van der Hoven talks about the creation of great work, which he believes can be broken down into three areas; 1) Surround yourself with great consumer planners 2) Create a team who live the brand journey 3) Be courageous and work for courageous people Creating Great Work – 3 Bits of… -
Where clear ambition will get you: Burberry
11 Jan 2012 | 10:05 amIt is clear that Burberry are one of the most socially connected brands in the world. Not only has this come from a clarity of ambition by pursuing the dream of connecting consumers to their brand throughout different lifestages, it has also come from designing the company around this experience – the social enterprise. Rather than simply bolting this on to their heritage, Burberry are using digital and social technologies to create a new, part to their heritage. A heritage which is more involving, less distant, and completely connected.
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Position² Blog
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Shopping Online, Social Media Trends and much more… | Best of the Week
27 Jan 2012 | 4:05 amThis week’s hot news, events and videos from the online marketing and social media world. From the Position² Blog This Week: E-Commerce and the Social Consumer – Making Online Shopping Hassle-Free Part One: Insufficient Information and Abandoned Shopping Carts. Part Two: Special Offers, After-Sales and Customer Support. DLD 2012 – @Jack Dorsey: “Twitter Has A Business Model That Works”. “Don’t Be Evil” Tool – Backed By Facebook & Twitter – Shows Google’s “Search Plus Your World” Can Go Beyond Google+. -
E-Commerce and the Social Consumer – Making Online Shopping Hassle-Free: Part Two
25 Jan 2012 | 4:14 amIn part one of Brand Monitor’s ‘E-Commerce and the Social Consumer: Making Online Shopping Hassle-Free‘ series, we discussed two of the most common hurdles that online customers faced and what retailers can do to make online shopping an enjoyable and problem-free experience. While insufficient information on brands’ websites, high shipping costs, along with the worry of the product being damaged, are among the biggest reasons that discouraged people from selecting the ‘buy now’ option, our research highlights two other factors that can deter prospective… -
E-Commerce and the Social Consumer – Making Online Shopping Hassle-Free: Part One
24 Jan 2012 | 8:46 amKeeping up with the Social-Savvy Consumer The ever-changing taste of the social consumer, along with the dynamism of the social media space, sometimes makes it difficult for online retailers to keep up. The online buying process has undergone some radical changes over the last few years. The modern shopper a) is greatly influenced by recommendations, reviews and price-comparisons posted on social media sites b) uses location-based services to find brick-and-mortar stores c) is short on time and prefers the convenience of shopping online instead of spending hours in billing queues and d)… -
Marketing Strategies for Luxury Brands, Google Search Plus and much more… | Best of the Week
20 Jan 2012 | 4:05 amThis week’s hot news, events and videos from the online marketing and social media world. From the Position² Blog This Week: Online Marketing for Luxury Brands – Simplifying a Complicated Relationship Part One: Information Mining, Online Engagement. Part Two: Social Media Content Creation, Contests, Discounts and Exclusivity. Social Networks Show Deeper Penetration, More Trust in Emerging Markets. Advertising Report: Facebook Now Earns 23% More Per Impression Than In Q1 2011. Bookmark: 11 Useful Tips for Marketing Your Brand on LinkedIn. Social Media in Asia: Understanding… -
Online Marketing for Luxury Brands – Simplifying a Complicated Relationship: Part Two
19 Jan 2012 | 4:21 amA Brief Recap: In the first part of Position²’s ‘Online Marketing for Luxury Brands’ series, we discussed two important aspects of online marketing that prestige brands should focus on; a) social media as a crucial source of information for affluent customers looking for product reviews and information and b) the need to better engage with customers online and what the owners of high-end brands can do to make this possible. Considering how much difference content can make to luxury brands’ sales charts and revenues, we decided to focus on the content aspect in…
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social media blog
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What is SOPA?
18 Jan 2012 | 9:23 amSOPA is the Stop Online Piracy Act bill. If the bill is passed, the US government will be able to go after any foreign site hosting unauthorized copyrighted material. This could include asking ISP (internet service providers), credit card companies and online advertisers to cut all ties with the sites. The bill would cause problems [...] Related posts:MSN Microsoft tries to buy Yahoo Google voices concern over Microsoft deal StumbleUpon shoots past the 1 billion mark! -
Social Media Marketing Basics 1
16 Jan 2012 | 6:48 amA disaster that’s waiting to happen Many medium and large sized companies have left their social media marketing with their IT department, a junior executive or a self proclaimed social media marketing guru. Other companies have given the task to a member of the team that is frequently using a social network such as Facebook [...] Related posts:Happy Birthday Facebook! Are you listening to your customers online? The King of Social Networking! A story about Facebooks Reign -
Google Buzz Obituary
28 Nov 2011 | 5:26 amGoogle Buzz, the awkward offspring of Google inc. was put to rest on October 14th at 10:03am EST. The site was an attempt at combining social media interaction with emails yet it never caught the public’s full attention. Throughout its short lived life Buzz was criticised for being too open and it always lived in [...] Related posts:Google Adwords Dutch it again Google voices concern over Microsoft deal Google News teams up with news agencies -
Timeline = The new Facebook profile design
14 Oct 2011 | 10:29 amFacebook will release its new Facebook profile designs to the public over the next few days. The update which offer a range of new features. As the video above shows, users profile pages will be transformed into online scrapbooks known as “Timelines”. The pages will allow people to view their friends life stories, showing images [...] Related posts:Happy Birthday Facebook! LinkedIn profile photos controversy Social media more popular than email -
The King of Social Networking! A story about Facebooks Reign
29 Jul 2011 | 6:01 amThe press have been using the term “Facebook killer” since the site hit the mainstream. In the past few years social networks have come and gone, with Myspace being the most famous networks to lose its crown in recent years. The idea of a social site being the most popular for a long period of [...] Related posts:75% of European web users into social networking Should your business market through Twitter? What is Google +?
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MortMort - A Life Out Loud
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Hundred Day Challenge- Day 3
2 Jan 2012 | 10:12 amCore fitness- 16:00 Lloyd threw the Ab Ripper X DVD in this morning and when I heard the intro from upstairs I was like, “oh wait, wait, wait…can I do that too please?!” So he started it over, luckily he hadn’t actually gotten into the workout yet. I can SO tell that I have not -
Hundred Day Challenge- Day 2
1 Jan 2012 | 10:23 amDay #2 – run & strength @ golf mill Xsport Run: 2.85 mi 00:31 pace- 10:58 Think I’m finally going to try this 100 day challenge. I have serious doubts that I’ll keep it up for the full 100 days but if I do and watch what I eat I should be in good shape -
Hundred Day Challenge-Day 1
31 Dec 2011 | 10:34 amDay #1- run at Golf Mill XSport with Lloyd 2.04 mi 00:23 11:26 pace First run in many many weeks :/ I could soooo feel the extra “bounce” Filed under: 100 Day Challenge Tagged: golf mill, xsport -
A Christmas Wish
27 Dec 2011 | 3:23 amSo here we are, in the last week of 2011. What does that mean? It’s a normal practice to reflect on the past year and evaluate what we have or have not done. For those things we have accomplished, we are grateful. For those we have not, we make resolutions to do so in the -
Facebook’s Latest Redesign and Functionality Updates
24 Sep 2011 | 9:33 amConsidering that 65% of online adults use social sites and that as many as 34% of women check Facebook before having their first cup of joe, chances are that you’ve noticed the UI changes and feature updates that Facebook has, once again, made this week. Judging by the initial backlash seen in status updates around
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The Next Web
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The Next Web is tracking the future of music industry innovation at Midem
28 Jan 2012 | 5:29 amFor the next few days, I’m in Cannes, France at the most tech-focused edition yet of long-running music industry conference Midem. The music industry is changing – its old model just doesn’t work any more and finally, top-to-bottom, the industry has realised the need for change. Startups and app developers have flocked to Cannes for this year’s event, and between now and Tuesday we’ll be meeting the established names and new companies that will shape the future of music. You’ll find all our Midem coverage at a specially branded channel thenextweb.com/midem… -
Brands may be paying celebrities for tweets, but who’s paying Twitter?
28 Jan 2012 | 3:41 amIt seems you can’t even post a photo of yourself eating a chocolate bar on Twitter these days without kicking up a stink. On Tuesday, Manchester United and (former?) England defender Rio Ferdinand – with almost two million Twitter followers – posted this message, accompanied by a photo of himself just about to get stuck in to a Snickers chocolate bar: You’re not you when you’re hungry @snickersUk#hungry#spon lockerz.com/s/177408824 — Rio Ferdinand (@rioferdy5) January 24, 2012 So what, right? Well, yes. Except, with the status that Rio has – both in real life and… -
Japan’s NTT DoCoMo to request that Google reduces Android’s data usage
28 Jan 2012 | 3:17 amIn what appears to be one of the first public cases of a mobile operator approaching a smartphone operating system provider to amend how its software operates, Japan’s NTT DoCoMo is reportedly to ask Google to reduce the amount of data its mobile OS consumes, Reuters reports. According to the report, DoCoMo has already taken issue with an Android VOIP application that allows free voice communication, which assisted in bring down its service on Wednesday, but will also campaign for Google to increase the periods between when the Android operating system requests new data for its… -
Copyright enforcement gone wrong: Universal takes down a song it doesn’t own
28 Jan 2012 | 2:52 amProactive copyright protection systems like YouTube’s ContentID are double-edged swords. On the one hand, they help large companies efficiently ensure that their copyrights are not infringed, which can be difficult with sites where anyone can upload content. On the other hand, they can give those with the right deals and connections unfair influence, are open to abuse, and can lead to some unfortunate and frustrating situations for fans and independent artists. With Universal Music Group’s recent YouTube takedown of a song by After The Smoke, it seems to be all of the above. The Florida… -
Sean Parker says Facebook IPO could be ‘the largest offering in history’ [video]
27 Jan 2012 | 6:36 pmFormer President of Facebook, Sean Parker, did an interview with CNBC today in which he discussed Facebook’s “inevitable” IPO and applauded Mark Zuckerberg for keeping the company private for as long as he has. While Parker didn’t provide any insight as to when the public offering would be made or at what valuation, he did admit that the public push for Facebook shares can’t be ignored: To the extent that there is any bubble in technology at all, it is really a bubble around Facebook in the sense that there is a huge amount of pent-up demand among retail…
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Jennings Social Media
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YouTube Reaches Four Billion Daily Video Views
25 Jan 2012 | 9:17 pmPosted by: Valerie Jennings, CEO of JSMM The game has changed again for online videos and this time, it’s in the favor of video marketers. YouTube, the most popular video website, has seen a 25 percent increase in streaming video in just eight months. What has changed? The huge increase is a result of Google (the owner of YouTube) pushing to roll out mobile versions of the site and versions that play directly on televisions. Consumers now have even more access to the video website and therefore can watch more hours of video everyday. The increase in tablet users and smartphone owners this… -
Facebook IPO Expected to be $100 Billion, Largest of Any Tech Company in History
18 Jan 2012 | 3:32 pmPosted by: Valerie Jennings, CEO of JSMM While it hasn’t been confirmed, reports are circulating that Facebook Inc. will go public this year. Facebook has kept quiet about the move, but many anticipate the IPO to hit this May. If and when this happens, it will be huge. This article and infographic posted by Joann Pan of Mashable, projects Facebook’s IPO to be six times larger than Google’s and will be the largest of any tech company in history. How Facebook’s Expected $100 Billion IPO Breaks Down [INFOGRAPHIC] Rumors are flying about Facebook Inc. going public this year. So, just how… -
Is MySpace Worth Saving?
12 Jan 2012 | 1:07 pmPosted by: Valerie Jennings, CEO of JSMM Is MySpace worth saving: Justin Timberlake thinks so. In this new campaign to save the dying social network, Timberlake joined with MySpace and Panasonic to propose a new way to draw users back. I think there could be some potential still on MySpace, but it will need to be more aggressive than Facebook to catch up. It might be worth a campaign to understand the user-base that Timberlake will attract. The new approach to integrate TV with MySpace is a good way to go. This article from Mashable outlines just what Justin Timberlake and MySpace have in the… -
Valerie Jennings, CEO of Jennings Social Media Marketing, Provides 2012 Social Media Predictions
6 Jan 2012 | 12:11 pmBy: Valerie Jennings, CEO of JSMM While these are not representative of all of the expectations for social media in 2012, these are the key takeaways that Jennings Social Media Marketing (JSMM) is expecting to impact the industry. To learn how JSMM can help your business best utilize these predictions and more call us at (816) 221-1040. 2012 Social Media Marketing Predictions 1. Google+ will evolve, expand and overcome its critics 2. Twitter will morph into a business tool which may increase its ROI 3. Facebook does the unthinkable and adds more features 4. Blogging becomes something of the… -
How Social Media, SEO & Digital Media Are Becoming One
30 Dec 2011 | 4:30 pmPosted By Valerie Jennings, CEO of JSMM This article, written by Harry Gold at ClickZ, does a great job reviewing how social media, search engine optimization (SEO) and paid digital media are becoming part of one world. I think it’s a little more complicated than that, but my thoughts concerning these boundaries are still consistent with SEO and content management. I think marketing professionals need a clear picture when it comes to understanding their goals, objectives, prospects and then balance these initiatives among social media, SEO and digital media buying to keep…
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jasonyormark.com
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Thoughts On Making The Forbes Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers
26 Jan 2012 | 1:00 pmIt can be easy to get caught up in being named to top lists on the web. Quite frankly anyone can create a list of top anything and include those people or things that they find worthy of the list based on a variety of factors. But I can’t help but feel honored to be included on the Who Are The Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers? list by Forbes. I mean…it is Forbes right? Regardless of the circumstances, algorithms, or opinions, I’m flattered and it’s just another feel good moment knowing that the time I spend on my blog means something to others. So many… -
The Lost Art Of Hard Work
19 Jan 2012 | 11:38 amI admire those that work their asses off. Surprisingly it’s a rare trait. I’ve come across far more individuals that do not give it everything they’ve got then do. For the past year and a half I’ve watched my wife transform her body through diet, working out, running all kinds of races and Tae Kwon Do. She’s an absolute warrior when it comes to fitness, and it was a decision she made to work incredibly hard to achieve her fitness goals. I’m constantly in awe at her tenacity and dedication, and it certainly inspires me to do so in my life. The… -
Anatomy Of A Blog Redesign: Meet The Standard WordPress Theme
17 Jan 2012 | 10:38 amI have to admit, I’m a WordPress theme junkie. I’m fascinated with the art of blog design, and I often find myself spending too much time browsing some of the industry leading WordPress theme sites. My personal favorite site these days is certainly Themeforest as they have a tremendous variety of themes available. I’m also guilty of growing bored with my theme design on about a yearly basis. But rightfully so I believe. Last year I paid a pretty penny for a custom site that initially I really liked, but just like anything, times change. After a year of blogging,… -
Social Reach: Size Does Matter
13 Jan 2012 | 12:59 pmA popular topic amongst social media folks is the ongoing discussion around how many likes/followers a person or organization has and how much that matters. Most folks will usually side on how the numbers do not matter, and what’s more important is engagement, conversions, and whether those connections actually result in contributing to business results. All of this is is very true. Having a large social reach is certainly useless if none of those other things are happening. But I can tell you from experience that anyone that says the size of your reach does not matter is flat out… -
Escape Routes: The Ultimate Social Reality Adventure
11 Jan 2012 | 12:08 pmIt’s not too many times in your life when you actually get asked to audition for a reality show, but that’s exactly what happened last week. A casting producer for the upcoming Escape Routes contacted me and while at first I didn’t think it was feasible, the more I learned about it, the more I realized it would be a monumental mistake not to. Escape Routes is officially season 2 of a Ford sponsored, web based, reality/adventure show that deeply integrates social media into the mix. The show is broadcast on Hulu, and last season was featured on the Jimmy Kimmel show and…
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Richard Edelman - 6 A.M.
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2012 Trust Barometer: Business Can Earn the License to Lead
25 Jan 2012 | 10:18 amIn 2008-2009, in the wake of a recession that saw large, global companies such as Lehman Brothers and AIG collapse, trust in business imploded. Government stepped in with bailouts and new regulations. But in 2011, government became paralyzed by the politics of extremism and endless haggling – and the public lost confidence. The 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer sees an unprec¬edented nine-point global decline in trust in government. In twelve countries, it trails business, media, and non-governmental organizations as the least trusted institution. This has pushed more countries into the… -
Media Cloverleaf Comes to Life
20 Jan 2012 | 12:14 pmI met with senior management of two of the best emerging media companies this week. I come away even more impressed with their ambition and willingness to experiment within the boundaries of quality and integrity. Mike Allen of Politico addressed our global public affairs team in Washington on Wednesday. He said that there are 225 people working at the company. They have gone beyond their digital roots to offer a print product. He joked that Politico is now available in vending machines along Park Avenue in New York City (4,000 print copies are distributed every day in NYC). He noted that the… -
Implementation Science
13 Jan 2012 | 11:50 amI went to a breakfast Wednesday hosted by Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health at the World Economic Forum offices in NYC. It was a terrific panel, with five professors and senior members of the corporate healthcare community from important companies such as Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Sanofi and BD. The Dean of Mailman School, Linda Fried, started the conversation by challenging the group to come up with new healthcare modalities to offer better quality and broader access within the present level of spending. The first big idea was Implementation Science, based on customer… -
Government and New Media
6 Jan 2012 | 12:51 pmI had a chat this morning with my friend Steve Goldsmith, professor at the JFK School of Government at Harvard. He was mayor of Indianapolis and deputy mayor of New York City. We commiserated about the low opinion of government. He believes its reputation problem worsens the farther away its get from a close connection to the people. Local government is still liked by more than 50 percent of voters, state government is in the middle, while Congress has only a nine percent approval rating. Goldsmith had a wonderful anecdote likening government’s reputation woes to a quip he heard growing up… -
Highlights of My Year
22 Dec 2011 | 8:45 amJanuary—The World Economic Forum in Davos saw investment bankers pushing back on government leaders. A particularly heated exchange between French President Sarkozy and Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase comes to mind—also early commentary by Bob Diamond at Barclay’s Bank on how the period of remorse for banks must be over. February—Howard Schultz addressed our US leadership team about the turnaround at Starbucks, giving us a preview of his book, Onward. Then I drove from Seattle to Vancouver, over the Peace Arch crossing into Canada. In Vancouver, I met a doctor who works with heroin…
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Adam Sherk
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Publisher Survey: Reddit Traffic Way Up, Digg Way Down
25 Jan 2012 | 7:06 amThe rise of Reddit and the steady decline of Digg have been well documented. Just recently Reddit announced that its traffic has more than doubled in less than a year (to 2.07 billion pageviews in December), an impressive feat. Has this translated into a significant change in social news referrals for publishers? Anecdotally we’ve all seen Reddit gain in prominence at a time when Digg has struggled to maintain its relevancy. Adam Singer summed up the general sentiment in recent conversation we had on Twitter: “Reddit / Stumble won.” I wanted to get a better idea of just how much… -
News Organizations on Google+: Which Pages Get the Most Engagement?
10 Jan 2012 | 8:40 amNews organizations (along with businesses of all kinds) have been able to create official Google+ pages for a couple months now so I thought I’d check in and see how their pages are doing. I’m going to forgo looking at which media outlets have attracted the largest following since that data becomes quickly outdated. Instead I’ll focus on some basic signals of user activity and engagement: the number of 1+’s, shares and comments on each page. To pull the activity and engagement figures I used All my +, an interesting tool created by Gerwin Sturm. Submitting the profile ID for a… -
My Top Posts of 2011 on SEO, PR and Social Media for Publishers
21 Dec 2011 | 7:15 amAs another year comes to a close I thought I’d finish off with a roundup of this year’s most popular posts. Original idea! Nevertheless, here are my top 10 posts of 2011 by pageviews: Which NBA Teams Have Seen the Most Growth on Twitter and Facebook? PRFilter Shows Press Release Buzzword Abuse Still Prevalent Google Expanded Sitelinks: Optimize Opening Text in META Description Tag Is LinkedIn the New Old Boys Network? Editorial SEO Tactics for the Newsroom Beyond Facebook Insights: Useful Facebook Analytics Tools Press Release Optimization Checklist and Tips eHow and Mahalo: How Many… -
Beyond Facebook Insights: Useful Facebook Analytics Tools
12 Dec 2011 | 9:57 amWhat are the best third-party tools for advanced Facebook analytics? It’s a question I’m asked fairly often so I thought I’d do a round-up of options that are worth checking out. It is fair to say that Facebook is getting better at providing this data itself; the latest version of Facebook Insights offers a wider range of information than ever before. But many still find it lacking so a number of companies have stepped in to try to fulfill this need. In this post I’m purposely leaving out comprehensive suites like Radian6 or Lithium and focusing on solutions that are specifically (or… -
Pinterest: Great Opportunity for Lifestyle Publishers and Brands
21 Nov 2011 | 6:57 amPinterest is getting a lot of attention these days and deservedly so. The photo and video sharing site offers great opportunities for promoting lifestyle content and reaching niche audiences and specific demographics. Need a primer on Pinterest? Kerry Jones did an excellent one on the BlueGlass blog: Everything You Need to Know About Pinterest. While any photo-rich site can benefit from Pinterest, at least at this stage in its evolution there are particularly strong opportunities for lifestyle publishers and brands. In scanning through user pins and boards things like recipes, decorating…
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Tippingpoint Labs
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The right partners can make or break a campaign
26 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amKing Arthur Flour and Google Campaign Google worked with their agency GOOD/CORPS to create a series of videos that promote small business. Not unlike the American Express Plum campaign, the idea is to showcase how Google properties enhance a small business and allow it to contribute to the economy. The challenge, and where the campaign seemingly differs from the American Express campaign and specifically the one with Pink Berry, is do all the partners in the campaign stand united? Their desires and goals seem disparate. GOOD/CORPS: We want to highlight how Google helps the economy… -
Why Your Brand Should Fight SOPA-like Legislation
24 Jan 2012 | 11:41 amThanks to the efforts of internet-based companies to get the word out, last week both SOPA and PIPA were stalled in Congress. But the attempts to limit internet freedoms aren’t going to go away. The implications of this type of legislation go far beyond a battle between Google and Time-Warner. They are an all out attack on your marketing plan and your most powerful communications tools. The old guard don’t want to innovate. They would rather attack your ability to connect meaningfully with your audience. The internet is in danger As music industry pundit Bob Lefsetz brought to… -
Is the Elle and Van Cleef & Arpels campaign one to remember?
19 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amVan Cleef & Arpels on Luxury Daily Presented as an attempt to recreate the magic felt when falling in love, The Van Cleef & Arpels Love Stories campaign doesn’t evoke a modern day love affair feel. I am lost within it’s beautiful scapes and models but wonder what would make a young urban female (audience as defined for this campaign effort) to share the video with friends. By rethinking luxury marketing and opening up the campaign to a wider content creation and brand distribution approach, both Van Cleef & Arpels and Elle Magazine may have garnered a larger return. -
“One Track Mind”: Diverge the track for greater return
12 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amAV Club's One Track Mind The traditional one advertiser, one media publisher relationship can hinder a campaign both from a content and distribution standpoint. Brands and publishers must think bigger about the content they create in a way that garners engagement, audience, and ultimately, results. Think about how ancillary campaign content created by the sponsoring brands as well as partnering with more than one advertiser, can drive interest and untapped eyeballs. One Track Mind is a 10-part series, brought to you by Jameson, that pairs an A.V. Club writer with a songwriter they admire… -
A gem of an idea: JCK Rock Star
5 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amJCK Rock Star As a former marketing director at a New England based jewelry retail chain and as an avid watcher of Project Runway, I was smitten with JCK’s Rock Star series from the start. I think JCK is pioneering what journalism is becoming – part entertainment, part talent scout, part branded content. As JCK starts to think about a second season of this show, I wanted to suggest some ways in which the distribution approach and the brand inclusion could evolve. JCK online, along with Swarovski Gems, challenged five acclaimed designers to create jewelry using Swarovski gemstones…
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The Blog of Matthew Loop | Chiropractic Internet Marketing
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Chiropractic Marketing System: 6 Month DOUBLE Your Money Back Guarantee
26 Jan 2012 | 5:54 pmTo help make 2012 the best year of your practice life, we here at DCincome have decided to offer a new 6 month DOUBLE your money-back guarantee on our famous Social Media Elite practice growth system! Scroll to the bottom of this page at the link below to see the details: http://dcincome.com/go/ After working with thousands of doctors and professionals, seeing success story after success story with this social media blueprint, it was time to up the ante. The knowledge I possess and pass along in Social Media Elite has been proven to transform chiropractic practices and change lives…… -
An iPhone App for Your Practice or the Masses? Which is Better?
23 Jan 2012 | 11:09 amOne of the most common questions I’m asked by fellow chiropractors and business owners is “Should I build an iPhone app for my practice or should I just build one that can be marketed globally?” This is a good question I wanted to address on this blog. The answer is both. It’s best to have one for your local business and then to have one that can reach infinitely more smart-phone users. In terms of which type of mobile app is better, that depends on your goals and what you’re looking to accomplish. Benefits of Local Practice iPhone Apps Shows your local community… -
List Building for Chiropractors
21 Jan 2012 | 3:51 pmThis is the MOST underutilized marketing strategy by chiropractors, yet it’s been proven to be the most powerful time after time. I’m referring to having an effective lead-capture system on your chiropractic website and building an email list of prospective new patients. What most doctors do not understand is that when a potential patient hits their site, 97% of the time they’re not motivated enough to make an appointment. So, inevitably the visitor bounces off NEVER to return again. I don’t care if you think you have the coolest site on the planet, the hard statistics… -
8 Foolish Social Media Marketing Mistakes to Avoid
19 Jan 2012 | 8:08 amHere are eight common social media and internet marketing mistakes you need to avoid if you ever want to DRAMATICALLY increase your new patients / clients each month from the web. 1. Thinking the amount of Facebook page “fans” you have is proportional to the amount of new clients you’ll get from social media. The truth is, it’s not. Stop falling for this “guru” marketing trick. 2. Looking for that cure-all “quick fix” strategy that will get you all the patients / customers you need. There are dozens of strategies to combine when using web… -
Google’s MOST Radical Transformation Ever!
10 Jan 2012 | 10:36 pmIf you’re a consistent reader of this blog and have followed me for awhile, you know I’ve been emphasizing the importance of social media optimization (SMO), especially this last 12 months. It was obvious before (and today officially declared) that social sharing impacts search results. The truth is, the web has changed radically in recent times. The internet IS social media and social media IS the internet. When someone says “social media doesn’t work,” they’re basically saying the internet doesn’t work. Social media is now a term that describes the…
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Elainegantzwright's Blog
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2011 in blog review
1 Jan 2012 | 3:15 pmThe WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog. 2011 was a transformation in so many ways. And my blog “role” was one of many in transition. Thanks for sticking around and staying tuned. Hang on tight–we are going to have a fabulous year!!! 2012, bring it on. Warmest regards, love and light, Elaine Here’s an excerpt: A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,500 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 42 trips to carry that many people. Click here to see the complete report. -
Buzz Pill?
29 Nov 2011 | 2:33 pmIs there a magic social media pill? We all seem to be looking for it. As a professional riding the social media tidal wave, I’m engaged—in witty Facebook banter, of course, but I’m also digging deeper—doing some serious soul-searching about the role of social media in marketing, how best to execute it, how to manage it, and how to leverage its power to make clients and associates successful and happy. I guess taking a hard look at my path is sort of a mirror to my life—as some of my most enlightened friends would say. Yet, it’s surprisingly tough—on all levels. With the ubiquity… -
Twitter or Facebook?
19 Jun 2011 | 10:33 pmIs that one of those fundamental questions like–The Beatles or The Rolling Stones; chocolate or vanilla; Letterman or Leno; paper or plastic? Last week, a friend of mine sent me an article published by Slate–“Who I Follow on Twitter and Why.” It was kind of a light-bulb moment. We seem to lump Twitter and Facebook into the same bucket, “You on Facebook and Twitter?” But they are really so radically different. I love discussing this stuff, because we are right in the thick of such a pervasive transformation in communication. We have no concept how this… -
Time Traveled
29 May 2011 | 5:43 pmNotes from a social media Cyrano. Time. A noun. Verb. Adjective. We don’t have time. Oh, we’ll make the time. We spend time, save time, buy time. Are we living on borrowed time? People give us their time. Really? But we took the time. Will I be on time? Well, at least, we made good time. What time is it? In real time. Oh, time’s up. Is it all a waste of time? All in good time. But time waits for no one. Time marches on. What’s time does it start? Time’s ticking away. Time flies. Time sensitive, stamp, warp– crunch. Is it good timing or bad? Oh, there’ll come a time. -
TEDx-traordinary in Chicago
1 Mar 2011 | 3:15 pmAm loving the first day of moderating a TEDx independent corporate event — a cultural juggernaut for one of our nation’s most formidable brands — nestled just outside the Windy City. From the fusion of black holes on the frontiers of deep space, to social media-facilitated upheaval of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, TEDx packs a wallop. I’m savoring the opportunity to orchestrate the live and in-person talks as this conservative, yet thirsty, corporate employee audience drinks in the the intoxicating elixir of ideas worth sharing. Now, back to the stage. . .
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Diva Marketing (Blog)
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Life Without Facebook ~ A View From Gen Y #2
26 Jan 2012 | 7:36 amThis is a special interview series on what life is like for Jessica Robyn Porter, a Gen Y-er, who disabled her 7 year old Facebook Page. We're calling it quasi social media reality! Part #1. Diva/Marketing/Toby: The big question I've been asked is, "What were the reactions from Jessica's Facebook friends?" By the way, how many friends did you have? Jessica Robyn: I had a few of my friends talking to me (through phone calls, texts, and of course facebook messages or comments) who could not believe that Jessica, voted biggest facebook stalker junior year, the addict, and social media… -
Managing Your Brand & Personal Social Media "Friends"
23 Jan 2012 | 11:14 amFor the most part, social networks and social media were never really intended for business communications. Expect for LinkedIn of course. Think about it. Facebook, Twitter and even Google+ began life helping people connect to family and friends. In that context it made total sense that you would "friend" someone you wanted to invite into your digitial world. When savvy brand managers saw their customers were congregating aroiund these virtual water coolers, ah ha moments began. Before we knew it enterprises were stepping into the game. Some smartly. Some like a bull in a china… -
Life Without Facebook ~ A View From Gen Y #1
16 Jan 2012 | 8:02 amMore than 800 million active users has given Facebook the enviable status of the golden child of social networks. With multiple generations sharing photos, updates and videos Facebook might even be considered the biggest digital family reunion ever! However, as with any 'family' sometimes you need a bit of a break. That's what's happening for the people who 'grew-up' on Facebook .. the Gen Y or the Millennial Generation. They're signing off from Facebook. Some for forever. Others for a few months. One of the 20-somethings who disabled her (7 year) Facebook page is my niece Jessica Robyn. -
Marketing Beyond The Blog Buzz
13 Jan 2012 | 3:15 pmWithin the past week three people from three different industries (advertising, internal branding and higher education) asked me to contribute to posts they were writing about blogs. Of course I was honored by their requests. However, what was especially interesting to me was every person was concerned (in varing degrees) about the viablity and longevity of blogs in a world of social network clutter. In 2004, I stepped into the blogosphere with Diva Marketing and soon after began developing workshops for the American Marketing Association on a national and local chapter level. I wondered how… -
Stories From Smaller Nonprofits: Asylee Women Enterprise (AWE)
1 Jan 2012 | 11:33 amSome how it seems fitting that the last in Diva Marketing's 2011 Shining A Light on smaller nonprofits series should highlight an organization that helps courageous women find hope at the start of a new chapter in their lives. Somehow it seems fitting that this NPO goes by the name of AWE. Molly Corbett is our story teller for this special post. She is the founder and executive director of Asylee Women Enterprise (AWE). Molly has worked in the nonprofit sector for 20 years. She started as a community organizer and has worked with various social service and social justice organizations. Prior…
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Magnitude Media
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Metrics Snapshot Tool
16 Jan 2012 | 11:33 amConsidering I’m writing Social Media Metrics for Dummies, I don’t talk about metrics often on this blog. Mainly that’s because I’m too busy helping clients figure metrics out in real life. I did want to take a minute to mention the Social Metrics plug in for you. It’s not a tool for deep metrics analysis but it is a great tool for quick content analysis – seeing what’s working for you as a social network, as well as what’s emerging as sharable topics on your blog. For example, you can see that Digg, as a whole, is not a social network where we… -
Pinterest and the Power of Play, Google Plus and Search Changes
11 Jan 2012 | 12:03 pmI didn’t have time to write a post today, finishing the next book is my main focus this afternoon, but I did quickly chat about Pinterest and Google’s new social search. I’m interested in your thoughts: Video inspired by this post on Facebook today and this post on Google Plus -
One Bad Apple: Boutique Business Challenge
9 Jan 2012 | 12:52 pmI have about a million other things to get done today that don’t include writing a blog post, but I’m all about being as open and helpful as possible and I feel this post might help other boutique business owners see a way through a problem, or just feel less alone. When I started working for myself in the 90s I just wanted to work on something I loved doing and am great at. As my business grew I found my time increasingly divided between maker and manager and the budget strained (I talked about starting my business with no cash flow here). But I also found success for my clients,… -
Sea Change In Knowledge and Education
29 Dec 2011 | 3:40 pmEducation has been on my mind the last year or so. On one hand we have this public push to devalue all college education for not being some kind of magic bullet leading to getting a job in a down economy. While I agree student loans and college prices have gotten out of hand, I think to devalue education and knowledge for not having enough immediate monetary “ROI” is something we will come to regret as a society. On the other hand we have knowledge for the sake of knowledge – completing something for the sake of having done so – these things have merit to individuals… -
What Does “Be A Rockstar” Mean To You?
21 Dec 2011 | 2:13 pmI’d love to hear your opinion in the comments. It’s such a vague phrase so casually bandied about, and so open to a variety of interpretations by everyone.
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Weber Shandwick Social Studies Blog
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Superb digital talent has a home at Weber Shandwick
27 Jan 2012 | 9:46 amWeber Shandwick’s team of digital and social media specialists is growing, but it can be challenging to find the right people who have the skills, talent, and enthusiasm to contribute to what we do. Jason Wellcome, SVP of digital in our New York office, recently spoke to PR Daily‘s Mark Ragan about why the bar is so high, what we’re looking for – and how a candidate can stand out from the crowd. (After you watch the video, check out some of our opportunities and get in touch if you think you have what it takes!) -
Risky business: What brands can learn from Phoebe Philo’s no-show
26 Jan 2012 | 4:55 pmPhoebe Philo is not someone most CMOs, brand managers or PR people will have heard of, but she’s someone from whom much could be learned. After reinvigorating classic fashion label Chloé, making it cool again after a long dry spell, Philo was named artistic director of another major label: Céline. She’s so hip that Kanye West name-checks her on the first track of his latest album. Philo is also seen as a visionary, someone who can innovate in a world steeped in tradition and custom. Her latest attempt to turn the fashion world on its head is happening off the runway, though. In… -
Content crush redux: Free e-readers for subscribers
25 Jan 2012 | 10:18 amIn our recent CES coverage, we emphasized the overwhelming importance of content – right here, right now. The “content crush,” as we referred to it, is enabled by technology and driven by the need to connect with customers in a meaningful way. How important is content? So important that the New York Times and People magazine, in partnership with manufacturers, are now subsidizing e-readers for subscribers. The Times is giving away certain e-readers outright to those who subscribe for one year. This makes sense no matter how you look at it, for both manufacturers and content… -
Happy Community Manager Appreciation Day!
23 Jan 2012 | 8:31 amToday, Weber Shandwick celebrates Community Manager Appreciation Day! Festivities are taking place in all Weber Shandwick offices around our global network, from panel discussions to guest speakers, interactive trainings to best practice presentations. Why? That’s easy: to salute the talented and dedicated communications practitioners that manage more than 100 social communities on behalf of our clients. From airplanes and automobiles, candy to pet food, mobile devices to hair care products, our community managers get deeply invested in the happiness of our clients’… -
“Read” This Post Whether You “Like” It Or Not
23 Jan 2012 | 5:23 amThe big news of last week seems to have been the slew of coverage around Facebook’s new verbs. Now instead of just letting users “like” everything on Facebook, marketers can allow them to “eat,” “drive,” “read,” “play” or do anything else that pertains to their business requirements. Most importantly to commerce, this means you can “want” or “buy” something and Facebook will automatically tell your friends. Ponara Eng gave a packed room at the Science Museum of Minnesota a preview of what this means for the future of F-commerce last Wednesday morning as part of…
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Erika Napoletano is Redhead Writing
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The Bitch Slap: Breeding a Culture of Lazy and Rude
27 Jan 2012 | 9:25 amI’m 39-years-old. I remember scratching-out writing practice exercises on Big Chief paper tablets that always seemed fit to rip out from under your pencil tip at the exact moment you could properly create a letter Q. I remember the day my mother came home with our first Atari computer (you know, the one without actual keys – it was a giant touch pad that never worked right after the first month). The brick that was our first modem? I remember getting reamed when it accidentally crashed to the floor while my brother and I were playing the classic text-based Hitchhiker’s Guide… -
My Entrepreneur Can Beat Up Your Politician
25 Jan 2012 | 12:00 pm***Disclaimer: So, sometime on Tuesday afternoon, I forgot that I’d dropped an Aleve-D two hours prior and threw back two REAL Sudafed red devils. Having been plague-ridden for nearly a week, I just wanted the congestion to subside. What resulted, however, was a thorough understanding on why kids cook this shit down to create crystal meth and an evening filled with productivity on most offensive levels. And, this blog post. The setting is Houston, Texas. The subject, a certain then-bleached-blonde adolescent girl with oversized glasses (complete with purple tint) and a penchant for… -
What the Flu Can Teach Any Business Owner
23 Jan 2012 | 1:03 pmLast Wednesday, I woke up feeling a bit under the weather. It’s rare that I get sick, so I just felt that it was my turn to catch whatever version of the cold was going around. I participated in a panel for the local PRSA chapter that day and not soon after, I looked at my colleague and said, “Ummm, I’m sick.” Naturally, what that meant was: Let’s go back to the office and take a conference call. I can work until 7pm that evening. I can certainly take an on-site lunch meeting with a prospective new client on Thursday. By late afternoon on Thursday, I’d… -
The Part Where My Friend Pees in the Backseat
17 Jan 2012 | 10:07 amLast week ripped me out of my protective outer Colorado coating and back into the world of SoCal. Having spent an entire month there last year (while running/hiding from recent life events), I was excited to get back. I had been invited to speak at the Entrepreneur Magazine Growth Conference on Wednesday so let’s get on with the business of a week-long recap and some key takeaways. When businesses get it right 2011 was a year filled with businesses that got it wrong. AirBNB. Netflix. (Insert your own epic cluster here.) From turning on the evening news to the front page headlines of any… -
The Bitch Slap: Use English
10 Jan 2012 | 9:49 amShort post today, as I’m pulling a Led Zeppelin and headed to California for the remainder of the week. No surfing or necessarily fun in the sun, yet for me, it’s fun of another kind: talking with people about what I love in the hopes that they’ll be able to use it to do what they love. As a complete aside, I’m also sporting a bruise on my left thigh that is roughly the size of Tanzania. I know this first-hand, as I’ve been there. I took a teensy spill on my track bike on Sunday (hit a slick spot on the track) and well, I’m living in Hey, Hey, It’s…
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SiteFox
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Politics, Small Businesses, and You…
24 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amWe don’t often talk about politics here, but we came across this awesome infographic that is definitely useful for all small business owners. If you’re not sure who you’re voting for this year, check out the infographic below to see how each candidate stands on small business issues. I’m sure it will change and hopefully we’ll get some updates. In the mean time check it out and let me know what you think. How much of an impact does the candidate’s stance on small business issues impact your choice? Credit: FastUpFront – Business Loans Made Easy. -
The Ultimate Small Business Marketing Guide [Free Download]
9 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amLet’s face it. Online marketing is difficult to understand and even harder to execute successfully. There’s so much talk about using Facebook and Twitter or having a conversation with your customers. How are you, a small business owner, supposed to find the time to learn all the in’s and out’s of online marketing? That’s why we put together the SiteFox Marketing Guide. It’s a 99-page guide that explains exactly what you need to know about marketing your business online. It also includes a set of action plans to help you execute a successful online marketing… -
Definitive Guide to Word of Mouth Marketing
22 Dec 2011 | 11:16 amThink back to a time you had a problem you needed solved. How’d you find the business you’re using now? Most likely you did one of two things: searched a business directory (maybe online) OR you asked a friend for a recommendation. Having people recommend your business is the basis of word of mouth marketing. It’s doing something so memorable that people talk about you; it’s tied to customer service, viral marketing, and just being a business people like working with. How are you maximizing your word of mouth marketing? What are you doing to make sure people talk about… -
Our Marketing Tracking Document [Free Download]
20 Dec 2011 | 1:00 amWhen we first started marketing SiteFox, we realized that it wasn’t all about big marketing campaigns or messaging programs. We quickly learned that it was really about maximizing our returns from each channel. One of the things we did early on was setup a document to track each channel and gauge its efficiency for registering new clients. The efficiency is based off a number we derived after deciding on how much of our revenue we wanted to invest in marketing. We’ve been using the spreadsheet for a while now and it’s really helped us strategically invest money in ways that… -
Dos and Don’ts for Your Small Business Newsletter
15 Dec 2011 | 6:00 amAlthough social media gets all the buzz, email marketing still continues to be an extremely lucrative marketing channel. Businesses are continuing to grow their email lists and connecting with consumers through their newsletters. Making sure you’re creating an active newsletter list directly effects your revenue from your emails. Following a few core rules will make sure you get the most from your list and keep your subscribers happy and opening your emails. Do: Use a Professional Template The first tip is to use a professional template. You’ll notice that a lot of people use the plain…
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BlueGlass
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A Picture’s Worth 1,000 Links: How To Find and Cite Images
27 Jan 2012 | 11:09 amWriting great content can be challenging, but that’s only one step of the process. To make a piece of content look complete, it will usually include images. Why? Images not only add substance and visual interest to a piece, but they also increase sharability and draw readers’ attention to different parts of the article (which is especially important nowadays when skimming is so prevalent). But even if you’re ready to go on the photo hunt, where do you start? Do you pay for a stock photo subscription, or do you track down free images that are available for commercial use? Even when you… -
A Window Into the BlueGlass Conference Experience [Video]
26 Jan 2012 | 12:44 pm“What’s it like?” “What makes it different?” “Why should I go?” Here’s the best way I can answer those questions…. Want to be part of the next Internet Marketing Experience? Find out more about BlueGlass LA 2012 taking place on April 23rd & 24th in Los Angeles, CA. But act quick, there are less than 50 tickets remaining… -
A Stalker’s Guide to Competitive Research
24 Jan 2012 | 1:29 pmCompetitive research is an area that’s either completely overlooked by a brand, or taken to an extreme level while missing the basic goals that need to be reached. Because competitive research becomes a cornerstone for strategy development, it’s important to research from inside the trees, and outside of the forest. Overall, brands need to: Identify what others are already doing in the space, and how successful they are. Identify areas of opportunity and weaknesses within their specific vertical. Identify what tactics a competitor is using to gain a competitive advantage. What We’re… -
Mastering Google Product Feeds and Product Listing Ads – Part 2
20 Jan 2012 | 11:46 amIn part one of this series we covered how to set up a product feed and submit it to Google. In this installment we’re going to focus on properly setting up Product Listing Ads (PLA) in Google AdWords so you can maximize your exposure in Google search. There’s a lot going on in Google’s search results and they seem to add more every day. If we look at the above-the-fold results for a search for “fruit baskets,” we can see regular text ads, a map with local results, PLA and the first few organic spots. With the right product photos, the PLA are the most… -
Keep Calm and Carry On: How To Handle 4 Common WordPress Emergencies
18 Jan 2012 | 11:38 amIf you’ve been using WordPress for any length of time, you’ve probably had a panic moment. A “holy shit…what happened?” experience is never a fun thing, especially when you’ve been working hard to drive traffic to your blog or business site. And let’s face it, most of us aren’t developers by trade, so seeing things that are out of sorts can really ruin your day. But, many problems with WordPress can be easily diagnosed and repaired without having a computer science degree or wearing a Three Wolf Shirt in a basement. Warm Up Before you get started, it’s…
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3net Search Engine Marketing Blog by Social Media Systems
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179 Dollar Website Becoming the Local Newspaper Radio Station and TV Station
16 Jan 2012 | 7:15 amIf you think that is a value statement, you need a regular job. A good Real Estate broker is a hired gun, a marketing professional, licensed adviser, a psychologist, and salesperson and most of all a trusted consultant. The more resources that Broker spends on promotion, staying ahead of the curve, online marketing, and advertising in general – and the more experience int eh area and profession that Broker has, the better qualified that person is to help you, to advise you, and to buy and sell Real Estate with clients. One way for a new or younger realtor to establish a value… -
Create Posts for Map Navigation for a geographical taxonomy using MapPress Google Maps in WordPress.
8 Jan 2012 | 1:47 pmCreate Posts for Map Navigation for a geographical taxonomy using MapPress Google Maps in WordPress. This plugin imports a Map Navigation file into your WordPress blog. The Map Navigation file defines one or more Continents, Countries, Regions, States and Cities. The plugin creates Posts that each contain a MapPress map or mashup that provide a linked navigation of the geography using your organization’s name, image file and icon in the Post’s Post, Excerpt and on the Map markers. The Map Navigation hierarchy can then be added to your themes header or provided as a link so that… -
We feed, promote and rank on Google and Google maps a Realtor for each town
7 Jan 2012 | 7:49 amDirect Buy Luxury Foreclosure Properties and Houses in San Antonio, TX, 78216 – Texas Foreclosure Listings, Services, Licensed Expert Realtor Consultant Our new sponsor of the San Antonio Community News and Google maps, Michelle Doerr, is an expert marketer and Real Estate consultant in San Antonio, and now she sponsors the San Antonio Community News and Links! This is the way we feed, promote and rank on Google and Google maps a Realtor for each town and sell advertising to other local business – advertising that can actually create positive cash-flow for the advertiser in… -
2012 Statistics Politics, Religion and Social Media Marketing
4 Jan 2012 | 9:45 am“Be Ye hot or Be Ye cold…” In the seldom quoted and controversial book of Revelations, this scripture, in almost every translation of what some call “the living word”, seems to encourage “zeal” as apposed to political hedging as a strategy for spreading the truth. I am here to tell you that this is still excellent advice for marketing today in the “Book of Life” – otherwise known as social media! Here are some numbers I found this morning: look at this article from the Christian Post quoting Reed and others… The FFC reports that 29 percent of the conservative movement… -
2012 Local Internet Real Estate – the new Homesteading Business Opportunity
26 Dec 2011 | 10:58 amI feel like Lewis and Clark coming across the great plains saying: “Wow! Look at all that nu-plowed ground!” 2012 Local Internet Real Estate – the new Homesteading Business Opportunity | 2012 Rothman Guide Google’s maps are almost completely empty! They opened up the API months ago to get us to feed them, and almost no apps have been written, no revenue models created; no good local groups formed to feed Google from the grass roots! Everybody from Realtor.com to the most obscure, ridiculous newcomer has attempted to create a network of local city and community blogs: this…
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Oneupweb : StraightUpSearch Blog
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Oneupweb : Aaaahhh January….
27 Jan 2012 | 8:51 amJanuary seems to be the time of year that most of us are eagerly putting our best foot forward. Having the best of intentions and wanting to make positive changes in our lives is a natural part of the yearly cycle. By December, most of us have reflected on our life and (whether we actually mentioned them out loud or not) have made vows to ourselves of what we intend to improve upon; whether that be as simple as being kinder to others, wanting to shed a few pounds, eat healthier or quit smoking makes no difference. So what happens when it is almost the end of January and we have either given… -
Oneupweb : Pandora – Jack in the box…Ace in the hole
26 Jan 2012 | 10:21 amPandora is the entertainment that I turn to when I want to be active around the house and get some projects done. It doesn’t require my stationary attention, as I have wired my entire house for sound. On occasion, I’ll float back by the TV to see who the artist is for the catchy tune I’m currently hearing, or to like, dislike, or skip ahead to the next selection. Something that I’ve noticed recently is the increasing frequency of audio advertisements. There have been a few ads appearing lately that have caught my attention. Particularly a new ad from Jaguar that has been… -
Oneupweb : How does Search, plus Your World Affect Me?
25 Jan 2012 | 8:17 amA few years ago, I was really into this show on the History Channel called “The Universe.” It essentially gathers experts from top universities, NASA and private research institutes to discuss one topic about that sparkly black thing o’er yonder. They’d discuss topics like space junk (a great example being abandoned satellites that could come crashing down onto Earth at any time) and how Saturn’s rings are not gaseous – they’re actually bits of rock and ice. What I loved about the show is that they would explain how the Earth is impacted by everything… -
Oneupweb : When it comes to SEO, the only thing that remains constant is change!
24 Jan 2012 | 8:37 amIt’s no secret that the world of search is in a constant state of change, just look at Google’s 30 search quality highlights for the month of December! There are so many changes that Google began giving their updates codenames! The codenames help them better explain and remember each change as well as inject a bit of humor. Below is my favorite search update that recently was adopted by both Google and Bing. The less you have to type into your small mobile screen the better! Mobile and Local Search is booming and smarter than ever! As smart phones and tablet use continues to grow, these… -
Oneupweb : Don’t Be A MacGruber
23 Jan 2012 | 8:45 amAllow me to set the scene for you – After a long day of work, followed by a dinner that feels more like a necessity than a cuisine, you’re tucked comfortably on the couch, preparing to watch a highly educational TV show (reality TV is sooooo 2011). Blanket? Check. Pillows? Check. Fuzzy slippers that you would never admit to owning in public, but can’t seem to breathe without? Check. And juuuuust as you’re about to get the volume to the perfect level – WOOOOSH!! – a gust of cold air, colder than you thought environmentally possible, coming straight from the seemingly CLOSED front…
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SocialTimes.com
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Socialize: Google+ May Be More of a Social Layer Than a Social Network
27 Jan 2012 | 11:14 amAt today’s Socialize conference here at the beautiful St. Andrew’s Club onthe 27th floor of the Sun Life Financial Tower there was a great session discussing Google+ and its role within the greater Google suite. The most interesting idea was that Google+ shouldn’t be looked at as a social network, but rather a social layer that improves Google’s core product, search. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media. -
Pinterest, Copia, and Cheddar Bay Biscuits – Social Media for Books [Podcast]
27 Jan 2012 | 9:45 amToday on mediabistro’s Morning Media Menu podcast, GalleyCat editor Jason Boog shared with me his take on how social media is changing the landscape of the publishing industry. What do gardening manuals have in common with the Red Lobster seafood chain? Listen to the podcast to find out. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media. -
Social Media Explained – Possibly by a Dog [Infographic]
27 Jan 2012 | 9:27 amWarning: do not read this post if you are in a meeting or stuck in line somewhere. You might pee your pants. Thankfully, this picture also explains the best social network on which to break the news. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media. -
Socialize Conference: Facebook Advertising for Results and ROI
27 Jan 2012 | 9:08 amToday at Socialize Toronto, there was a great discussion discussing the role of Facebook ads in business, with a panel of experts on the subject. The panel included Hussein Fazal, CEO of Facebook Ad platform AdParlor, Seth Lieberman, CEO of Pangea Media, Nikhil Sethi, the Co-founder of Adaptly, Veronica Stecker, the media manager for Gordmans, Mario Zelaya, the Managing Director for Majestic Media and it was moderated by Brian Carter, the CEO of FanReach. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media. -
Why You Should Take a Look at Google’s New Privacy Policy
27 Jan 2012 | 8:45 amGoogle plus Your World has the tech community up in arms about the impact of integrating Google+ into its search engine on the user experience. Yesterday I opened an email from Google that read, “We’re getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google and replacing them with one that’s a lot shorter and easier to read…reflecting our desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google.” I checked it out, and so should you. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
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VIRALBLOG.COM » Viral ideas.Trends. Inspiration
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Viral Friday: Samsunged
27 Jan 2012 | 6:39 amViral Friday is the weekly viral video chart of ViralBlog, showing the 5 most popular viral videos, commercials, games or user-generated videos, carefully selected and ranked by popularity, viral impact & spread. This week’s Viral Friday #1 position goes to Samsunged, the sequel to the next big thing video. The runner up is NIKE+ FuelBand – this futuristic gadget challenges you to #makeitcount. And Chevy Happy Grad completes this week’s top 3, showing (almost) the best parents of the world, they were really, really close. Do you want to see this week’s list from 1 to… -
Facebook #1 Social Network In 127 Countries
26 Jan 2012 | 3:31 pmStrategic social media planning is about Owned, Earned and Paid media. And many global CMO’s are breaking their brains on global, glocal and local social media strategies. This new world map of social networks will make your life much easier… The map, created by Vincenzo Cosenza, an Italian digital strategist, shows the global popularity of various social networks. Unsurprisingly, the blue monster called Facebook tops the list in 127 countries out of the total 136 countries in the list… Facebook has over 800 million active users. And its userbase will hit 1 billion, since… -
Check-in With Air China At Selected Restaurants
24 Jan 2012 | 4:58 pmTo promote Air China in Sweden, and highlight the fact that it flies not only to China but to destinations throughout Asia, Air China have been using restaurant check-ins on Facebook in a cool concept. The airline created partnerships with a number of popular Asian restaurants in Sweden, to act as ambassadors for Air China. At each restaurant guests were encouraged to check-in with Air China on Facebook as they sat down to eat. Check-ins were displayed on a leaderboard on Facebook and every week those with the most votes won two tickets to China. The campaign garnered over 3000 Facebook… -
3 Reasons Why CMOs Should Care About CNY
23 Jan 2012 | 4:59 pmToday marks Chinese New Year, big festivities are going on in China. What’s the big fuss about? Well, it’s one of the biggest holidays for Chinese people. And why is this important again? Because you’re an early bird and are eager understand a market that will most likely change the world economy. Chinese New Year is a very interesting holiday marketers should pay close attention to. Chinese New Year festivities lasts almost two weeks. During this time they eat festive meals, visit relatives, gift red envelopes which contains money. The list goes on but you can probably look it up in… -
Weekly Recap #3
23 Jan 2012 | 5:35 amTime flies and since it’s not easy to follow, read and catch-up with everything, we bring you a Weekly Recap from ViralBlog: all of the past week in one place. Last week on ViralBlog among others “Measuring The Business Impact Of Social Media”, “How Should CMOs Change The Communication?” and “Retail Trends 2012: Bricks Perish, Screens Profit”. Top 25 Stories On ViralBlog In 2011 It was a busy year in the social media space and tech. Google+; new iPad, Facebook launched Timeline, Twitter with a new design for users and brand pages and embeddable tweets…
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pamorama
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Timing Your Social Media Marketing
20 Jan 2012 | 3:14 pmSocial media marketers always wonder when the best time is to post on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and the myriad of other social platforms for optimum customer engagement. Is it in the morning, since many people check their Facebook page before they go to work? Is midday better because users look at their Twitter stream while they’re eating lunch? Is evening best? Which days of the week generate the most engagement? And what about B2B versus B2C — are the dynamics different? Eric Boggs, CEO of Argyle Social and Jay Baer, CEO of Convince and Convert, recently teamed up for a… -
What Mattered In 2011 For Social Media
19 Jan 2012 | 6:10 pm2011 was a giant year for social media. Pandora, Groupon, and LinkedIn went public, Google+ launched, Twitter reached 100 million active users and was valued at $8 billion, and Facebook rolled out some big changes, including its major Timeline redesign. This infographic from Flowtown takes a look at the major social media events in 2011. -
Facebook’s New Timeline Could be a Boon for Brand Marketing
17 Dec 2011 | 6:54 pmFacebook rolled out Timeline this week, and brands are eager to take advantage of the new feature. The social network isn’t letting brands create their own Timeline pages yet and hasn’t given guidance about when that feature will be available. “We are currently focused on Timeline for individuals and will consider how to make consistent experiences for Pages, but we have nothing to announce at this time,” a Facebook rep is quoted as saying. If you aren’t familiar with Timeline, it’s the revamped version of the Facebook Profile. It’s a way to show off who you are, what… -
The Cost of Marketing on Facebook [Infographic]
3 Dec 2011 | 3:35 pmWith close to one billion members, Facebook is a very attractive marketing platform. The Facebook Advertising team has done a great job of working with company engineers to build a self-service, easy-to-use product that makes Google AdWords look quaint by comparison. Advertisers can target users by age, location, or area of interest, enabling very focused marketing efforts. Flowtown created this infographic to show data the company collected about who is marketing on Facebook. An impressive 69% of the businesses they spoke with are using Facebook to reach out to current and prospective… -
Social Media in the Workplace
18 Oct 2011 | 12:51 pmDoes social media have a place at the office? Some organizations definitely don’t think so. A recent report from Clearswift, an IT security firm, found that 19% of companies are blocking employee access to social media sites at work, up 10% from last year. But wait… Is Cyberloafing’ Good for Productivity? discusses web surfing at work and its effect on output. The conclusion? It “serves an important restorative function and can actually refresh workers and improve performance”. The article summarizes a recent study by Don. J.Q. Chen and Vivien K.G. Kim which found…
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Exploring Conversational Media
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Cartoon of the day
27 Jan 2012 | 5:36 am -
Crazy Canadian Cats Ground Plane, Don’t Be Evil and Universe in my Pocket
27 Jan 2012 | 2:38 amThis week’s edition of Five for Friday was written at Red Rock in Vegas. For some reason, my internal clock wanted to kick it on East coast time despite being three hours early local time. Hey at least the AM view was pretty nice. This week was pretty much a pair of travel days and a conference where I spoke on measuring social media. How was your week? Hopefully I did not miss anything important and if I did, please let me know. Want More Stickiness? Users Logging In Through Social Networks Spend 50% More Time On Site – this data is very interesting from Gigya. I am not going to lie, but… -
Cartoon of the day
26 Jan 2012 | 9:54 am -
Measuring your social media output
25 Jan 2012 | 9:44 amToday I will be presenting at the Social Commerce Strategies Conference in Las Vegas on measuring social media. Four key takeaways are: Traditional and non-traditional measurements Measurement is not one-size fits all Social customer personas How Vistaprint got started in the space and what we measure Measuring your social output View more presentations from Jeff Esposito -
Cartoon of the day
25 Jan 2012 | 9:33 am
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Social Media B2B
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12 Revealing Stats About B2B Social Media Marketing
26 Jan 2012 | 7:30 amArticles about B2B social media marketing adoption often paint a rosy picture of the current landscape, but when you dig in deeper, there are many challenges in effectiveness and understanding the results. In a recent survey of 5,000 B2B marketers from all industries, Penton Marketing Services found some pretty revealing statistics. Click the link for the full report (registration form required). 1. 81% of B2B Marketers find online marketing moderately to extremely challenging. 2. 77% of B2B Marketers said their websites are not that effective at generating leads. 3. 60% of B2B Marketers have… -
The B2B Social Media Book Launches
24 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amMany months ago, Kipp and I looked forward to January 24, 2012 as a monumental day in our lives. That was the publication date of our book, The B2B Social Media Book: Become a Marketing Superstar by Generating Leads with Blogging, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Email, and More. The manuscript was due in the middle of August and January seemed so far away. Well, it turns out that not only did it get here before we knew it, but the book came out a little sooner than we thought. It turned out to be a soft launch. In the world of online commerce, once books arrive in the warehouse, they can be… -
4 Reasons For B2B Marketers To Explore Pinterest
20 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amPinterest has made a big splash on the social media scene, by quickly earning passionate users who log multiple hours per day on the site. Pinterest saw a 4,000% increase in site traffic from June to December of last year, and many consumer-facing and female-centric brands are already using it well. While Nordstrom pins its latest shoes and fashions by boards organized by department, Whole Foods uses the site to pin kitchen design inspiration and recycling projects in addition to recipes using its foods. But despite its reputation as a service for brides and decorators, only 58% of the… -
6 Ways to Create and Share B2B Social Media Content Without a Blog
18 Jan 2012 | 10:33 amOne of the best ways to use social media to drive traffic to your B2B website is to create a blog on your website and publish relevant articles to your prospects and customers. Rather than posting this content only on your social media channels, it is hosted on a site that you control. And you can use your social channels to share your content and bring visitors to your site. For some organizations it is not currently possible to create a blog, but B2B marketers are still interested in creating and sharing content. In addition to the awareness benefit that sharing new content brings,… -
Awesome Content is Key to B2B Social Media
13 Jan 2012 | 6:41 amWhether you believe that content is king, queen or the court jester in your B2B social media activities, there is no disputing that creating and distributing remarkable, valuable content is key to success. No matter if your goals are to drive awareness, traffic or leads, content is a big part of that. Below are several articles that help frame the discussion around content, as well as tips to create better content. I have also included the latest in string of awesome infographics (read “content”) from the partnership between Eloqua and JESS3. If you have one great tip about…
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Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow} » Political oversight. A {growtoon}.
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Political oversight. A {growtoon}.
26 Jan 2012 | 11:02 pmJoin the growtoonists each Friday for a humorous take on marketing, social media, and current business events. Joey Strawn is a social media strategist that loves enjoying a good book and then drawing in it. Check him out on Twitter: @joey_strawn -
Forget demographics. It’s all about the socialgraphics
25 Jan 2012 | 11:02 pmBy Neicole Crepeau, Contributing {grow} Columnist Traditionally, marketers have researched their customers’ demographics to have a clear idea of their age, gender, income, location, and other traits. Marketers added psychographics to the mix, allowing them to take into account customer’s interests, values, and attitudes. A step up from the very general information that demographics provide, psychographics enable marketers to speak to customers in a way that resonates with them. Now, in the age of social media and behavioral ad targeting, we have to add another type of data to our arsenal:… -
20 of the World’s Wittiest Twitter Bios
24 Jan 2012 | 11:02 pmI know you LOVE these funny Twitter bios. Yes, they’re real and they’re fabulous. Here we go! @organising Let me bitch at you every day until you sort your shit out. @Newtoblogging Maybe I should rethink this, when I spelled it Blooging at first. @danecook When I tweet, I tweet to kill. @maurastl Pour yourself a drink, put on some lipstick, and pull yourself together. @SALJmum Making the Snuggie look good since 2009. @fiona_mca Trying to elevate small talk to medium talk. @ankurtz Currently starring in my own reality show titled, A Modern Cinderella; One Girl’s… -
Case study: Content marketing success at a medical practice
23 Jan 2012 | 11:02 pmIf you can’t view this video, Click here: Content marketing success at a medical practice I first reported my friend Lisa Reath’s remarkable success marketing her family’s medical practice in 2011. Since then, Lisa has continued to develop extraordinarily effective social media marketing initiatives. In this video, I describe her latest innovation and she is going old school! How is she using a cook book to increase brand awareness in an unusual and authentic way? See for yourself in this video! By the way, if you’re interested in purchasing this fantastic… -
Pinterest drives enormous blog and business success
22 Jan 2012 | 11:02 pmGuest Post by {grow} community member Lauren Schaefer This is Kate. She’s a hairstylist, jewelry maker, and all-around crafter based in North Carolina. Kate started her blog (thesmallthingsblog.com) exactly one year ago. And like most of us, it was a labor of love without a whole lot of “community.” In fact, for the first eight months, she had a grand total of seven readers. But between August of 2011 and today Kate has had over 10 million page views! How did she achieve this amazing success in just five months? Pinterest! Pinterest is the hottest social media…
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AdamVincenzini.com
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How easy / hard are you making it for bloggers to talk about you?
28 Jan 2012 | 2:26 amI have been asking myself and my clients this question a lot lately: How easy (or hard) are you making it for bloggers (and general social media participants) to talk about you? It's a really important question, and one that I think is often ignored (and perhaps not even on the radar enough to be ignored / noticed). What EXACTLY do I mean? Let me show you... Access issues: Bringing the challenge to life The simplest way for me to put this issue in context is as follows: I'm a hobbyist blogger When I have an idea for a post I'll use as many free research tools as possible to populate that post… -
Cool Campaigns: Nike's #KobeSystem Campaign 'Attacks' YouTube
26 Jan 2012 | 11:41 amHave you seen the latest Nike Basketball YouTube campaign? The star of the show is Kobe Bryant of the L.A Lakers, playing the role of life coach to 'clients' including clients Kanye West, Sir Richard Branson and Serena Williams. How do you teach success to the successful? Kobe (and Nike) give it a good crack here... YouTube Clip #1: Welcome to the #KobeSystem YouTube Clip #2: #KobeSystem Level 1 Success YouTube Clip #3: #KobeSystem Level 2 Adaptation YouTube Clip #4: #KobeSystem Level 3 Perception YouTube Clip #5: #KobeSystem Level 4 Explosion Attack fast. Attack strong. Whaddya… -
The 20 best new social media tools of 2011 (recap edition)
10 Jan 2012 | 10:59 pmIn late November 2011, my nominations for the top 50 new social media tools of 2011 were published. From this list, the top 20 new tools of 2011 were selected and unveiled over a four week period over on the Paratus Communications blog. I thought it was worth re-publishing this list on this blog for people who may have missed it the first time around. The 20 best new social media tools of 2011 20. SiteTrail.com – an easy (and free) way to track the performance of competitor websites. 19. Panabee.com – a domain name checker with a twist, helping you brainstorm new ideas based on URL… -
Social Media Track Changes (28 December 2011)
28 Dec 2011 | 1:17 amDo you find it hard to stay across all the changes that are constantly being made to the key social media platforms? I know I do. So, I'm introducing a new feature to my blog in 2012 which should help. The weekly post is called 'Social Media Track Changes' and it will do what it says on the tin - track all the changes made to the most popular social media channels over the previous seven days. Here is the first edition... Social Media Track Changes (28 December 2011) YouTube Slam - a new 'viral' video sensation discovery game where you vote for new content against similar videos. Full… -
Three slides that can make or break an online community
27 Dec 2011 | 5:16 pmThe art of community management and building has often been regarded as a very difficult one to master (predominantly due to the fact that each community has its own DNA). However, there are three key pillars which can make or break online communities driven by brands and businesses. The three areas of focus are: Content balance – what should you be talking about Community building – getting the right people to interact with you / your page Brand output – the types of activity that should characterise your presence Over the course of the last 12 months, I've regularly referred to the…
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Janet Clarey
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Alternate Reality Games Part 1 – A Good Fit for L&D?
13 Jan 2012 | 5:59 pmAlternate Reality Game (ARG)…an interactive story-based game, delivered through multiple “real world” modes (i.e., text, phone, Internet, print, and others) within which players must participate interactively and work collectively to solve “real world” problems the story presents. In our most recent High-Impact Learning Organization research, to be published shortly, we asked organizations to rate themselves from poor to excellent on their e-learning capabilities. Not surprisingly, the entry point for e-learning – the creation of simple, self-paced e-learning –… -
Wait. What? I can buy an LMS with a credit card?
26 May 2011 | 6:57 pmThis is a cross post. Original at Bersin & Associates. We know from our LMS 2011 research that the LMS market is experiencing more fragmentation, specialization, and globalization. We also know that we primarily see this in three overlapping spaces: (1) integrated talent management suite providers (the fastest growing space, especially for large organizations and where we are also seeing mega LMS/TMS mergers), (2) social learning platform providers, and (3) providers specializing in niche solutions (i.e., specific vertical markets like healthcare, unique needs like extended enterprise… -
“Dogfooding” at IMPACT
21 Apr 2011 | 10:47 amThis is a crosspost. I’m also writing here with this RSS feed. The idiom “eating your own dog food” means you are actually using your own products. In my case the “product” is research, analysis, and insight. Janet, how does one go about “eating” research, analysis and insight you’re probably asking. Excellent question, as always, and thanks for asking. Next week at our IMPACT conference (streaming, if you can’t attend this year) David Mallon and I will be presenting new research from a 2011 study on High-Impact Learning Organizations (to be published later in the year). -
Social Learning vs. Communities of Practice
22 Feb 2011 | 7:19 pmThis is a guest post from Tiffany Fary, a Senior eLearning Instructional Designer in the corporate sector. When it comes to the terms “Social Learning” and “Communities of Practice”, many people in the corporate learning realm are confused, myself included. We think we know what these mean one day, and then the next day a new theory or idea emerges that turns the whole idea of each upside down and inside out. Are Social Learning and Communities of Practice different? I think they are, but do you? Social Learning People in corporations are picking up Social Learning as one of the… -
Joining the staff of Bersin & Associates
1 Feb 2011 | 3:00 pmToday I joined the staff of Bersin & Associates as a senior analyst focusing on enterprise learning. If you’ve been in L&D for any length of time then I’m sure you know Josh Bersin. If not, you should and if you’re new to the industry, you’ll want to follow his work. It’s a real powerhouse research team and I’m thrilled to be joining them. I’ve always had great respect for their research and am looking forward to sharing my own experiences and background. What I really like about Bersin is their intense focus on meeting the needs of clients.
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Digital Connections - 360i Blog, Digital Marketing Agency
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Coca-Cola Will Be First Brand Ever to Select Super Bowl Ad Spot On the Fly
27 Jan 2012 | 10:29 amFootball fans won’t be the only ones invested in the outcome of Super Bowl XLVI. Execs at Coca-Cola will also be watching closely – on the ground in Indianapolis, in fact – as they will determine the brand’s 60-second spot in real time based on the direction of the game. It’s a breakthrough strategy that has never been done before in the Big Game’s storied past, but one that aligns with consumers’ ever-growing expectation for content that’s relevant to what’s happening right now. To pull this off, Coca-Cola created two spots – one of which will air during the second… -
360i Named No. 1 on Ad Age’s List of “Standout Shops”
26 Jan 2012 | 8:23 amWe are honored to announce that 360i has been named in Ad Age’s Agency A-List Issue as No. 1 on its roster of “10 Standout Shops”. The annual A-List issue highlights the top agencies in Ad Land, with this particular distinction citing our near-perfect client retention, track record for innovation, responsible growth and thought leadership program that provides regular insights across nearly every facet of digital. Watch the video below to learn more about our agency philosophy: This honor follows recent accolades which including spots on both Ad Age and Crain’s “Best Places to… -
360i Report on Hispanic Digital Influencers
19 Jan 2012 | 8:32 amToday, we’re launching the first in a series of reports exploring the role social media plays in the lives of Hispanics living in the United States. Reaching and engaging this population has become increasingly important to marketers over the past decade. The growth of this population presents both the promise of reaching a dynamic and engaged audience – armed with ever-increasing purchasing power – and the challenge of understanding the cultural nuances of a demographic with unique digital behaviors. » Download 360i’s Report on Hispanic Digital Influencers Why a POV series? -
6 Tips for Creating a Successful Second-Screen Experience
18 Jan 2012 | 9:58 amAs a television network, how do you plan to succeed in making TV social? With recent studies pointing to buzz from social networks to be a possible driving force behind television ratings, networks are now looking to capitalize on this fact by creating social TV experiences designed to keep fans talking longer, consuming more content and providing valuable show insight. Second-screen apps are no longer the “future” of TV; they’re becoming an integrated part of the entertainment experience right now. These apps offer fans a place to not only converse about their favorite TV shows, but… -
What Mattered for Marketers at CES 2012
17 Jan 2012 | 2:04 pmCES 2012: A Comprehensive Guide for Marketers View more presentations from 360i The Consumer Electronics Show is a massive labyrinth. As soon as you enter Las Vegas for the event, and especially by the time you reach the Convention Center, you may feel like you’ll never escape. The good news is that once you get free, it’s possible to put down your 3D glasses and reflect on what happened. If you weren’t there, then it’s all the more important to mute the hype (“Ryan Seacrest joined Steve Ballmer for Microsoft’s keynote!”) and get a sense of what…
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Mindjumpers
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How Air China Used Facebook Check-Ins for Their New Campaign
27 Jan 2012 | 12:45 amTweetWhile surfing through the net, I found an interesting campaign by Air China, using Facebook’s check-ins. Facebook places is one of the most neglected marketing channels and here it has been very effectively used. The airline wanted to raise awareness among customers in Sweden about the fact that they flew to countries all over Asia and not just to China itself and still emerge as winners in Swedish markets. Concept: They realised that people had already experienced Asia and one of the most evident ways to leverage that was through Asian cuisine. So Air China tied up with restaurants… -
What ‘Search Plus Your World’ Means for your Google Ranking
25 Jan 2012 | 2:46 amTweetGuest blog post written by Neeral Bhatt, who works as an SEO specialist for Orchidbox London. She is especially interested in online communities and social media. You can find her on Linkedin. As mentioned in last week’s post on Mindjumpers Blog, Search Plus Your World is currently the biggest talking point in the online marketing community. In this post, I will talk about how you can maintain your site’s traffic by understanding the ways in which social media will influence your business’s rank in Google’s search engine. The change is fundamental to users’… -
Global Social Media Adoption In 2011 [White Paper]
23 Jan 2012 | 3:08 amTweetIn January 2012, a report called ‘Global Social Media Adoption In 2011’ was published by Forrester. This report uses Forrester’s Social Technographics groupings to show how people around the world use social media. Technographic segmentation is a market research analysis tool used to identify and profile the characteristics and behaviors of consumers through the process of market segmentation. Further, companies can make use of this information for making their strategies, when operating in different parts of world. The report is based on Consumer Technographics data in 18… -
The Sharing Avalanche [Infographic]
20 Jan 2012 | 6:01 amTweetSocial sharing is the backbone of social media. Every time a piece of content is sent out on a social channel, the aim is to have it shared and increase the brand’s visibility. Some even say if it doesn’t share, it isn’t there! On our blog, we have already written about an infographic that talks about content sharing trends for the last 5 years and a study on content sharing pattern, but this infographic relates content sharing to brands as well gives some insights on who doesn’t share content on social media. Voltier Digital & Plastick Media have put together a great… -
Facebook Launches Open Graph Apps
19 Jan 2012 | 3:47 amTweetAt a press event yesterday, Facebook announced that they will go ahead with the extension of the Open Graph. This entails that 60 social apps are going live on Facebook, including Foursquare, Airbnb, eBay, Runkeeper and TripAdvisor among others. The apps are part of Facebook’s Open Graph revamp already unveiled at F8 September last year. Actions and gestures were expected to be the next tool in the Facebook arsenal after the social plugins. This means that activities from these different apps can be included in user’s Timeline and show up on their friends’ Ticker and News Feed. The…
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Digitaria Blogs
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Digi@themovies - Man on a Ledge, Underword, Albert Nobbs
27 Jan 2012 | 10:00 amTom Siebert Man on a Ledge is set up like your typical bank heist movie, only this time the leader of the pack, our "Danny Ocean," is trying to prove he didn't steal something....by stealing it. The problem is, most other caper movies know viewers like to see how the heist will be pulled off through a series of montages, as each specialist does his or her part, usually with a dash of dry humor and sarcasm. This... -
What’s New(s) in a Data-Driven World
24 Jan 2012 | 2:08 pmNicole Rawski Last week, Digitaria’s Analytics team attended the regional LA/Southern California chapter’s inaugural Web Analytics Association Symposium in Santa Monica. After a busy train ride to L.A., the Digitaria analytics team rode in unaccustomed limo style (pictured) to Santa Monica. The one-day event allowed SoCal analytics experts to share learnings in an ever-changing industry. We heard success stories (and... -
Digi@themovies: Red Tails, Haywire, Extremely Loud
20 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amTom Siebert Today we launch the weekly Digi@themovies blog entry, thanks to our friends at Allied Advertising. Each week, different Digitarians will offer their thoughts on what’s new at the multiplex, and whether it’s worth the money now or better off waiting to pirate it in a couple months (only kidding, SOPA!). Here goes. --> read more -
An Unconventional Take on CES: Tracking, Television, Creativity and Power
19 Jan 2012 | 7:00 pmSarah Kotlova Last week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was an overwhelming swirl of badge-wearing and suited humanity, packed tightly into the tradeshow floors and the Venetian Hotel. The actual gadgets, roughly (and inaccurately) defined by me as: Beeping Things, Glowing Things, Loud Things, Connectivity Things, Things that Work with your iPhone/iPad, and Things that Cover your iPhone/iPad – I am... -
Never Stop Learning with SDSU & the AdClub
18 Jan 2012 | 7:29 pmSusie Pollasky Even though I graduated from San Diego State University last May, my heart hasn't wandered far, and I continue to find myself back on campus. I found good reason, when SDSU's College of Extended Studies and San Diego Ad Club hosted Marketing and Media Careers Panel in support of its Digital Marketing Certificate program. Three successful San Diego MarCom professionals told stories and gave advice on...
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Colin Alsheimer
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30 Marketers Share Their Predictions for 2012 – Agree or Disagree?
3 Jan 2012 | 11:57 amTweetAs is the pattern, with the start of the new year comes a raft of predictions for the upcoming year. Some will hit the mark and others will undoubtedly be off base. Others still will simply rehash predictions of yesteryear that never quite came to fruition. Yesterday, top social media blog Social Media Examiner (it’s a great read if you’re new to the social space, or if you need some quick and dirty tactical advice) unleashed their own predicitions post, where 30 social media professionals shared their predictions for 2012. Some are quite interesting and should provide small… -
Life Just Got a Whole Lot Harder for Brands on Facebook
21 Sep 2011 | 12:20 pmTweetIn case you haven’t heard, Facebook rolled out a whole mess of changes to their platform at their annual f8 developers conference. As a recap, here’s what they added or changed so far: Facebook Changes at f8 Conference in 2011 Increased the character limits on status updates from 500 to 5,000 Added a floating top navigation bar Gave users the ability to edit the left hand navigation menu Hid the poke button Streamlined the Birthday notifications feature Removed the ability for users to add custom messages to friend requests And don’t forget friend lists, introduced last… -
Six Surefire Ways to Increase Your Facebook Like Count
20 Sep 2011 | 10:30 amTweetYeah yeah yeah, social media marketing isn’t about the number of likes you have. It’s about the ROI, baby! We’ve all heard it a million times. Don’t focus on likes. Don’t focus on followers. Focus on the dollar signs. Or better yet – focus on engaging your community members. Sounds real good during the sales process, doesn’t it? Problem is, for many brands it’s difficult (if not impossible) to generate the big bucks if they havent attained a certain reach with their social accounts. Which is exactly the point in time when Facebook like… -
Help Me Choose a New Twitter Name!
4 Feb 2011 | 9:51 amTweetFor those who don’t know, I’m starting a new gig soon. As part of that process, I also need to pick a new Twitter name, since @LevelTen_Colin just won’t cut it anymore. Lessons Learned Skip to the bottom if you just want to vote! Over two years ago, when I first created the account the idea was to help create an official presence for LevelTen on social media channels, where there wasn’t one previously. The goals were to increase awareness of the agency locally, as well as provide a valuable source for traffic and fresh links for SEO. At the time, the plan was to… -
New Adventures!
1 Feb 2011 | 5:00 amTweetWriting this post was a tough decision, but I thought it would be useful to share this exciting news in a single location. I’ve recently come to the decision to move on from my current role at LevelTen Interactive and will be starting a new position at Weber Shandwick as an Account Supervisor in early February. I’ve learned so much in my time at LevelTen and feel privileged to have worked there. From their heavy involvement with the Drupal community to weekly sprint meetings and marketing projects, it’s been a fun and rewarding ride. The crew at LevelTen are an amazing…
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Social Media Citizens - Interviews with social media influencers from around the world
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Interview with Community Manager: Philip Wride at Zmags
26 Jan 2012 | 3:35 amPhilip is Community Manager at Zmags. Previously, he was community manager of FIFA UK at Electronic Arts and Digital Producer at The Walt Disney Company. You can Follow Phil on Twitter and his blog. G: How did you build your experience as community manager/strategist? P: I started at an early age (16), first as a member of forums and then rapidly moving on to contributing content and managing environments. Special interest fan sites and smaller communities with a core following were the order of the day for several years. I did however take a break to focus on the strategy side rather than… -
Interview with Community Manager: Morgan Clark from Mondo Management
24 Jan 2012 | 3:42 amMorgan is Community Manager at Mondo Management who represent talents like David Gray, Orbital and Damien Rice. Previously, he was communities & social media producer at Channel 4 and Assistant Communities Editor at Associated Northcliffe Digital. You can follow Morgan on Twitter and Linkedin. G: How did you build your experience as community manager? M: It was a lot of trial and error. I was put in a job where all of a sudden I was dealing with quite a vocal community which needed calming down, diplomacy and tact. I ultimately dealt with the community as I would any face-face… -
Interview with Community Manager: Ben Bateman from Square Enix
19 Jan 2012 | 3:27 amBen Bateman is community manager from Square Enix. An energetic and highly talented gaming specialist interested in all aspects of game development. A Currently Community Manager for Codemasters, supporting all boxed titles including DiRT 3, Operation Flashpoint Red River, F1 2011, and Bodycount. You can follow Ben on Twitter, Linkedin or Facebook.com G: How did you build your experience as community manager? B: I was fortunate to have some inspirational mentors but ultimately I gained my experience through practice and experimenting. G: What are your top resources for community management… -
Interview with Community Manager: Joel Windels from Brandwatch
16 Jan 2012 | 9:09 amJoel is Community Manager at Brandwatch, Europe’s leading social media monitoring tool. As well as spending much of his time in the social media sphere, Joel’s background has been in the computer games industry, spanning development, usability, marketing, journalism and community management. He is currently based in Brighton, UK. You can follow Joel on Twitter or LinkedIn. G: How did you build your experience as community manager? J: I think much of the learning of community management comes from skills gained outside the job itself. Fostering relationships, developing writing… -
Interview with Community Manager: Shruti Shah Goradia from Kodak
10 Oct 2011 | 2:42 pmShruti Goradia is the Social Media Community Manager for Kodak’s Tips & Projects Exchange: a branded community for creative enthusiasts. In this role she manages all aspects of the community to drive business goals. Shruti leads the strategy for reach, influence and impact via owned, earned and paid media, which drives product integration to optimize brand loyalty, customer satisfaction and revenue. She is proud to be on the front lines of interacting with Kodak consumers, championing community and customer feedback internally. You can follow Shruti on Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin.
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The Next Web » Social Media
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Brands may be paying celebrities for tweets, but who’s paying Twitter?
28 Jan 2012 | 3:41 amIt seems you can’t even post a photo of yourself eating a chocolate bar on Twitter these days without kicking up a stink. On Tuesday, Manchester United and (former?) England defender Rio Ferdinand – with almost two million Twitter followers – posted this message, accompanied by a photo of himself just about to get stuck in to a Snickers chocolate bar: You’re not you when you’re hungry @snickersUk#hungry#spon lockerz.com/s/177408824 — Rio Ferdinand (@rioferdy5) January 24, 2012 So what, right? Well, yes. Except, with the status that Rio has – both in real life and… -
Sean Parker says Facebook IPO could be ‘the largest offering in history’ [video]
27 Jan 2012 | 6:36 pmFormer President of Facebook, Sean Parker, did an interview with CNBC today in which he discussed Facebook’s “inevitable” IPO and applauded Mark Zuckerberg for keeping the company private for as long as he has. While Parker didn’t provide any insight as to when the public offering would be made or at what valuation, he did admit that the public push for Facebook shares can’t be ignored: To the extent that there is any bubble in technology at all, it is really a bubble around Facebook in the sense that there is a huge amount of pent-up demand among retail… -
Want a fancy Twitter brand page for your company? That’ll cost you $25,000
27 Jan 2012 | 11:30 amEarly last month, Twitter revealed its new focus on simplicity and it caught some of Twitter’s hardcore users off guard. The site has become more streamlined to better serve new users who are just learning about the micro-messaging platform, and that’s a good thing. During its redesign announcement, Twitter introduced us to something new for advertisers called “brand pages“. These pages feature a customizable header and the ability to make on tweet stick to the top of the timeline, as a way to introduce prospective followers to the brand. At the time, a mix of 21… -
This week’s best new social media tools
27 Jan 2012 | 10:35 amIt’s been another huge week in the world of new web apps and social media tools. The award for the ‘buzziest’ launch of the week has to go to Wunderkit.com – the collaboration tool from Berlin-based start-up 6Wunderkinder. [Watch the story behind Wunderkit, the impressive new social productivity platform] But, there were some others generating noise too, and here they are (complete with easy-to-categorise ‘tags’ for the first time)… 1. Check out what’s trending on Instagram with GramFeed.com – Imagine Google Images for Instagram mixed in with information about which… -
The Indian Army reportedly bans all servicemen and women from social networks
27 Jan 2012 | 2:11 amThe Indian Army is reported to be introducing a total ban on social networking amongst its servicemen and women as it is fears that sites like Facebook could lead to crucial information leaking into the wrong hands. The ban, which was reported by Ad Age and is yet to be confirmed by authorities, is said to require the force’s 36,000 officers and 1.3 million other personnel to immediately cease using and delete their social networks profiles. New recruits will be informed that they are not permitted to even join, let alone use, social networks at any point while they service in the army.
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social medium
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SOPA: Birth of an American Terrorist
16 Jan 2012 | 6:35 amVideo courtesy of Fight For The Future explaining concerns around PIPA In Washington politicians have been breast-feeding a pair of monstrosities, becoming more hideous by the day like the picture of Dorian Gray. The cosmetically engineered face of Hollywood has been fooling itself for years that the same old business models aren’t broke and everything [...] No related posts. -
VC’s in the Front Seat, VC’s in the Back Seat
21 Dec 2011 | 6:42 amThis video is all kinds of cringe and awesome. There are some real awkward moments in the video and you’re not sure whether you think ‘hahaha’ or you just want to put your fist through your monitor. To Be Honest though, i LOVE crappy annoying internet memes and just look at all the companies in [...] Related posts: we have charts & graphs to back us up -
Product as a P(a)lace
15 Dec 2011 | 7:11 amThe joy of products. Well, ok, that is pretty rare. Why do you think that is? I personally believe it is because creators of products often do not think about the relationship between user and product. A relationship I hear you cry?! Yes, a relationship. We all have relationships with the environment around us whether [...] No related posts. -
Jingle Tweets – A Social Festive Guide
13 Dec 2011 | 4:04 amAs evil rumours continue to circulate around our office that East 17 will be performing their immortal Christmas number 1 single ‘Stay’ at our Christmas party this year, I thought I’d take the opportunity to have a look at the best Christmas offerings in the social world to help get me in the Christmas spirit. [...] No related posts. -
Groupon throws Zynga a Shovel. Facebook Gets its Affairs in Order
30 Nov 2011 | 10:14 amIn our last post we wrote about how Groupon had managed to wipe off about $6 billion from it’s stock. That loss is now currently at $6.5 billion (On Monday it was $7 billion but Tuesday some small gains were made). Groupon (GRPN) is not the only one in trouble however. It is bookended by [...] Related posts: Groupon’s Stock Crumbles, Pretend to Look Surprised Groupon and Zynga – A Guide To Losing Money How Groupon Can Finally Go Public!
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Huddle Productions
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AT&T Creating Customer Advocacy
26 Jan 2012 | 4:51 pmAT&T invited 3 fans called “AT&T Wolfpack” to CES to video the events taking place. Christopher Baccus the Executive Director of Digital & Social Media spoke at Freeman Leonard Social Media Breakfast in Dallas about this campaign and creating Customer Advocacy. Chris Yates from Huddle Productions did this video interview with his iPhone. -
Create Viral Videos
13 Jan 2012 | 1:54 pmI love it when someone comes to me and says “Will you create a Viral Video for me?” Sure! Let me just go to my secret viral video formula and produce that. There’s no such thing! Anyone that tells you they create Viral Videos is full of Baloney. Viral Videos just happen. Just tell great stories and if they go viral that’s added bonus. Even after 25 years of producing video I am still surprised by what videos get more views over others. Below are two examples of videos that I’ve created that were totally opposite of my expectations. Maybe I should just create… -
Video helps Michaels connect to customers
8 Dec 2011 | 8:27 amPaula Puleo the CMO of Michaels talks about the importance of video. Why video is effective. 1) Personal connection to customers. Michaels is one of the largest crafts company in the nation and it can be difficult to connect to customers. Video allows that one to one connection to their customers. 2) Focus on Customer. Doing videos on customers and their stories shows that Michaels puts the customer first. Featuring your customers in a video shows you care about them and makes them feel special. It really does create loyalty. 3) Michaels doesn’t sell crafts. It sells memories. Video… -
Southwest Airlines on Customer Service
18 Nov 2011 | 4:07 pmSouthwest Airlines says they are in the customer service business not the airline business according to Colleen C. Barrett the President Emeritus of Southwest Airlines. Their entire culture focuses on having fun. In her book called “Lead With LUV,” Colleen talks about servant leadership and how that’s the key ingredient to Southwest’s success. Colleen was the speaker at the DFWAMA Executive Luncheon and did this video interview with Chris Yates. -
Gary Vaynerchuk & Social Media ROI
14 Nov 2011 | 1:37 pmBestselling author and entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk began his career in his family’s business, Shopper’s Discount Liquors. He soon rebranded the store as Wine Library, launching a retail website and boosting its revenue from $4 million to $60 million a year. In 2006 Vaynerchuk launched Wine Library TV, a daily video blog about wine. With the tagline “changing the wine world,” the show offers an unpretentious approach to a historically stuffy subject. As the audience grew and word spread of his informal and unorthodox approach to wine, Gary made numerous national…
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Social @ Blogging Tracker
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7 Killer Facebook Applications to Create Impressive Custom Tabs
12 Jan 2012 | 8:42 amHave you ever felt troubled when trying to add a stunning custom tab to your page but don’t know how? Since last year, I had found several that works great in providing sub-tabs and some with fan gate options. Today, it’s all about templates and widgets! Wouldn’t it be great if you can add one of these facebook applications together with some from 23+ Facebook Page applications to improve fans engagement? After all, it’s all about trial and error. Let’s head right to the facebook apps: 7 Killer Tab Customizers for Facebook Pages #1 GroSocial Requirement of Coding Knowledge: No… -
23+ Essential Facebook Page Applications to Improve Fans Engagement in 2012
2 Jan 2012 | 11:23 amUpdate: Don’t forget to check out 7 Killer Facebook Applications to Create Impressive Custom Tabs too! Greetings and Happy New Year! To kick off 2012, some of you may think of giving your Facebook Page a facelift. There may be some features you wish to add such as custom iframe tabs with fan gate option or ideas to encourage fans engagement on your Page. If you do, you’ve come to the right place! Every year I will compile a list of cost-effective facebook apps you can use not only to improve your fans engagement but hopefully enhance your brand visibility at the same time. Without… -
How to Track (Manage) Your Pending Friend Requests on Facebook
29 Nov 2011 | 10:46 pmIf you’re on Facebook then you are well aware of this problem. Remember how we used to be able to check pending friend requests in our friends list as indicated below? Not anymore with the new personal profile. If you think there may be a hidden feature for this then sorry to disappoint you again. Here’s how Facebook responded about tracking pending friend requests: Unable to check pending friend requests is a huge disadvantage for Facebook users, especially if you are warned for overusing the feature (sent too many requests in a short period of time), reducing the request quantity may be… -
How to Add Pages You Like in Your (Updated) Facebook News Feed?
27 Sep 2011 | 4:46 amRecently a lot of Facebook users are asking the same question: “I can no longer view page updates in my newsfeed. How do I add pages I like into my Newsfeed? ” Technically, the page updates are still there in your news feed, just not as easily spotted comparing to before. We all know Facebook has their very own algorithm in deciding which updates to appear in our news feed based on our recent activities and how popular is the post/page according to our interests. Even so, we still might miss out a whole lot more information from the pages we love even Facebook thinks they had it all… -
7 Free iFrame Applications to Create Welcome Tab (Custom Tabs) for Your Facebook Page
17 Aug 2011 | 9:36 am[UPDATED 05/01/2012]Note: You don’t have to worry if FBML tags are not working in some of these iframe apps because starting from 1st, Jan 2012, FBML will no longer be supported as described by Facebook here. Recently I received emails asking about facebook iFrame applications. Most readers enjoyed the guide on how to create an iFrame tab from scratch but some are requesting for a simpler route with ready-made iFrame apps that could save time and effort, even without owning a web page! I realized there’s a need to update my previous post about adding a Welcome tab (or custom tab) to a…
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Courtney Engle
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iBooks Author reviewed
19 Jan 2012 | 11:28 amThis morning Apple announced three new tools for educational users: iBooks Author, iTunesU app, and iBooks 2. iBooks Author is in the OS X App Store now, so I did a quick review: iBooks Author reviewed -
Social Media Account Dilemma: Personal Account vs. Brand Account
17 Jan 2012 | 2:13 pmWhen creating a social media account, people still get confused if they should use a personal account or a brand account. The social networks where you must have a company profile and where to create: Facebook: http://facebook.com/pages Google Plus: https://plus.google.com/pages/create LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/add/show If you violate these terms of service, your profile can be taken down without notice. It would benefit you greatly to straighten out these issues as soon as possible. You can’t necessarily move your followers automatically from personal profiles to… -
Mobile Site vs Mobile App vs. Mobile Landing Page
16 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amDo you need a mobile site or a mobile app, and landing page, all of the above, or none of these? It really depends upon your business, but most likely you need at least to make your website mobile ready. Earlier, I shared how to check your website on mobile devices and how to make your WordPress website mobile friendly. If you are using Google Analytics to track your website traffic, you can see how many of your existing visitors are using mobile devices. At the very least, you need to make your website display well on mobile devices. However, if you have some unique value in mind,… -
Google changes Search Engine Results – What it means for you
13 Jan 2012 | 1:13 pmGoogle has introduced a new feature on search engine results pages called “Search, plus Your World“. These features may have significant impact on how you view search results and how your website displays for others. Look at the two images below. The first is a typic search result for “WordCamp“: Compare that with the new search results page with the social features enabled (like to full-size here): What does this mean for you? First, as a person browsing the web, you may choose to turn results off if you find that it results in better quality. I’d suggest… -
How to Brainstorm, Project Manage, and GTD
10 Jan 2012 | 4:13 pmI love when creativity strikes, leading my into a time to brainstorm, project manage, and get things done. To get those ideas drafted out and implemented, I use a variety of tools. First, I brainstorm ideas in a mindmap, like MindJet Mindmanager. Then, I schedule out tasks in Things. Finally, I review the calendar using BusyCal. Best of all, all of these things work from my Mac and iPhone. Related articles GTD Times: Cool GTD tip for tracking Waiting For items in Outlook (gtdtimes.com) Mindjet’s 7-Step Process for Effective Team Collaboration (mindmapblog.com) Mindjet…
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The Social Workplace
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A Five Step Roadmap to Internal Social Media
26 Jan 2012 | 10:41 amWithout a doubt, the adoption of using social technologies inside the organization is rampant. So many companies are hearing the loud beat of the “employee engagement” drum, but the task of effectively assessing your needs, implementing technologies correctly, and measuring for success and sustainability is a daunting project. So, it’s okay to slow down, take a deep breath and work from a well-crafted roadmap. Few things make employees more cynical than a social media platform that no one uses. And if your company quickly deployed a ["insert social tool here"] only to find… -
Employees Say The Power of Internal Social Media is Real — Will You Listen?
25 Jan 2012 | 9:41 amWith 61% of employees saying that internal social media helps them to better collaborate and another 60% saying internal social media demonstrates innovation… it’s becoming much more evident that Internal Social Media (ISM) can — and does — impact the bottom line. To better understand the value of social media in the workplace, APCO Worldwide and Gagen MacDonald recently surveyed 1,000 U.S. employees, and built a model that quantifies the factors that characterize effective programs and the impact on core business drivers. Some significant findings include: 58% of… -
#Infographic: 100 Best Companies Aren’t Just Good Places to Work, They’re Engines of Employment
25 Jan 2012 | 9:21 amThe best companies employ about 1.6 million people, or 1.1% of the U.S. workforce. They’re not just good places to work — they’re engines of employment. Here’s a look at the list by size of employer and by jobs added (or lost) last year. This is an excellent companion to CNN Money’s 100 Best Companies to Work For. Of note: Microsoft lost the most employees (over 2K) and Google added the most (7K). -
Who’s Who in Social HR Technology
24 Jan 2012 | 6:43 pmWelcome to our Who’s Who list of companies who specialize in Social HR technology. Are you in HR technology and wondering what options you have in software vendors? Or are you wondering what technology companies are transforming HR into more social functions? Then look no further. The list below has been collected from a couple of online sources as well as from our own research. The companies are listed in alphabetical order, but sortable by product solution. If you feel a company has been listed incorrectly or if you are a representative of the company and wish to modify your… -
#Infographic: Is Your Company Ready for BYOD?
24 Jan 2012 | 12:20 pmIf you’re not… don’t feel bad. You’re in good company. This infographic, by ClickSoftware, examines mobile workforce management, including the expectations of employees (and BYOD – Bring Your Own Device), how to integrate mobile devices into your organization, and the benefits that you will likely see from increased mobility. 66% of employees want IT to let them use any device they choose 45% of IT workers aren’t prepared to support a borderless mobile workforce 61% of companies that let employees use personal mobile devices have higher employee…
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Free Social Media Help for Solopreneurs | Social Media Marketing Help | Social Networking for Small Businesses
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What is Social Media? Why Should I Care?
25 Jan 2012 | 6:52 amWhat Is Social Media? Why Should You Care? View more presentations from Mande White. -
Facebook Tips: How to Put Your Friends into Lists
15 Jun 2011 | 6:57 pmVideo is best viewed full screen. So hit play on the video and then click the button in the bottom right hand corner of the video that has all the arrows going all different ways. That’ll show the video the size of your entire screen. -
Facebook Tips: How to Filter Your NewsFeeds Via Your Friends List
15 Jun 2011 | 6:41 pm -
How to Make Posting Status Updates A Cinch!
29 Mar 2011 | 8:12 amWhen I start working with clients who want help with their social media management I usually ask them if they are writers or talkers and it never fails that people are either one or the other. Personally, I’m a talker and writing feels very painful for me so I often don’t write up these blogs as often as I would like but with this new tool-all that is going to change! I’d like you to meet my new best friend…CINCH! Cinch allows you to record an audio from your phone or computer. If you’ve got an iPhone they have an awesome app you can use to record your… -
Facebook Overtakes Google
16 Mar 2011 | 7:29 amWith Facebook overtaking Google as most visited website it stands to reason that we should all be paying a bit more attention to optimizing our presence on Facebook. With that comes updating our Fan pages to stay current with the recent elimination of FBML and the adoption of iFrames for page customization. 3 quick short cuts to get you up to speed: To get oriented on what’s new regarding the layout of your Fan Page read Mari Smith’s post To understand iFrames read HyperArts’ post If you’d just like to purchase a Do-It-Yourself program including videos, webinars and plug-n-play…
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NotEasyToForget.com
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Happy Community Manager Appreciation Day…An Infographic In Your Honor!
23 Jan 2012 | 6:15 amToday is YOUR day Community Managers! Celebrate, dance…call in sick and treat yourself to a spa day! Whatever you do with yourself today, know that you are an appreciated and vital component of how business gets done in 2012. Your role is more inportant each year as you bravely carve out and define your place in the professional ecosystem. Started in 2010 by Jerimiah Owyang, Community Manager Appreciation Day is a day where the world is called upon to acknowledge who you are and what you do. I personally want to applaud your bravery and your passion. Now, more than ever the world is… -
Updated 2011 World of Social Media Video Infographic
24 Dec 2011 | 12:43 pm2011 has been yet another banner year for social media. As marketers, it is necessary for us to keep tabs on developing trends as well as the past. The metrics that got us here are our chronicle. This video-Infographic is an excellent visual representation of where we are and from whence we came. I’m pretty much just parking this here as a year-end reference. Some of you may not have already seen the video. If this is the case, enjoy! I hope that all of you and yours are enjoying a pleasant Christmas Eve today! +James Ball No related posts. -
Social Media, Work Dynamics, & Life – The Two Score and Five Year Lens
28 Sep 2011 | 9:25 amSo yeah, this is the first day of my 45th year on the planet…of course I’m reflecting! I really just wanted to jot down a few things to keep you in the loop and as an archive of sorts. Remember the “Social Media Case Study Starting Today” I wrote back in May of 2010? I am supposing that this post will serve as an official update about all of that, and then some. If you’ve been following for any length of time, then you know that there has been a steep decline in the frequency of my posts here on this blog since that very same May of 2010. Only part of that is because I’ve been so… -
Need A Website In Like, 30 Minutes? (1/2 Of All Small Businesses Don’t Have One!) Quick Fix:
25 Aug 2011 | 4:56 amI love it when something turns out to be exactly “as advertised”, don’t you? I love it even more when a product or a service makes something a little bit easier for struggling small businesses. Today I am super-pleased to introduce you to Onepager. Onepager is a service that allows you to create a dandy little one page website in minutes. Seriously, I built a website using Onepager in 30 minutes last night (I even cropped a pic for the background and made a little logo). Click the image below and check it out. The videos below pretty much explain everything you’ll need to know about… -
Stay Tuned – Big Social Media News Today At 11a.m. PST
23 Aug 2011 | 5:49 amIt would appear that we are all to receive some earth shattering social media news today at 11a.m. PST (I’ll be sitting at my comp with an hour cleared at 2p.m. EST!). Robert Scoble stated late last night in his Google+ stream that “Google+ has been matched by a competitor”. Robert is apparently bound by a non disclosure agreement until today. Having already achieved 25+ Million users faster than any other social network in history, does Google+ really need to be concerned? You bet they do. *Not on Google+ yet? Let me know in the comments with your @gmail address if you…
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CompuKol Connection » Blog
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Formatting Article Titles for Submission
28 Jan 2012 | 4:00 amIf you write and submit a lot of articles to business directories, you are aware that there are usually strict submission guidelines that need to be followed. All parts of the article are included, including the title. Many of the article directories have specific rules about article titles and if they are not adhered to, your article will most likely be rejected. The rest of your article may totally be top notch but if you don’t follow the rules regarding the title to the letter, you won’t get anywhere. It is a shame that if your article is rejected because of a formatting… -
SEO: What it is. What it Does.
26 Jan 2012 | 4:00 amIf you have a website or are researching websites, you’re sure to have heard the term SEO bandied about quite a bit. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO techniques are used to improve the visibility and ranking of a website when people conduct a search on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Generally speaking, the higher on the search page that a website displays and the more frequently a page appears in searches, the more visitors it will receive from search engine users. How optimal is it to appear on the first page of a search? Very. Up to 42% of search… -
Effective Concepts for Your Blog
24 Jan 2012 | 4:00 amYour blog is for your business but it is also intended to grab the attention of your target audience, which is not such an easy thing to do. You need to write exciting and compelling content that captures their attention. It doesn’t make any sense to spend a great deal of time on research, thought, and subsequently, writing your content if nobody but you actually reads it. In this day and age of technology, everyone is constantly being bombarded with vast amounts of content on every topic imaginable. So much content is being fed to people that they don’t know what to do with it on… -
The Necessity of Media to Be Social
21 Jan 2012 | 4:00 amTraditional media has been around for a very long time. For a great while, there has been a need for it to embrace the social aspect of media in order to engage readers (also known as the audience). Although the face of traditional media has changed a great deal in the last several years because of the social media revolution, it is absolutely necessary for it to get involved with people in other ways in order to remain successful. If that doesn’t happen, traditional media will not exist as we have know it up to this point. The differences between social media and traditional media are… -
The Importance of Online Exposure
19 Jan 2012 | 4:00 amThe way that people build exposure is very different than what used to be. Before the technical revolution, people would meet for coffee or lunch and get to know to each other. Now, they connect online. Their exposure is critical. People are still having coffee; however, not necessarily together in person. The relationships that people are maintaining are still just as real as they have ever been. It is just that they are being maintained in a different way. When it comes to online exposure and connecting with other people through the Internet, you have the power to reach many more people at…
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DaveandDawnCook.com
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Seventeen Dollars
4 Jan 2012 | 1:27 pmNow days Seventeen Dollars ($17) doesn’t buy you a whole lot in this weak economy. Seventeen dollars can buy you and your spouse two tickets to a movie theater, one good steak at a nice restaurant (not including the tip) or about 5 gallons of gasoline for your car. The above are just a few examples of what seventeen dollars ($17) can buy you and they may be great, but they do not provide you peace of mind for you and/or your family. Okay, I know what you are thinking and that’s fine. You are probably asking yourself what is Dave trying to sell me now, right? Well, how about peace of mind… -
How The Grinch Stole Your Identity During Christmas!
9 Dec 2011 | 1:36 pmAlmost everyone has seen how the Grinch Stole Christmas, but have you ever thought about how the Grinch might steal your identity during Christmas? Many times when we think about Identity Theft (IDT) being financial identity theft, but just remember that there are other forms of IDT and financial IDT only makes up about 24% of these cases. AnyWho, (Get it? You know the Who’s in the movie from Whoville?) I crack myself up! Seriously, it is once again that time of year when you are making plans to visit relatives, host festive get-togethers, and, of course, hit the stores (or computer)… -
Are You Living Life?
1 Dec 2011 | 10:01 pmAs I write this post today I was just informed that a good old high school buddy was tragically killed in a car accident last night. So this post is dedicated to my good friend Terry Richert (1964 – 2011). Life can be blessing or life can be miserable, but only you can decide what life you want to live! The first thing that came to my mind when I heard the news was that we are the same age and in the blink of an eye, everything we know as reality can be taken away from us at anytime. I truly believe that most of us really think we are going to live forever and we don’t want to imagine… -
Financial Crisis Creates More Greed!
30 Oct 2011 | 3:40 pmYes the current financial crisis is creating more greed! If you follow our blog, you know that we specialize in helping you personally protect your life and assets now and in the future. With so many people out of work, foreclosures still devastating families (200,000 – 300,000 properties/mo.), banks are still not lending money, the governments spending is totally out of control and etc…, people are looking at other options in order to survive. These methods that people are turning to for possible solutions may have a major impact on you or your family. I’m not only… -
Lifelock Review of their $1,000,000.00 Guarantee!
21 Oct 2011 | 8:56 amThis Lifelock Review of their $1,000,000.00 Guarantee is something I wanted to share with you because our family members even fell for this misrepresentation of their $1,000,000.00 Guarantee! Is Lifelock using misleading advertising to promote their services? Are you ready for the truth? I’m glad that Lifelock and banking institutes has informed the general public about the #1 Crime in America which is Identity Theft, but when these companies are using misleading advertising in their campaign, it does not help people when they become a victim. Since we specialize in this area, we dive a…
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Content First
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Is Pinterest the counterculture version of Facebook and Twitter?
12 Jan 2012 | 9:45 amSource:www:emarketer.com Just when it seemed entirely unlikely that another social platform could wrench our attention away from Facebook and Twitter, we’ve been pricked by Pinterest. This somewhat suprising turn of events reminded me of something I learned back in my school days. Source: Retro Rebirth blog http://retrorebirth.wordpress.com/ In a discussion on current events, my teacher used shoe styles to explain the ethos of the counterculture movement of the early ’70s. When the mainstream embraced platform shoes with four-inch-plus wedged heels that thrust the wearer… -
Business books I read in 2011
29 Dec 2011 | 9:30 amThe book review section may have vanished from the weekend newspaper, but it’s alive and well on the Internet. I realized that I liked every book I read this year. At first this surprised me but makes sense when I remember that each book I selected had received wide coverage on social media platforms. Most titles fall into one of two categories: inspiring big picture insights or helpful, detailed how-to instructions. Can’t really say I prefer one over the other — I recommend both. Enchantment, Guy Kawasaki. see my review Content Rules, Ann Handley, C.C. Chapman and… -
Is it marketing or is it customer service
27 Dec 2011 | 9:22 amTrue stories from the social media trenches Start the relationship My daughter and I visited a new local pet store, resulting in adorable puppy coat for Buddy. The store owner took a quick photo, created an adorable Facebook update. For our next purchase, a dog bed for Buddy’s crate, I took the photo at home and uploaded to the shop’s Facebook page. The clasp stops here Clasp breaks on my friend’s expensive purse when she accidentally drops it at a fancy dress ball. Emails manufacturer. “Too bad”, says customer service, “you dropped it.” Friend… -
Blog challenge
31 Oct 2011 | 6:53 amI tell anyone who will listen it’s important to post regularly. Clearly, this is a case of the cobbler’s child going shoeless. It’s been some time since I posted regularly here, and it’s time to do something about it. I’m inspired by this guest post on Problogger. Write a year’s worth of blogposts in one month. Just not this month. Thanksgiving is at my house. Not December, for obvious reasons. OK, January. I’m committing to writing 52 posts in January. Anyone else in? Thanks to Kelly Kingman for the inspiration. -
One Smart Cookie
14 Oct 2011 | 11:09 amYou didn’t have steal a cookie from the cookie jar at the Chicago Ideas Week Tech and Web MEGATALK. Crain’s Chicago Business gave them away. What are the ingredients for a well-done QR code event strategy? Here’s Crain’s recipe: Well staffed. Crain’s had enough people passing out cookies that their staff members could engage in conversation with attendees. They didn’t just plow through the crowd handing out cookies to every moving target. I was with someone who didn’t have a QR code reader on her phone; the guy who gave us the cookies helped…
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One Social Media
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Friday Clicks [Volume 10] | The Best of the Social Web
27 Jan 2012 | 10:32 amTweetThe theme of the first month of 2012 in the social world has largely involved privacy and ethics – something we aren’t quite used to here in the social space. Is this a sign of a lasting trend? I think so. In the past, we’ve just been all about new networks and getting our message – both personally and professionally – on as many channels as possible. Many experts, though, are saying that 2012 is going to be a year of scaling back that attitude and thinking through the implications of our world being inherently more social. Quite interesting! The links: This… -
Friday Clicks [Volume 9] | The Best of the Social Web
20 Jan 2012 | 11:08 amTweetThe web was aflutter with #SOPA this week. Thankfully, Congress has decided to table the bill (for now) and do some further research about its far-reaching implications. Facebook also made the news this week, as did the continued opinions coming out about Google+ being integrated into search. Oh, and Apple found a way to sneak in as well. Are we really surprised? Onto the links: Here’s a nice SOPA article – specifically about how Blackout Wednesday was the Internet’s coming of age to be a voice in politics. (Click here) Stephen Levy, a renowned tech writer, voices his… -
Friday Clicks [Volume 8] | The Best of the Social Web
13 Jan 2012 | 1:40 pmTweetWe got our first real chill of the season this week here in Iowa. As with most winter occurrences in our lovely state, we had 30-40 mph winds to go with it. Needless to say, we may or may not have stayed in over lunch and played a little extra ping pong. If you are interested in seeing an epic point between Taylor and I, I’ll post it after the links. Onto the goods: Google and Twitter got into a bit of a spat over search results this week. Google updated their site to show results from Google+ postings, and Twitter didn’t like it. (Click here) In electronics news, the… -
4.5 Ways To Be More Interesting | Social Media Tips
12 Jan 2012 | 10:55 amTweetBeing successful in social media depends on several things. You need to be relevant to your fans and customers. You should always be available in case they need your immediate attention, or if they feel like they need your immediate attention. You should be engaging so your fans don’t feel like they’re talking to a wall. And you should be interesting. Being interesting isn’t as easy as it would seem. Successful brands like Skittles can be interesting by posting a question about a unicorn, but that won’t work for the majority of businesses in social media. The… -
Friday Clicks [Volume 7] | The Best of the Social Web
6 Jan 2012 | 1:21 pmTweetHappy New Year’s! With a new year comes a new resolution for more blogging. What does that mean for you, the reader? Even MORE great content! Look for videos, infographics, lists, pictures – you name it. You can also expect to see Friday Clicks every single Friday of 2012. That is my personal resolution to our loyal readers. If you missed something big from the week, we got it covered for ya right here. I’ll also make sure you aren’t bogged down with 15-20 articles to read, so we’re keeping it to the best 3-5 links each week. Aren’t you excited?!
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Finger Candy Media from Jessica Northey
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Whats Your Social Media Game Plan for 2012?
24 Jan 2012 | 6:15 amThis was originally written for a Broadcasting/Music community I have a column in, but change a couple job titles/adjectives and this could be any industry. Hat tip and big thanks to Guy Kawaksaki,... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
Music Icon @CharlieDaniels Joins #CMchat on Monday, January 23 at 8pm CT
18 Jan 2012 | 6:07 am“Few individuals have symbolized the South in popular culture as directly and indelibly as Charlie Daniels.” From the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. The Music industry has seen a lot of changes... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
Emotional Tweeting
12 Jan 2012 | 7:30 amIt happens. Emotional tweeting, posting, texting, emailing….we are all *mostly * humans, having a human experience, both online and in REAL time. In my opinion, some of the best content comes... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
Hidden Birthright: The Story of Jett Williams, Daughter of Hank #CMchat
23 Dec 2011 | 10:30 amIf Jett Williams had made up the story of her life, she says, "it wouldn’t compare to the real thing," and I am sure you will agree. Her bio reads like a sinister plot from a Lifetime movie, that... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
The Tweet Before Christmas (video) #TweetB4Christmas
18 Dec 2011 | 6:25 amTHE TWEET BEFORE CHRISTMAS Written by @JessicaNorthey Video Edited by @SClarkWXYZ - This was created last year, but it is definitely timeless. There is more info below about all contributors to this... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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Steel on Sales
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Top 5%- How does a Sales Professional get there?
17 Jan 2012 | 7:21 amAnyone in sales more than a year has probably come across the top 5% conversation. This usually occurs in the first 2 months on a consistent basis and during meetings when accolades are given out. The top 5% sales person is well above the rest when it comes to knowledge, understanding, technique, and the amount of money they make. How do you get there? Reaching the top 5% isn't an easy task. If you know anyone who is considered to be in the top 5%, you probably think they have a different personality than you. Whether they seem rude, cocky, arrogant, polite, or anything else, you just… -
Don't Fail Your Highly Aggressive Salespeople.
29 Dec 2011 | 7:11 amWhether you have an existing sales force that has become stagnant, or you are a start-up ready to hire your first salesperson, the goal is the same: you want to grow your company. Growth is the underlying reason why most companies go out and find “Hunters,” those highly aggressive salespeople that make things happen. Unfortunately, more often than not, companies abandon theses highly aggressive salespeople soon after they come on board. The reasons are two-fold: they become too much to handle and need constant change and stimulation to stay fresh in the field. Eventually those people are… -
Become a Standout
13 Dec 2011 | 10:31 amSo you want to stand out from the rest of the other millions of people using social media and become a success but don't know exactly where to start? I came across something recently that might just get you thinking a bit, and perhaps a bit differently than you normally would. Someone was asked how to stand out from the crowd and an internet marketer paused and thought to himself how easy that truly is-just look around and see what everyone else is doing and don't do it! Or I would add to that or do it, but find a way to do it differently that sets you apart from the crowd in… -
Social Media the New Normal
6 Dec 2011 | 10:30 amThere are definitely a lot of different opinions floating around out there particularly on the internet these days regarding if social media is the new normal as far as is it considered part of one's work, a distraction from it or could it be a combination of the two? Obviously it makes a difference who you are asking these questions of. If you ask an internet marketer they are more than likely going to tell you that indeed it is a crucial part of their work that they could not do without and that it helps their business grow immensely. However, if you asked a dental assistant he… -
Accountability- Use Reviews to keep your team in check
29 Nov 2011 | 10:29 amBecoming a leader of your sales team or business doesn't come easy. There is a specific approach built upon some of the great business-minds of our past, so take advantage of it. Delivering the perfect model will reflect upon you, your team, and the business as a whole. Presenting a feasible plan that delivers results begins with a threshold for goals. Motivating your sales staff or employees will provide an accomplishment factor that keeps everyone on top of their game. However, you have other areas to focus on as well: #1 Quarter, Semi-Annual, or Annual Reviews In order to accomplish…
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KaneCo Conversations
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It’s Alive! Creating Your Social Media Frankenpolicies
25 Jan 2012 | 6:48 amSocial media policies are kind of like health insurance…you can get away with not having any, but if a train wreck occurs, you going to be screwed. So make sure your business is safe, not sorry, and draft some. By taking some inspiration from Frankenstein and cobbling together information you have on hand and find... -
Branding for the Social Brain
17 Jan 2012 | 8:17 pmBranding is all about making an impression. And, making an impression is all about doing two things– making an impact at the moment in time in which a person interacts with your brand, and making that impact in such a way that the person will remember it. Marketers tend to invest a lot of energy... -
Do You Know How to Report Suicidal Posts on Facebook?
11 Jan 2012 | 7:42 amKnowing how to report suicidal content that you see on Facebook can ensure people get the help that they need. It might even save a life. -
2012: Let’s Turn This Mutha Out
3 Jan 2012 | 11:28 amIt’s 2012. Are you ready to put the pedal to the metal, your money where your mouth is and a dozen other idioms you’ve heard a hundred times? No? Good. ‘Cause 2012 is the year you’re going to do something better, something groundbreaking, something that lives up to your inherent awesomeness. Here are seven suggestions... -
If I Were a Social Media Guru…
27 Dec 2011 | 4:00 pmIf I were a social media guru I’d dispense with the superfluous morning pleasantries And get on with the business of inspiration Shouting “Embrace Authenticity!” out of the blue on a Monday morning Like a demanding dentist, bent over an unflossed mouth. If I were a social media guru I’d remind you that I know many,...
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all the news that's fit to blog, tweet & post
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Restaurants and Contests
26 Jan 2012 | 9:07 amThis week I researched and wrote about restaurants and contests for a post for Gigcoin’s blog. Our goal for the post was to demonstrate some successful, unique and clever contests. I put a query out on Help a Reporter Out (HARO) and through the query we heard from a number of businesses around the United States. We selected four to profile in the post: Ling and Louie’s Asian Bar and Grill, Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria, The Bistro Group, and Mia’s Pizza and Eats. I was very impressed with the creativity of each of these contests and it really drove home the point that businesses need to… -
Two for Two
23 Jan 2012 | 11:57 amI’m having a nice day today on the blogosphere with two new posts published, one on Social Media Examiner (SME) and the other on The Content Marketeer. The 26 tips post is an A-Z guide providing assorted tips for writing great blog posts. The second post is an article about Dr. Patsi Krakoff and her experiences with content marketing. I enjoyed working on these posts immensely! You can read the posts on their respective sites. -
Fun Finds this Week, January 22, 2012
22 Jan 2012 | 8:21 amEvery week is a treasure trove of finds online and offline. Here are some of my favorite fun finds this week: Tools & Applications Photo Pin PhotoPin helps bloggers find photos for their blog and makes adding them to their post fast and easy created by Markus Urban. This is a great tool. Makes finding photos easy and Markus even provides the code for attribution! Pinterest I discovered Pinterest more than a week ago but have started building more of my boards this week. I’ve been researching Pinterest for an upcoming article. In particular, I’ve loved having a place where I can… -
Social Media Marketing: 3 Themes to Start Off the New Year
17 Jan 2012 | 10:57 amThe new year has gotten off to a terrific start with three new themed social media articles I’ve published on GigCoin’s blog. One about the real estate profession, how to use games-based marketing, and tips for local marketing. You can see the posts here: A Closer Look at Real Estate and Social Media Marketing Gamification & Marketing: How to Get Your Head in the Game Local Marketing: 10 Tips for Getting Found Locally photo credit: cosmonautirussi via photopin cc -
Social Media in 2012
2 Jan 2012 | 8:13 amHappy New Year! I hope your new year is off to a good start. I’m thrilled to be part of the writing community at Social Media Examiner and to have my social media prediction profiled there today as part of the “30 Social Media Predictions for 2012 from the Pros” post. If you’ve found your way over to my blog as a result of that post, welcome, and I hope you will continue to follow my writing here and via social networking: Google+, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. If you would like to contact me about my writing services, please use the contact form. I’d be happy…
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The Anti-Social Media
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Nobody Will Hangout With Me On Google+
25 Jan 2012 | 6:56 amI’m a loser. A total, epic, mega loser. I’ve been on Google+ since it launched in June, and only one person has hung out with me. And that was for work. Hangouts are supposed to be fun and friendly. They’re supposed to bring your intimate circles together. They’re supposed to be impromptu and spontaneous. Instead, they just make me jealous. Why do other people get to hang out with The Muppets, President Obama, and William Shatner? Why am I stuck alone in my apartment with my cat? She doesn’t want to hang out on Google+. She just wants to sleep and eat cat food… -
Don’t Spam Your LinkedIn Connections
24 Jan 2012 | 5:00 amI’m pretty open to connecting with people on LinkedIn because connecting on LinkedIn is the best way to stalk someone. In fact, I typically will connect with anyone who requests to connect with me, so long as they don’t seem like a complete sociopath. But people have begun to abuse my willingness to connect. These people who I’ve been connected with for months and years have suddenly decided that it’s OK to use LinkedIn to send me weird pitches. Instead of using it to cultivate a relationship, they just decide to send me a demo of weird tool I’ll never use. -
Community Manager Appreciation Day
23 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amToday is Community Manager Appreciation Day. Yes, it’s time for another weird social media “holiday.” Seriously, who knows or cares about this so-called holiday besides community managers? Most people don’t even know that community managers exist in their online lives. They think that crap just automatically comes out on Facebook and Twitter from brands. Given the sheer number of comments and madness on some Facebook walls, you’d be hard pressed to think they was any actual moderation there. But community managers deserve a holiday. Hell, they deserve a whole… -
SOPA and PIPA Blackouts
18 Jan 2012 | 8:55 amThere are a lot of websites going dark today to protest SOPA an PIPA. Those websites are stupid. Let me be clear. SOPA and PIPA are awful.I’m totally for educating yourself about national, state and local politics and acting on them. I’m also for using your platform to share messages that are important to you. But blacking out your website with links for people to send form letters, tweet, and write on their Facebook wall for their elected officials is just silly. What exactly are you going to say on a Facebook post that would be so moving to change a senator’s mind. Do you… -
Fags and Retards
16 Jan 2012 | 5:00 amI play a lot of video games. I like to distract myself from the pain and suffering of the real world with the colorful world of electronic diversion. Unfortunately, I can’t even escape stupidity and madness in virtual fantasy worlds. Let me explain: I play World of Warcraft. Go ahead, judge me now. I can wait. Alright, are we ready to move on? In the World of Warcraft, you join other groups of random players to run dungeons. Typically, these are nice people who just want to get a particular in-game item from the dungeon. These people recognize it’s a game and sometimes you win or…
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Pushing Social
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9 Social Media Articles You Can Use Today
27 Jan 2012 | 9:47 amHow to you get your readers to explore more than one post every visit? Want to transition your blog to a new topic? How about setting realistic goals for your blogging? We’ve got you covered. Blog Spotlight These folks are fighting to get their blogs noticed they asked for my help and I am happy to help. This week’s spotlight is on: Cancer For Christmas I’ve completed a 10-Point Spectacular Blog Review for each Spotlight Blog. Keep an eye on them to see how they improve. This Week on PS: 7 Simple Ways to get Your Readers to Spend More Time on Your Blog I dug into my toolbox… -
7 Simple Ways to Get Your Readers to Spend More Time On Your Blog
26 Jan 2012 | 9:22 amReaders are precious and their attention is scarce. Your challenge is to get your readers to spend time with your content, get comfortable with your vision, and take steps to build a relationship with you. You can’t do this if they glance at a post for 30 seconds and click away to another website. “Stickiness” is a challenge for many bloggers. It’s frustrating to see your bounce rate, the percentage of people who leave your site after visiting one page, hover around 90%. While “great content” is always the best answer to most blogging questions, there are other techniques… -
How to End or Relaunch Your Blog Without Upsetting Your Readers
25 Jan 2012 | 9:25 amSometimes things don’t work out as planned. Your blog might be one of them. You’ve probably fallen out of love with your blog topic and you want to make a change. Running up the white flag is discouraging and you hate to admit you have to make a change, but you want out. How do you do it? How do you leave your blog and transition your readers? This might help… Breaking Up With Your Blog… Put a plan in place for the wind-down of your blog before you start. It will make the process easier and prepare your readers. I suggest considering a few points as you make your… -
3 Goals That Every A-List Blogger Swears By
24 Jan 2012 | 8:30 amWe’re reaching the time of the year when many people are um…”re-evaluating” their New Year’s Resolutions. Psychologists gave last Monday, January 16th, the dubious honor of being the most depressing day of the year as people came face-to-face with holiday weight gain, credit card bills and bad weather. I thought now would be a great time to give you a shot in the arm and make sure you stay on track for the rest of the year. We’ll start with the basics – your goals. Goals Still Matter – A Lot Deep down everyone knows that goals are the difference maker between… -
How to Be An Expert Even If You Don’t Feel Like One
23 Jan 2012 | 8:33 amYou are an expert. Without a doubt, I believe that you know more about your chosen topic than 90% of us who only dabble in it. The problem is that you don’t believe it. I can understand why because everyone requires proof that you are an expert. The best proof in many people’s mind is results. If you can point to a consistent and relevant string of successes then you must be an expert. I call this “results-based expertise” Results-based expertise is the most popular type of authority, surprisingly its also the most flawed. The Problem with Results-Based Expertise Last year I had the…
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The Semacraft Blog
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Why so much “BoP” marketing fails in the developing world
26 Jan 2012 | 5:36 amConsumer electronics stall in informal market, Nairobi Kenya 23 January 2012 Increasingly I have been getting the sense that there are some fundamental issues with the way BoP focused organizations are developing, creating and implementing their market entry strategies. Here are four of the most obvious errors that I’m seeing: Assuming there’s no competition Most of these firms, particularly those coming in from the outside and seeking to serve the ‘poor’ in the developing world seem to be operating in a vacuum. Observing their market entry actions point to an… -
“This is wealth in Wote”
23 Jan 2012 | 12:42 pmSweet, fresh water, Ukambani Kenya 18th January 2012 The owner of this shamba specially asked his man to remove the pipe so that he could proudly share his ‘wealth’ – sweet, fresh water piped in from a submersed pump with pipe and power laid down under the dry river bed and his fields. Value is always contextual. -
Fuel, Food and Fone – The necessities of modern life
23 Jan 2012 | 12:34 pmHighway stands, Kirinyaga, Kenya 19th January 2012 -
“The Largest Mobile Money Network”
23 Jan 2012 | 12:28 pmKirinyaga, Kenya 19th January 2012 Seeing signs of increasing competition around as next evolution requires interconnectivity and platform agnosticism. -
Human centered design: Surprising insights from rural Kenya
20 Jan 2012 | 10:56 amOne of the most surprising things that struck me over the past couple days of running around doing recce visits for our upcoming rural research was just how rapidly and how well the concept of the user centered design (UCD) process and thus, the human centered approach to research and development was not only understood by our rural hosts but how much it was appreciated. As others in the field know, it can often be a challenge to explain to clients why user research is critical and what kind of difference it can make, more so in the former rich world. Even the local councilor’s…
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HubSpot's Inbound Internet Marketing Blog
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5 Tricks for Generating Traffic When Nobody's at Work
27 Jan 2012 | 5:30 pmAre you doing anything this weekend to generate traffic to your website? If you’re a B2B marketer, chances are you’ve probably asked yourself at some point: How do I keep marketing effectively when nobody is in the office? You want to continue to drive traffic and leads, but you don't know exactly how. The wrong thing to do is assume that nobody is listening on holidays or during weekends. Depending on your audience, this could actually be a good time for a new blog post, video release, or email. Data from a recent Xobni survey shows that people are still wired into work during… -
What a Top-Notch Lead Management Program Looks Like
27 Jan 2012 | 2:45 pmWalk into any active sales room, and it’s easy to tell how time-intensive most sales operations are. To make the hours spent worthwhile, it’s important to ensure that your sales team is only talking to the most qualified leads. Lead management is a strategy and set of corresponding tools that help companies filter out unqualified leads and better understand the buying cycle of their good leads. When executed well, lead management makes your marketing team more effective, your sales team more precise, and your leads happier. Lead management programs vary from company… -
Facebook Timeline Likely Coming to Business Pages Near You
27 Jan 2012 | 12:30 pmEarlier this week, Facebook announced it will finally be rolling out Facebook Timeline to all users in the next few weeks, replacing the design of existing personal profile pages. While Timeline won't directly affect the look of your Facebook business page (yet), the rollout does have some powerful implications for marketers. You can read more about those implications here. Timeline Design Likely Coming to Facebook Business Pages But, notice how we said yet? That's right, while Facebook business pages aren't affected by the current Timeline rollout, we have good reason to believe that, in… -
12 Critical Elements Every Homepage Must Have [Infographic]
27 Jan 2012 | 10:20 amIf you’re considering a website redesign or are wondering how to generate more leads from your website, there are several critical elements you must never forget to include. Let’s first take a look at the homepage. Ah yes, “thee page of all pages.” It’s undoubtedly one of the most important areas on a website. That’s understandable; it’s a company’s virtual front door, and, in most cases, it gets the majority of the traffic. While homepages generally get the most love, I find it surprising that so many do a poor job of generating leads or… -
The 7 Slides You Need for an Epic Monthly Marketing Report
27 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amHere's a challenge for all you marketers who are on top of your game: How do you make sure your marketing team is taken seriously within your own company? One important step you should take is publishing a thorough, thoughtful, quantitative monthly report on your marketing team's impact. For as long as there’s been marketing, marketers have struggled to show their impact. But today, there's no need to struggle. Today, it's simple to collect the data you need to show how your marketing investments are generating revenue for your business. You just have to pull together the right…
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Rey(es) of Light
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Christian? Yes. Religious? No.
11 Jan 2012 | 8:12 pmThis video made it’s way to me from my buddy Justin Brackett this morning. WOW! WOW! WOW! In my mind, there is a difference between Christianity and Religion and this video from Jefferson Bethke gets at the heart of it. It’s funny that this video came right after I had read the verse below. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV Can you find power in weakness? -
My Top 12 of 2011
30 Dec 2011 | 8:39 pmAs 2011 comes to a close, I thought I’d join the blogger party and share with you my Top 12 posts from 2011. Below, you’ll find my favorites from each month of this year. Since I started blogging, this has been a great way to relive some of the memories, moments, thoughts and experiences I’ve had in the last 12 months. Enjoy!!!! A Hopeful Change For The Better Are You Smarter Than A Second Grader Maybe Glenn Beck Was Right I’m A Christian And I’m Sorry Moments How Are You Leading This You. That You. Throwing Stones First – Ask Questions Later See… -
Yes I Like Minivans
21 Dec 2011 | 10:15 amIf you were to ask me a few years ago if I liked minivans, I would have looked at you like you were crazy. There was no way you’d catch me in the stereotypical family vehicle of choice. That was until I had 4 kids of my own and a wife that extolled the benefits of said minivan. As luck would have it, my good friends Charlie and Elena Wollborg suggested The Suburban Collection and I connect for another one of their test drives. Charlie and Elena drove a Cadillac SRX earlier this summer through this program and they were kind enough suggest me to Dan Boismier, head of all things… -
Peace On Earth
17 Dec 2011 | 9:23 pmGlory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. (Luke 2:14 KJV) I just saw the Christmas service from Kensington Church tonight. A few thoughts. The 12 Days of Christmas will never be the same again for me. I never thought Eminem would make his way into a church service. I had 80′s flashbacks with Devo. The arts team at KC is simply amazing. More than anything, the message was one of significance for me particularly as I continue to reflect on Christmas and what it means to me. This year, the Kensington team went to Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus… -
Coca-Cola Where Will Happiness Strike Next?
14 Dec 2011 | 7:00 amI came across this little nugget from a work e-mail I received today and just had to share for the following reasons: It’s about the Philippines It’s about Coke It’s about the real meaning of Christmas As we get closer to December 25th, I’m hopeful all of us realize that our families are our greatest gift. More important than any “thing” we get. The memories of families are what last and not what we got back in 1982.
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33 Charts
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The Future of Patient Stories
25 Jan 2012 | 8:07 pmAll day long I listen to stories. Some doctors use genetic analysis or study shadows. Others push laparoscopic trochars. I listen and look for patterns. Sure I study the intestinal mucosa with fiberoptics. And the physical exam can add something. But the real money’s in the stories. It’s used to be that stories and patterns drove medicine. Narrative and intuition were all we had. Then came technology and all its precision. But I suspect that as medicine becomes more and more precise, the stories will find their way home. They say that the future of medicine… -
Book Notes: The Creative Destruction of Medicine
19 Jan 2012 | 12:26 pmIt’s arrived: The Creative Destruction of Medicine – How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care, Eric Topol’s prescient view of the near future of medicine. This book details how four areas of digital medicine – wireless sensors, genomics, imaging and health information – are about to undergo a super-convergence marking perhaps the most disruptive period in medicine’s history. Topol describes a coalescence of “the rapidly maturing digital, nonmedical world of mobile devices, cloud computing, and social networking with the emerging digital medical world… -
How Often Should a Physician Blog?
16 Jan 2012 | 7:55 amRecently someone asked how often a medical blogger should post. True-to-form there was the suggestion that you post daily. This is a timeless question. But I’d be careful believing that there’s a firm answer. What you do with your blog and how often you do it depends upon what you seek to gain from your presence. If you are dependent upon advertising you must continually feed the beast. If, on the other hand, you are a general surgeon interested in showcasing some of your thinking before potential patients, you might get the job done posting a couple of times a month. If you… -
When Doctors Monkey Around
14 Jan 2012 | 8:07 amWhen I talk about social media I usually describe my earliest entree in to Twitter as ‘monkeying around.’ An innocent flirtation with no real endpoint. The point is that I didn’t know what it was or how I might use it, but I was curious. Recently a skeptical physician-friend approached me after a talk and said with a smirk, “So that’s what you do on Twitter, you monkey around?” I thought for a moment and replied, “Actually, yeah…” Through my flirtation I’ve come to understand how something like Twitter can work for me. -
Medical Grand Rounds – January 10th, 2012
10 Jan 2012 | 11:16 amWelcome to this edition of Medical Grand Rounds. I scoured the web and pulled together what I think are some of the more interesting posts and news items of the past couple of weeks. I’ve tried to explore some voices that perhaps haven’t crossed your radar. We’ve got sociologists, medical students, IT gurus, medical futurists and even a couple of doctors. Some of the discussions have related posts that you might find interesting. Posts are not listed in any particular order. Patients as Consumers – The Milkshake Mistake Aaron Stupple, The Adjacent Possible This post by…
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Talk It Up!
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Three best videos explaining why SOPA is bad
23 Jan 2012 | 7:34 pmNot sure why SOPA is bad but too lazy to skim the articles? My fave videos explaining the ramifications of SOPA. Video #1: The Oatmeal My personal favorite, an absolutely hysterical take on what SOPA would mean for content creators like you and me if enacted as currently written by comic genius Matt Inman of The Oatmeal: Video #2: Clay Shirkey Clay Shirkey, Internet activist, NYU professor and author of Here Comes Everybody, giving his TEDsalon talk in New York on the history of music, image and video copyright rights. The real threat to the enactment of PIPA and SOPA is our ability to share… -
Did it work? The results of the SOPA/PIPA blackout
19 Jan 2012 | 9:32 pmOn January 18, some of the internet's most popular sites went black to protest the SOPA and PIPA bills currently making their ways through Congress. What was the result of a day without Wikipedia and Craigslist? SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act and PIPA, the Protect Intellectual Property Act, are Congress' attempt to curtail websites that illegally publish copyrighted materials. However, the provisions of the bills are written such that one copyrighted image could lead an entire site to be shut down without due process. If you're not familiar with SOPA, this video featuring Ben Huh, the CEO… -
Six year old Down Syndrome child rocks Target ads--and becomes a social media sensation
17 Jan 2012 | 4:03 pmSix-year-old clothing model Ryan Langston has been discovered and applauded and via social media channels--all because he appears in mainstream Target and Nordstrom ads that don't call attention to his Down Syndrome. The adorable six-year-old has a flashy smile, big blue eyes and an abundance of energy. He also has Down Syndrome, but the kids' clothing ads he appears in don't call attention to that fact. In fact, they don't call attention to anything except the clothes that he's wearing. And for this quiet inclusion, Target and Nordstrom are being applauded by the parents of Down Syndrome… -
HootSuite users: how to see all your RTs
13 Jan 2012 | 4:35 pmHootSuite users can not currently see all their reTweets. Here is how to make sure you are covered. I discovered something interesting this week: my favorite social media management app, HootSuite, doesn't have the capacity to show all of an account's reTweets. The skinny: HootSuite doesn't show native Twitter RTs This week, I noticed that my Boxcar iPhone app was showing me more reTweets than HootSuite. I contacted HootSuite and was informed that HootSuite will show your Mention stream, the same stream as if you viewed the @username tab at Twitter.com. However, any RTs that are made directly… -
Papa John's: A lesson in coordinating crisis communications
9 Jan 2012 | 6:35 pmYesterday, a journalist discovered that the receipt for her pizza from a Papa John's franchise in New York referred to her as "lady chinky eyes." What ensued was a storm in a teacup that teaches valuable lessons on public response when a franchise employee makes a gaffe. This weekend, one Harlem resident got her pizza order with a side of racism. Saturday, Minhee Cho Tweeted a photo of her receipt from Papa John's in which her name was specified as "lady chinky eyes" with the notation, "Hey @PapaJohns just FYI my name isn't 'lady chinky eyes'." Papa John's corporate responded swiftly, posting…
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Wave: "tracking how people and brands use social media"
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Netflix social media targets UK consumers' chief concern, but drives more focus on the issue
26 Jan 2012 | 10:04 amAlthough Netflix are successful at centring social media activity on the area that's most important to their UK consumers (the range of movies available for rental), their posts provoke a mixed response as the direct approach stimulates criticism on Facebook. After launching in the US in 1999 Netflix, the online DVD/Blu-ray rental service, recently expanded to the UK. In a marketplace where similar services such as Lovefilm are already established, WaveMetrix investigated the interests and concerns of the US giant’s UK Facebook fans, and how these are dealt with on social media. -
Cadbury left with Creme Egg on their face after The Only Way is Essex link up
25 Jan 2012 | 4:03 amCadbury Creme Egg’s association with The Only Way is Essex stars highlights the importance of choosing celebrity endorsements wisely, in order to minimise the chances of a negative backlash. Cadbury Creme Egg have recently teamed up with Lydia, Arg and Debbie from the ITV2 show The Only Way is Essex as part of the brand’s “Goo Games” advertising campaign. A promotional photo of the celebrities was posted on the brand’s Facebook page and received a mixed reception from consumers. WaveMetrix analysis has previously shown how brands such as Armani and Coors have… -
Maggi generate fan to fan engagement and advocacy through recipe sharing on Facebook
24 Jan 2012 | 2:32 amMaggi show how brands can use their Facebook page to generate consumer-to-consumer engagement through sharing recipes and cooking tips. Conversations among fans are also more likely to generate positive advocacy, suggesting brands should be aiming for this type of engagement. Many brands such as 17 Cosmetics or Starz have used strategies such as Twitter parties or online gaming to fuel discussion among fans. Maggi, a manufacturer of cooking aids, have turned their Facebook page into a place where fans can talk to each other, sharing cooking tips and recipes. Maggi’s community managers… -
Burberry drives buzz around its AW12 Menswear collection through ‘Tweetwalk’ campaign
19 Jan 2012 | 3:54 amBurberry repeats the success of its first ‘Tweetwalk’, driving product and brand discussion around its AW12 Menswear collection and demonstrating to other luxury brands how to maximise publicity through an innovative social media approach. In September 2011, Burberry paved the way for luxury fashion brands, by partnering with Twitter during London Fashion Week and introducing what the two companies called a ‘Tweetwalk’. Backstage photos of every ‘look’ were taken at the Burberry Spring Summer 2012 show and shared with the brand’s Twitter followers… -
Sony Ericsson successfully targets men by staying relevant to everyday life
18 Jan 2012 | 7:22 amSony Ericsson uses a simple advert describing the uses and corresponding benefits that its new Sony Ericsson Experia S will bring to consumers’ lives. By showing how it would specifically integrate into a man’s life the advert successfully engages this target segment. Sony Ericsson is due to launch its first smartphone into the market, the Sony Ericsson Experia S. It recently began promoting the device in a social media advert campaign on its Facebook page and YouTube. One of the adverts, "How the Experia S connects your world", follows an animated man through his daily…
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Social-Media
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Why LinkedIn Events matters more Now
23 Jan 2012 | 1:04 pmThink of every event or conference you’ve ever attended. Think of the two questions that’s been foremost on your mind in finding value from the right events, besides avoiding these guys or worse still running into these guys: 1. Which of my friends are attending this event? This is probably the #1 question that bugs conference organizers and event attendees. Think of the last time you’ve attended an event or a conference? Your first thought that helped you decide should you spend that extra few hours after work, driving all the way to an event was – are my peers, colleagues or former… -
ABC’s Work It and the Myth of the “Mancession”
23 Jan 2012 | 12:53 pm“Women are taking over the workforce. Soon they’ll just start getting rid of the men,” says a character on ABC’s new sitcom, “Work It.” Obviously the writers and powers that be at ABC failed to check the facts before creating a comedy based on the mythological “mancession” that simply does not exist. A recent national jobs report showed that unemployment for women is not declining: rather, 300,000 women fell out of the workforce. While more men are going back to work, fewer women are able to find jobs. From October 2010 to October 2011, only 27% of the 1.5 million jobs added… -
Building a Digital Strategy To Make Money (Presentation)
12 Jan 2012 | 9:34 amI had the wonderful opportunity to present on social media at the Landscape Ontario Congress in Toronto this week. It was an amazing time with tons of discussions about digital marketing. I wanted to share my presentations with you. Feel free to download and share. Monday Presentation – Evolve or Die Evolve or Die – The Future of Digital in Customer Communication View more presentations from Kyle Lacy Tuesday – Building a Digital Strategy to Make Money Using Social Media to Grow Your Landscaping Business View more presentations from Kyle Lacy Read Original Post -
6 Simple Tips to Optimize Your Mobile Website
24 Dec 2011 | 2:35 pmWhat makes for an amazing mobile site and an amazing desktop site are two different things. In fact, you’ve probably never marveled at how wonderful a mobile site looked. Instead, you likely just felt satisfied that you were able to do whatever you wanted to do quickly and without much fuss. That’s because on the mobile web, utility trumps style. Fancy visuals and a great motif may look terrific on your desktop, but on mobile, all they’re likely to do is slow things down. And on that small screen, you’re not going to see much anyway. Nevertheless, as more and more of the population… -
Video Marketing: 3 Inexpensive Ways to Create a Presence
16 Dec 2011 | 2:58 pmImage Courtesy of Shutterstock If you are a woman in business, you need to incorporate online videos into your social media marketing strategy. By doing so, increases brand awareness and creates viewer action leading to more inquiries and sales. In fact, according to Online Video Marketing Statistics, adding video to small business profiles: Increases number of business profile views more than 100% Increases number of profile clicks more than 30% Increases number of calls generated by more than 18% For the past several months, I’ve had creating a welcome video for my blog and online…
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NotEasyToForget.com
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Happy Community Manager Appreciation Day…An Infographic In Your Honor!
23 Jan 2012 | 6:15 amToday is YOUR day Community Managers! Celebrate, dance…call in sick and treat yourself to a spa day! Whatever you do with yourself today, know that you are an appreciated and vital component of how business gets done in 2012. Your role is more inportant each year as you bravely carve out and define your place in the professional ecosystem. Started in 2010 by Jerimiah Owyang, Community Manager Appreciation Day is a day where the world is called upon to acknowledge who you are and what you do. I personally want to applaud your bravery and your passion. Now, more than ever the world is… -
Updated 2011 World of Social Media Video Infographic
24 Dec 2011 | 12:43 pm2011 has been yet another banner year for social media. As marketers, it is necessary for us to keep tabs on developing trends as well as the past. The metrics that got us here are our chronicle. This video-Infographic is an excellent visual representation of where we are and from whence we came. I’m pretty much just parking this here as a year-end reference. Some of you may not have already seen the video. If this is the case, enjoy! I hope that all of you and yours are enjoying a pleasant Christmas Eve today! +James Ball No related posts. -
Social Media, Work Dynamics, & Life – The Two Score and Five Year Lens
28 Sep 2011 | 9:25 amSo yeah, this is the first day of my 45th year on the planet…of course I’m reflecting! I really just wanted to jot down a few things to keep you in the loop and as an archive of sorts. Remember the “Social Media Case Study Starting Today” I wrote back in May of 2010? I am supposing that this post will serve as an official update about all of that, and then some. If you’ve been following for any length of time, then you know that there has been a steep decline in the frequency of my posts here on this blog since that very same May of 2010. Only part of that is because I’ve been so… -
Need A Website In Like, 30 Minutes? (1/2 Of All Small Businesses Don’t Have One!) Quick Fix:
25 Aug 2011 | 4:56 amI love it when something turns out to be exactly “as advertised”, don’t you? I love it even more when a product or a service makes something a little bit easier for struggling small businesses. Today I am super-pleased to introduce you to Onepager. Onepager is a service that allows you to create a dandy little one page website in minutes. Seriously, I built a website using Onepager in 30 minutes last night (I even cropped a pic for the background and made a little logo). Click the image below and check it out. The videos below pretty much explain everything you’ll need to know about… -
Stay Tuned – Big Social Media News Today At 11a.m. PST
23 Aug 2011 | 5:49 amIt would appear that we are all to receive some earth shattering social media news today at 11a.m. PST (I’ll be sitting at my comp with an hour cleared at 2p.m. EST!). Robert Scoble stated late last night in his Google+ stream that “Google+ has been matched by a competitor”. Robert is apparently bound by a non disclosure agreement until today. Having already achieved 25+ Million users faster than any other social network in history, does Google+ really need to be concerned? You bet they do. *Not on Google+ yet? Let me know in the comments with your @gmail address if you…
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Channelship's Video Blog
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4 B2B Content Marketing Ideas From A TV Cooking Show
18 Jan 2012 | 3:21 amI’m a big fan of home made food and for many years I’ve been learning tones from TV cooking shows. One of my favourites is “River Cottage”, by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, a chef well known for less dependence on the outside world, food integrity, and the consumption of local, seasonal produce. In the latest episode, Huge came up with a few creative ideas that immediately made me think about content opportunities for B2B companies to better market their products and services. 1. Pick a Theme This chef is constantly exploring all the angles of seasonal food. He… -
Social Media Marketing: How To Work Smarter In 2012
5 Jan 2012 | 5:30 amYou’ve probably read many times how social media changed our lives, provided us with a voice and made everyone a publisher. However, millions of people and companies have jumped on the wagon since the early days. Do you already see a big problem for 2012? Noise. A few weeks ago, we wrote a post about how cluttered Twitter is. It doesn’t matter any more how many followers you have since your message barely gets seen. On Tuesday, I read this other post where Niall Harbison from Simply Zesty, wrote about how difficult it is for brands and companies to get exposure on Facebook unless… -
Will You Open Your Vaults In 2012?
22 Dec 2011 | 5:53 amBefore I proceed with this post and to avoid any misinterpretation, I will not be talking about your company’s money vault. Other more qualified professionals can advise you how to manage your funds There are two vaults we need to open (or improve) in 2012 and more importantly, use wisely: Open your knowledge vault If there’s one major mistake that companies and brands keep making year by year is to keep betting most of the chips on “interruption marketing”. I still see loads of organisations delivering “we’ve been 20 years in business” as their… -
Your Business Contacts Closer Than Ever
7 Dec 2011 | 7:02 amThe year is about to finish and again, we managed to accumulate another big pile of business cards. There are several solutions to tackle that problem such as CRMs, business diaries, even card scanners. However, do you know what was missing until now? A smart integration with our LinkedIn contacts! Yesterday I started using the free Cardmunch app, built by the LinkedIn team. Here’s how it saves you time: * Scan the business card (like in the picture) and if you’re happy, upload it. * The app will process the data on the card and match it with the same person’s LinkedIn… -
How Storytelling Can Make Your Company More Attractive
1 Dec 2011 | 3:16 amLast Sunday I visited the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. Going to a museum is not necessarily the most engaging experience. Thankfully, I was wrong. Despite the small size of the facilities, it caught my eye how this museum managed to capture the audience’s attention and retain it for longer at specific spots. The trick? They used smart storytelling. Let me explain. Anyone could give a shot at using storytelling for their company or brand, but chances are you’re going to spend some quality time finding a good angle. It’s worth it, since it is often this what makes all the…
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Web Ink Now
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Thinking Right (and Left) about Content Marketing
27 Jan 2012 | 3:11 pmAs I evaluate Web marketing such as blogs and websites, one thing I look for is evidence of both left-brain and right-brain thinking in the creation of the content. This obsession might seem trivial, but I guess my right-brain outlook on life causes me to take a holistic view of content. The right-/left-brain concept is widely credited to have developed from the thinking of American psychobiologist Roger Sperry in the late 1960s. Sperry's Nobel Prize-winning work opened whole fields of psychological and philosophical debate including the idea that there are two different sides of the brain,… -
Playing for Change
23 Jan 2012 | 9:28 amWhen I first saw the original Playing for Change video Stand By Me on YouTube I was moved and fascinated and jumped for joy. Wow. As a music lover and collector of social media success stories, here was both music and social media triumphantly on display and coming together to support a good cause. I talked up the videos via social and in person to everyone I saw. Stand By Me now has 37 million views on YouTube and has sparked a movement. Now, Playing for Change has 15 videos in the Songs Around the World series with a combined 140 million views. If you haven't seen a Playing for Change video… -
Stop SOPA Silliness
18 Jan 2012 | 5:36 amIt didn't work with music: The music industry killed Napster and sued 16-year-olds to protect their dying business model of selling "albums" via top 40 radio. Instead of understanding the immense power of social media like YouTube as a marketing tool to sell single songs (iTunes) and streaming subscriptions (Spotify), the music industry honchos preferred to destroy in a ridiculous attempt to save the status-quo. Listened to top 40 radio recently? It didn't work with email: I get many times more unsolicited (and illegal) email than I did prior to CAN-SPAM. Tons of it from legitimate companies… -
Content Arbitrage
16 Jan 2012 | 12:45 pmWhen I worked my first job on a Wall Street bond trading desk, I was fascinated by financial arbitrage, one of the ways that traders made money. This technique involves taking advantage of a temporary price difference in two or more markets and is usually executed by simultaneously buying and selling the same security. A pure arbitrage involves nearly zero risk. For a simple example, imagine the price of gold is at $1,600 an ounce in London and at the exact same time it is $1,620 in New York. A trader could simultaneously sell in New York and buy in London to lock in a $20 profit. (This… -
Go Mobile
11 Jan 2012 | 9:38 amIn Tokyo's Roppongi entertainment district you find several hundred bars within walking distance of the subway station. Yet only a few are visible from the main street; the vast majority are tucked away on the upper floors of back-street buildings. To differentiate, many cater to highly refined customer preferences. So if you want to listen to classic reggae while sipping a Red Stripe, there is a bar for you in Roppongi. But how do you find these establishments when you’re thirsty and confused in an unfamiliar city? Your mobile of course! Because buyers use their mobiles to search for…
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We Are Social
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New FB permissions: bad news for apps?
26 Jan 2012 | 5:07 amFacebook recently announced a new apps permission process, and it appears these changes are already live. The changes appear to be designed to make apps more transparent to users, as this excerpt from the Facebook Developers blog highlights: More Control & Clarity for Users Similar to the inline privacy controls people have when they post content, we are introducing a new, inline privacy setting that allows a user to control who can see their app activity on Facebook. So what do these changes mean for marketers? Here is a screen shot of the permissions dialogue for Schweppes’s new… -
The return of Heinz “Get Well” Soup
25 Jan 2012 | 10:59 amYou may well be familiar with our “Get Well” Soup campaign for Heinz last year, which Ad Age crowned as one of the best social media campaigns of 2011. Heinz’s Facebook fans fell in love with it and it caused some consternation when the campaign came to an end. Heinz have a deep commitment to their fans on Facebook and we’re happy to announce that they have responded by giving the fans what they wanted. We asked fans which Heinz soup variety they’d like to be able to personalise and send as a gift (alongside the perennial favourites of Cream of Chicken and Cream of Tomato). Four… -
Google’s ‘Ask A Friend’ Goes Live
24 Jan 2012 | 8:47 amThere’s been plenty of coverage about the integration of Google+ into search over the past few days, but this particular iteration really caught our attention: As you can see in the screen shot, the ‘ask a friend’ option sits at the bottom of the first page of Google’s search query results, just before the links to subsequent pages. As such, it’s a great way to extend the brand’s meaning beyond what its existing algorithms can deliver – especially considering that 85% of users never look beyond the first page of search results. Clicking on the… -
We Are Social’s Monday Mashup #103
23 Jan 2012 | 1:39 pmUS online ad spend to grow to almost $40 billion Online spending on ads in America will grow 23.3% to $39.5 billion in 2012 as the internet proves its worth to advertisers in a tough economic climate. Fast growth has seen online pull ahead of some traditional media and this year US online ad spending will exceed the total spent on print magazines and newspapers for the first time, at $39.5 billion vs $33.8 billion. This is the sort of thing that a faux-savant would described as ‘a seminal moment’. UK Marketers also shift spend to digital as general confidence falls Similarly, in… -
We Are Social gutted by Razorfish
20 Jan 2012 | 8:22 amVince Lombardi famously said “show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser”. So if I read from this that Vince approves of bad losers then he would have been delighted by my reaction to this particular defeat. It may have ended 6 – 3 in Razorfish’s favour, but it started ever so promisingly. Within 5 minutes, Olly had ‘megged their onrushing keeper to put us one nil up. Then Joe Weston scored a goal so good I thought the referee had asked him for his autograph. In fact he just wanted his name for the post match report, but still, the goal merited it. Anyway,…
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tcapushnpull.com
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5 Quick(ish) Tips for Better Facebook Content
24 Jan 2012 | 8:24 amYou scream, I scream, we all scream… for Facebook. Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best intro to this blog post. For that, I apologize. But obviously, today I am going to talk to you about Facebook content ideas and how to make your Facebook statuses (statii?) way more awesome. Since a majority of our clients are active on the ‘Book, we’re pretty familiar with what people love, hate, and share with their friends. We’re also pretty familiar with what doesn’t work. So without further ado (and even more bad jokes), here are 5 Quick(ish) Tips for Better Facebook… -
Tubalr: Totally Awesome Music Playing Thingy
17 Jan 2012 | 10:13 amA friend suggested Tubalr to me yesterday and I’ve been telling everyone about it since. It’s an app that plays high quality videos back to back based on a search term or phrase. For example, “The Rolling Stones” entry brings up an endless stream of tunes and videos of Mick Jagger, his lips, and Stones’ concerts (see below). You can choose to listen to only the Stones, or similar artists as well. You can register to star your favorites if you are one who loves a customized listening experience. Sure, it’s kind of like Pandora. Sure, it’s kind of… -
10 Social Media Lessons from 2011
4 Jan 2012 | 1:52 pmI learned a lot in 2011, both about my life and my profession. Mostly, I’ve come to appreciate how work is more than just being satisfied with what you complete at the end of the day. It’s also about relationships, creative expression, stability, intellectual freedom, and yes, being satisfied with all you get done by 5 PM (or sometimes 6 PM). I’ve also come to appreciate the sense of stability that has come back to our industry. It’s given our word of mouth team a chance to take all we’ve learned since social media transformed the scene a few years ago and… -
The App Fridge
29 Dec 2011 | 1:22 pmI walked into my friends house this week and noticed that she had gotten a new refrigerator. Cool story, right? The thing that attracted me me to this refrigerator was an 8in LCD screen located directly over the ice dispenser. The screen showed a display of the current weather conditions and along the bottom was a row of apps. Yes, refrigerators have apps now. Many were familiar, Epicurious, Pandora, Associated Press and Twitter. I punched the Twitter button, plugged my credentials and boom I was checking my Twitter stream. From a refrigerator. If you’d told me 10 years ago that options for… -
New New Twitter
14 Dec 2011 | 1:25 pmSome of you may have noticed that all of Twitter’s apps are getting a facelift less than a year after the last big redesign. Twitter is calling this redesign Fly, but the nerds are referring to it as New New Twitter. They have a whole webpage dedicated to the new update. Check it out for more details. I’m going to quickly summate what they changed and then talk about why this matters. A lot. Twitter consolidated everything into four tabs: Home, Connect, Discover, Me. Home is your timeline, promoted tweets, pictures, videos. Connect is everything that happens to you on Twitter such…
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Millionaire Marketing Classroom.com
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4 Brand Building Strategies to Zigged Zagged Your Competitions
23 Jan 2012 | 3:45 amBrand building is no longer involves big companies. Every brand has a unique voice and they use it wherever and whenever they communicate the message to the market. When brand ubiquity occurs, people find brands even when they aren’t looking. The brand’s reputation precedes its presence. There are 4 strategies involved in building a brand value. Strategy 1: Innovation Innovations means doing what no one else would dare going. You have to understand and changes behaviors in the market. Start humanizing the technology to create simple solutions to complex problems. For instance, mp3… -
The Importance of Branding – Why Your Company Won’t Succeed Without One
11 Jan 2012 | 10:14 amMost companies think that their brand building efforts should be focused on designing a fancy logo for their corporate image and then advertise their big fancy logo everywhere so that customers will notice and remembers it. A brand is not a logo. It isn’t about your trademark because this serves as legal property. What’s more a brand is not merely the same as a product or services because these are the tangibles. So now what exactly is a brand? It is a person’s gut feelings about a product, a service or an organization. It is because people are emotional intuitive beings. Branding… -
How to Get Keywords For Your Content Marketing Strategy
10 Jan 2012 | 7:26 amThe secret to Internet Marketing’s success is how to get the right keywords at the right time so that searches can easily find you. You must connect with your visitors by providing a relevant result in response to their search. Always think in the terms of delivering a good user experience to your visitors. Even though these principles are important most often they are overlooked. You cannot just put up some content on your websites waiting to be found and ranked by the search engines. With the abundant of information on the internet, search engine rank the results relevant to the keyword… -
I Feel Like Giving Up
20 Dec 2011 | 12:51 amI feel like giving up. Not all day, of course. But there are moments in my life where I feel like giving up. I bet that you have those days, too. Especially, if you’re the type of the high-achieving and goal-oriented person. You’re probably used to running into obstacles-be it the challenges in your professional career, personal life or even related to the commitment of finish reading the book that you have bought a month ago. Most of the time, we deal with these obstacles by preserving-keeping the spirit of moving on forward. Sometimes, there are times when we get discouraged so we turn… -
Viral Marketing-The Seed to Spread
18 Dec 2011 | 9:42 pmThe internet has become the new way of life for many people to get the jobs, book airline tickets, do research for school projects, check out the weather condition and seek out potential love partners. Viral marketing typically starts out with the marketer creating an electronic content (such as a video or a mini-site) for the purpose of brand building. If the users pass on the content, it has the potential to reach large group of Internet users at exponential rate.Understanding user’s motivation in forwarding an online content is extremely important as the decision to pass it is completely…
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Simply Zesty » – Simply Zesty
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25 Unmissable Social Media Articles Worth Reading This Weekend
28 Jan 2012 | 7:00 amEvery week we have a look at some of the biggest social media stories that are out there and sift through the thousands of articles to bring you 25 that you simply have to read. These are never breaking news stories but rather some of the deepest thinkers and smartest minds from the world of technology and social media. You might not be able to get through them all in one sitting but the idea is that after a busy week where the real time streams can be out of control, we offer you a selection of curated news that you can read at your leisure. So sit back, grab a cup of coffee and start… -
Brand trends : social media emerges as the default channel for customer service
28 Jan 2012 | 6:38 amCustomer service online has almost come about as a surprise result of social media for brands. Where it was first embraced as a unique channel to carry out one to one communication with your target audience, it was a bit of a shock when it stopped being just about marketing, as we found that customers were willing to talk back. And they weren’t always happy. The marketing department then had to start talking to the customer service department, with reps quickly turning their focus onto social media to make sure customers’ needs were met and crises were (hopefully!) avoided. -
Foursquare Release Delightful New Video To Show Non-Users What They’re Missing
28 Jan 2012 | 3:46 amWith 15 million users worldwide, Foursquare are in a more comfortable position than most social media sites, having enough core members to keep ticking along. Yet one of the reasons why the site doesn’t grow faster is that the average person only views it as an app that lets you check-in to stores and restaurants. While this is to an extent true, it doesn’t mean that’s all that the site is capable of. Therefore, Foursquare have released a new video that explains exactly that they’re more than just checking-in instead their app is a way to, in their words, “make… -
The Biggest Social Media PR Fails of the Week
27 Jan 2012 | 12:30 pmYou can spend ages waiting for a juicy social media PR disaster to happen, and then three come along all at once. This week saw Snickers, Bayern Munich and McDonald’s all facing a backlash over their social media campaigns, illustrating that social media is a beast that just can’t be tamed by corporations. But on the flip side, these slip-ups have led to huge coverage all over the web for these brands – who says there’s no such thing as negative publicity? McDonald’s McDonalds’ attempt at promoting the fast food chain via a hashtag campaign on Twitter was… -
Facebook Timeline For Brand Pages Expected To Arrive on Feb 29th
27 Jan 2012 | 10:55 amFebruary 29th only comes around every four years and while there isn’t anything noteworthy about that day apart from that last fact, it’s could become a exciting date for brands and businesses if the latest rumours are to be believed. Business Insider are reporting that Facebook is in the process of launching Timeline for Brand pages with an official announcement to be made on February 29th, when the social media site holds its invitation only Facebook Marketers Council. With the company making all users switch over to the new timeline format, the next logical step is to allow…
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Social Media & SEO - A Business View | Charlotte Britton
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Impact of Google+ Integration into Search Results
20 Jan 2012 | 4:56 amLast week Google announced the launch of "Search, plus your world", which delivers search results with Google+ content included.This breaks down into 3 features:Personal results - which will find information shared by people who you're connected with (mainly on Google)Profile searches - in Google instant autocomplete and results which will deliver people who might be interested in followingPeople and pages - deliver results which include people and Google+ pages you might be interested inImpact on other networksIs Google's monopoly power one step to far as they have excluded Twitter or… -
Northern Rail - case study on why reputation management is important
9 Jan 2012 | 2:30 amLast week as my role of Chairman IoD West Yorkshire I was asked to comment in the Yorkshire Post about Northern Rail profits up by 34%.Bernard Ginns, Business Editor then tweeted out promoting the article.As part of my role within the IoD, I am the champion for regional social media and have been piloting the IoD Yorkshire social media campaign. So I RT Bernard to increase coverage of the comments in the article.Eating my breakfast on Friday and checking the IoD Yorkshire Twitter feed I saw these 2 tweets.From a quick glance I saw that it was Northern Rail and promptly was… -
Call yourself a social media expert?
3 Jan 2012 | 4:12 amYou may have noticed that I haven't blogged for 3 months. To be honest I got tongue tied and overwhelmed.I've been blogging for 8 years now and on this blog for 2 years. In that time the world of SEO and social media has become a very crowded place. So what differentiates the experienced social marketeers compared to the new comers in the industry?The barriers to entry are very low to the SEO and Social media industry. Anyone can read a few books and then set themselves up as a social media expert.It's the new fad that everyone is jumping on the band wagon and flying the… -
How ready is your business for social media?
25 Oct 2011 | 4:46 am57% enterprises are making some investment into social media in 2011 (based on data from Forresters)Social media is a disruptive technology as it changes how a company operates. No organisation can adopt social media unless the underlying business processes, workflow and resources are aligned with the social media strategy and tools to manage this.Altimer Group recently released a report based on research they have done into the social readiness of businesses.Social Readiness: How Advanced Companies Prepare View more documents from Jeremiah Owyang There are four areas to focus on:Governance… -
Community Management - gardeners or managers?
20 Sep 2011 | 4:00 pmI've recently been having a discussion with some friends at the RSA Digital Engagement team about how to moderate a community. The main thrust of the discussions have been around cultivating or managing.Cultivating a communityCultivating a community should be about building knowledge and experience within the community, so it builds as a knowledge community. The word 'manager' creates the sense that as an organisation you are building the community on your terms, not the advocated and enthusiasts. It should formulaic, rigid, and flexible.The reason online communities thrive is because…
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FutureComms
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A SUPERB EXAMPLE OF HUMANISATION This became a viral hit on...
26 Jan 2012 | 4:30 amA SUPERB EXAMPLE OF HUMANISATION This became a viral hit on Facebook yesterday and I thought it was worth sharing as an amazing example of how communications must develop in future. It’s nothing to do with social or digital media - in fact, it’s a good old-fashioned letter…and I’m not totally convinced it’s not a PR stunt either. But in a low-tech way it demonstrates perfectly what companies are struggling to adopt on high-tech platforms: being personal and having a social mindset. This stuff is NOT rocket science. You could say it’s child’s play… Tweet -
"In 2012, if a company creates a social channel as a marketing vehicle it is inevitable that..."
26 Jan 2012 | 3:30 am“In 2012, if a company creates a social channel as a marketing vehicle it is inevitable that customers will use it as a mechanism for customer service and sales.” - Stephen Waddington from ‘The Public Answers Back; Consumers Seek Out Social’ Tweet -
The FutureComms Debate: Does Pinterest Have Business Potential or is it Just Another Flash in the Pan?
25 Jan 2012 | 1:10 amIn the first of what I hope will become a regular feature on FutureComms, the inimitable Gini Dietrich and I discuss the hot new thing in the world of social media, Pinterest. Gini feels it has significant potential for marketers; I disagree. Read both of our points of view and make your own mind up, cast your vote and leave a comment! This post is also running concurrently on Gini’s blog, SpinSucks. The case for, by Gini Dietrich I’ve been watching Pinterest with great interest for the past few months. It’s not often a new social network comes along that completely captures your… -
Why BlackBerry Faces Oblivion
24 Jan 2012 | 2:02 amSo Research in Motion (RIM), the developer of the BlackBerry set of devices, has finally replaced its CEOs after a tumultuous 12 months, which included a three day service black out and being named as an enabler in the UK riots. But if early signs are anything to go by, the platform could be completely redundant in another year. New CEO Thorsten Heins said in his first press conference that the company isn’t in need of a major shake up. “I don’t think there is some drastic change needed. We are evolving … this is not a seismic change, this is scaling the company further”, he said. -
How Personal is Too Personal in Corporate Comms?
23 Jan 2012 | 12:00 amLast week I posted a picture of the scan of my new baby on this blog. Aside from being extremely proud and wanting to tell the world after three months of bottling up this (for me) amazing news, it was a bit of an experiment (I did say I was intending to be unconventional!). An awful lot is written about ‘being social’ and ‘displaying personality’ when it comes to social media and online communications, and it’s something I harp on about endlessly to clients. So I wanted to see what sort of a reaction me posting a picture of my unborn baby would get, if any at all. Communications…
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Social Nerdia
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The State of Social Media and Social Media Marketing in 2012
31 Dec 2011 | 4:54 pmSocial networking is the #1 activity online. Even though Google gets the most visitors, Facebook is where most of us are spending our time. And it’s not just about Facebook anymore. We are spending a lot of time on LinkedIn, YouTube, Tumblr and Twitter. While there are some clear major players in the social space, the social media universe continues to expand and 2011 was a banner year for the idea of an “Interest Graph.” In 2011, we saw Google launching Google+ and Pinterest grewing at an astounding rate. Facebook launched “Timeline” and “frictionless… -
Chris Brogan on Google+ for Business, Black Friday Marketing, and The Power of Building a Platform
28 Nov 2011 | 9:31 pmChris Brogan is a blogger, speaker, consultant, bestselling author and President and CEO of Human Business Works. Chris was one of the very first people I ever “met” on Twitter and I’ve been reading his blog www.chrisbrogan.com ever since. Below is an interview with Chris about his upcoming book, examples of brands on Google+, Black Friday marketing in 2011, content curation tools, and more. 1. Congratulations on your upcoming book “Google+ for Business: How Google’s Social Network Changes Everything.” The book description says “This is a… -
The Many Deaths of Google+
20 Sep 2011 | 12:28 amThe A Case for Social Depth +Dan Reimold has 44 followers at the time that I write this. He wrote an “article” called “Google+: Social Media Upstart ‘Worse Than a Ghost Town.” Dan‘s article basically says “Google+ is not good because no one follows me.” Now, Dan has some “evidence” for this. Of course he does. Except his evidence consists of Rainbow Rowell’s article on Omaha.com. +Rainbow Rowell has 33 followers on G+ and she has posted a handful of times. Rainbow’s opinionated column basically comes down to… -
5 Questions to Ask Yourself before Giving Up Twitter and Facebook to Reclaim Blogging
20 Aug 2011 | 3:19 amHugh Macleod, the cartoonist who blogs at gapingvoid.com, recently announced that he was “giving up” Twitter and Facebook to “reclaim” blogging. His reasoning seems to be partly philosophical (content ownership) and partly strategic (less tweeting about meals means more time to blog about, well, the important stuff). Philosophically, Hugh says he doesn’t appreciate the fact that social media sites own what is supposed to be his content. There’s no WordPress-like utopian open source self-hosted social network (and I haven’t heard about Diaspora since… -
Booshaka CEO Erik Ober on How You Can Identify your Top Fans on Facebook
22 Jul 2011 | 2:41 amI first spoke with Erik Ober, CEO of Booshaka, in 2010 because his startup, which started as a search engine for Facebook, had caught my interest. I expressed that while it was great to find out about what people were publicly saying about Samsung on Facebook, it would be great to also know specifics about the engagement in our Samsung USA Facebook page. I really wanted to discover who Samsung USA’s “top fans” were. Today, Booshaka ranks Facebook pages based on engagement and, as I had hoped, Booshaka identifies your “top fans” and ranks them in a nice…
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Invisible//Ink//Digital » Invisible // Ink // Digital – Making Sense of Digital Account Planning and Social Media
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Kodak Moment Fades
23 Jan 2012 | 3:03 pmPhoto Courtesy of Brian Littmann (Flickr)In my last post, I wrote about how good product design bends technology to it’s will to create something that is both functional and beautiful. The counter argument to that is what happens when form and function ceases to be relevant in the modern age?In the recent case of Kodak the answer appears to be the death of an industry giant, unable to get to grips with the digitisation of it’s business. However, rather than simply putting the blame at the door of digital technology, I believe that it’s malaise was symptomatic of a… -
Digital meets Design
17 Jan 2012 | 3:20 pmIf you’re in London over the next few weeks there are some wonderful examples of design meets digital at the Design Museum. Curating a number of different product examples it’s fascinating to see that despite the advancement in technology, the design principles that underpin them have remained constant. Take for example the image below of one of the first examples of the calculator. Now compare… -
The Top Trends for 2012 will be…Why the Crystal Ball Has Cracked on Future Thinking
9 Jan 2012 | 5:39 amCourtesy of Svenstorm via Flickr For a child who grew up in the 80s, with the obligatory bad taste in hair, music and clothes, I remember reading these fantastical books on tomorrow’s world. They were full of vivid illustrations of moon bases, of flying cars, and mega cities. The future that was illustrated was bright, full optimism, with unlimited resources and boundless imagination.Over the past few days I’ve been collating and evaluating future trends for 2012, with a view to providing a curated service for clients at work. There are number of findings that were uncovered… -
Curated Crumbs #3
18 Dec 2011 | 1:55 pmAs another year comes to an end I thought I would compile a round up of stuff that’s floated my way over the past few days.A truly fascinating post by Luke Wroblewski on how tablets and other mobile devices impacts our reading patterns. The twice daily commute contributes to a significant spike in online news consumption. The secondly trend is how mobile consumers of LinkedIn peak at the end of the working day as they contemplate moving on after a tough day at work.Simple ideas can be obscured by bigger more expensive ideas according to Ogilvy’s Rory Sutherland in this… -
Long Term Digital Planning vs Agile
12 Dec 2011 | 12:02 amI’ve spoken before on the need for agencies to become more agile in developing digital solutions for clients. As the velocity of change continues to accelerate, clients are going to insist that their agencies rise to the occasion. A second consideration is that, in the main, client’s expect the agencies they appoint to be unencumbered by internal corporate governanence that slows innovation down.Earlier this week my agency had an external talker put forward the view that there is will no longer be a need for long term strategic thinking by planners because the world will have…
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The Sociable
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Tweets must continue to flow, in some countries
27 Jan 2012 | 8:25 amTwitter has announced that it will begin to censor tweets on a country-by-country basis, revealing the company's intent to expand further internationally while adhering to various countries' "limits" on freedom of expression. -
UK entertainment industry: consumers are confused by “array of legal & illegal” websites
26 Jan 2012 | 5:23 pmConsumers are being 'lured' into using illegal websites, according to a report by the UK's entertainment industry that recommends 'illegal sites' not be indexed. -
Facebook’s subscribe feature is proving very popular, especially among journalists
26 Jan 2012 | 12:06 pmFacebook's subscribe button, which can be suitably compared to Twitter's follow button, is proving very popular indeed, allowing users to subscribe to the public updates of prominent figures and personalities on Facebook. -
Blue Marble 2012: The “most amazing” image of the Earth yet
25 Jan 2012 | 12:16 pmNASA has released another stunning Blue Marble image of the Earth, describing it as the "most amazing highest resolution" image yet. -
Street View arrives in South Korea, 24 new cities worldwide get 45° imagery
25 Jan 2012 | 9:35 amGoogle Street View has arrived in South Korea for the first time, with explorable street-level imagery available for Korea's two largest cities; Busan and Seoul.
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The Marketing Nut
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The Heartbeat of Social Media
26 Jan 2012 | 12:28 pmIt is human nature to want to connect, feel needed, be acknowledged, be understood, appreciated for what we accomplish and contribute to our small circles and ecosystem as a whole. It’s no wonder that social networks such as Facebook and Twitter have taken off as a force to be reckoned with. What makes Facebook and Twitter sticky? What are the successful social networks doing better than other networks? Why do people gravitate to one social network over the other? What makes them stick around? Why is Facebook able to attract everything from my 70 year old mother-in-law to my 7… -
Is This My Blog or Your Blog?
16 Jan 2012 | 1:39 pmAnybody who blogs can remember your first post, second post and the empowerment you experienced. The empowerment I felt after leaving behind a career of fifteen years in the corporate world to pursue my dreams as an entrepreneur and being free to write about what I wanted to write about was beyond words. I remember getting those little butterflies as I hit send and would wait to see if anyone read those early posts. I still remember the first nice man who commented on my first blog post, “Go Big or Go Home“. It was such a breath of fresh air from the corporate high tech, late… -
The Definition of Social Business?
14 Jan 2012 | 8:52 amI have been working on a post to define social business for a few weeks now. It’s why you haven’t seen as many posts from me lately as each evening I sit down to finish this one and I keep going round and round in my head. Each night I do a bit more research, give it some more thought and by the time an hour or so passes my mind is once again beat from the day and the deep thought that I call it a night on the blog post and move on to more easy to conquer initiatives. However, this one is bugging me like being stuck with a spoon and a plate of pasta. I honestly didn’t think… -
The Only Way to Become a Social Business in 2012
9 Jan 2012 | 3:06 amWhat would you do if I told you that the only way to become a social business in 2012 is to not do social media? There is a big difference between “doing social media” and “becoming a social business”. There are plenty of self proclaimed social media gurus and experts ready to tell and sell you how to strike it rich. From magic sales funnels, twitterati clubs to magic potions that fast track your achievement of the online jackpot! The truth is most of these same experts have no content of their own, and have online communities on Facebook and Twitter that are far… -
Top 20 @PamMktgNut Social Media Posts of 2011
30 Dec 2011 | 9:47 amWow, what a great year 2011 was for the social ecosystem. It’s amazing how much the understanding of what it takes to be a social businesses has evolved yet we still have so far to go. Anyone who knows me knows I am a data junkie. The desire to measure impact and ROI runs deep in my bones. I can’t avoid it. As I prepare for the new year ahead I am deep in analytics to understand what went right, what could have been better. There is so much to learn from analyzing how readers interact with and share our content. As I dig thru the data, reviewing the content that was popular at…
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MachoArts | Design, Social Media, Blogging tips
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SEO: Identifying Buried Pages Using Xenu Link Sleuth & Excel
28 Jan 2012 | 6:41 amA practical article detailing how to identify (and fix!) pages that are buried on your site.The ProblemOne way to improve your site’s performance in the search engine is to address buried pages on your site. By buried pages, I mean pages that are less frequently referenced, harder to get to, and not often linked to. These pages are viewed as less important to the search engines for – they’re not a prominent part of your site and there isn’t much internal link juice flowing to them. Sometimes this is OK – for instance, if the pages aren’t important or have little to no opportunity… -
Friday Photography Inspiration #43
27 Jan 2012 | 5:38 amThis post is a part of our weekly photography inspiration series. Each Friday we showcase some of the best photographs captured by talented photographers form all around the world.Here are latest 30 most beautiful photographs for your inspiration. If you like this showcase feel free to share it on Twitter and Facebook.Photography Quote of the day:“It’s one thing to make a picture of what a person looks like, it’s another thing to make a portrait of who they are.” – Paul Caponigro -
15 Best Premium WordPress Blog / Magazine Themes
24 Jan 2012 | 11:42 pmWordPress allows you to create your own blog without any coding knowledge. Premium WordPress themes are the great way to give brand new look to your blog. Benefits of using premium WordPress themes are:Attractive designsOptimized codingAdvanced control panelBeautiful fonts and colorsShortcodes and many moreAnd if you are searching for high quality WordPress theme for your blog, here we have collected 15 best premium WordPress blog and magazine themes.Do You know we provide WordPress Blog/Portfolio setup, Blogger to WordPress migration as well as Thesis/Genesis theme customization. Check out… -
The Foolproof Formula to Write Great Articles in 20 Minutes
23 Jan 2012 | 12:07 amIt’s all about the planning. If there is a secret trick of trade that seasoned writers use to come up with great articles every single time, it’s called “adequate preparation”… and it’s something you’re bound to learn through experience.Once you learn how to use this technique effectively, you will never again feel the haunting pressure of a blank page, and you will feel as though your articles write themselves. And they will always look solid and thoughtful.This article will show you how to write a strong piece of content in under 20 minutes. It’s a simple formula in 5 simple… -
Boosting Your Small Business’ Facebook “Likes”
20 Jan 2012 | 11:37 pmIn recent years, small businesses have increasingly turned to social media sites to help them achieve their marketing needs. It’s easy to see why: for a company that cannot afford a large marketing budget, social media offers the ability to reach a wide spectrum of consumers without paying a dime. The combination here of exposure and cost is a small business win-win.Towards this end, social media-savvy small businesses have built Facebook pages, created Twitter accounts, and worked to synthesize networking platforms with their overall marketing strategies. They have advertised…
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Jessica Malnik
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The Perils Of Getting Lucky
25 Jan 2012 | 10:37 pmI had a conversation about luck awhile ago with a mentor. One point he said stuck with me. He said he didn’t believe in luck. At first, I thought this was a little strange. I mean, everyone gets lucky at some point. Maybe you found a $20 bill on the sidewalk? Or you won the lottery. Wouldn’t that be awesome? Then, I started thinking about it. Most of the lucky scenarios I thought about weren’t one-in-a-million things, like winning the lottery. That’s just chalked up to chance and probabilities. Instead, most of these scenarios, that I perceived as lucky, were really… -
The Next Big, Shiny Game-Changer?
17 Jan 2012 | 10:39 pm<Read this article. For the sake of the Internet as we know and love it. SOPA/PIPA explained, and why it should matter to you.> WARNING: This post is coming at you with a whole lot of snark, attitude, and a whee bit of Dayquil-infused fluff. Maybe, I just get an extra bit snarky when I’m under the weather? But, I can’t help but notice the sheer volume of posts about Pinterest lately. In case you have been living under a rock, Pinterest is a site which lets you create boards where you can pin and share interesting photos. It’s clustered where you can easily… -
4 Things Marketers Can Learn From Late Night Infomercials
8 Jan 2012 | 9:22 pmNow if you occasionally find yourself wide awake at 2 a.m, like me, you know that there are very few things you can do at that hour (the joys of insomnia). The most common thing is turning on the television. That leaves you with essentially two options: Nick at Nite reruns and the late-night infomercials. Now, I can only watch so many Friends and The Nanny reruns. So, I tune into one of the ridiculous infomercials. And, it got me thinking. Sometimes even the most boring, guaranteed to put an insomniac to sleep informercials can do wonders to make a product stand out. From ninja swords to… -
5 Apps To Stay Organized In 2012
2 Jan 2012 | 1:56 amIt’s the beginning of the year. Most of us are filled with optimism, excitement and big ambitions for the upcoming year. I know I am. Whether you have made lofty resolutions or just set out small benchmarks for the year, you are probably going to need to stay organized to reach these milestones. One of the best ways I stay organized is through my trusty smartphone. I wanted to share my five favorite productivity/organization apps. 1. Evernote Evernote is my go-to app. It goes far beyond the ordinary reminder apps. It’s great for note-taking, creating to-do lists, taking/saving… -
5 Videos To Spread Holiday Cheer
19 Dec 2011 | 9:33 pmIt’s the most wonderful time of year. It’s a time to reflect on the past year, spend time with friends and family and gorge ourselves on way too many holiday treats. As the years go on, it seems like a new tradition is starting to emerge. Well, at least for me anyway. That’s to watch all the ridiculously awesome holiday videos on Youtube. I wanted to share five of the coolest holiday videos I’ve seen this month. Enjoy! 1. Puppy Christmas You can really never go wrong with cute puppies and Christmas music, but this video is especially too cute. 2. A Dubstep Christmas…
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Pi Social Media Marketing Blog posts and comments
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Social Media In 2012: Three Major Predictions
24 Jan 2012 | 5:17 amThe field of social media is constantly changing, and as such it is quite difficult to make any predictions about it, and expect it to hold true for a long time to come. Still, by observing prevailing trends on social media in the last quarter of 2011, we have made three predictions, which we believe could hold true for at least the first half of 2012. Here they are: Mobile users will outshine PC users in terms of social media usage Even in Q4 2011, mobile users were almost on the verge of taking over PC users in terms of social media usage. In 2012, the former are bound to finish the job. It… -
Clever Use of Internet Memes Can Give Your Business Promotions A Humorous Touch
19 Jan 2012 | 7:08 amDid you know that just a few days ago, a man in Malaysia has used Internet memes like “Victory Baby”, “Socially Awkward Penguin”, and “Y U No Put Ring On It” to propose to his long term girlfriend? Indeed, it is just another use for these delightful little combinations of pictures and texts that have been gaining popularity at exponential rates ever since those were first made up, not too long ago. Can you think of some ways, in which you could entertain people, and get them interested in your business at the same time? Well, how about using these in your social media marketing… -
How You Can Use Social Networking Sites To Boost Your Business
9 Jan 2012 | 5:05 amEach day holds a new record for each of the networking sites, who are constantly competing with each other to increase their popularity. Inclusion into a circle of friends having similar aims in life can be mutually beneficial. You will find ones who will have similar interests as yours, with whom you can soon start a conversation. Interacting with a new person in the real world is not very easy for a few of us, but the virtual world of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ can be used with full potential to increase popularity of your business. Interaction with people from various… -
Social Media: ROI vs. Correlation
2 Jan 2012 | 9:28 amDo you regularly run social media campaigns for various clients? Then maintaining proper ROI for all those clients must be a major headache for you. Well, there certainly is a fine balance that you have to maintain in every single social media marketing campaign that you may run, between correlation and ROI. So, what is this correlation, you ask? Well, simply put, it is the relationship between business success achieved by the company, and the ties of social media to that success. It can never be proved with 100% certainty, unless you are able to show that the profit margins soared as the… -
You Cannot Restart Your Social Media Campaign… But You Can Fix Mistakes
26 Dec 2011 | 7:11 amHave your inexperienced employees been making some major mistakes while interacting with others on the social media accounts used for promoting your business? Have you been considering drastic measures like closing down the accounts and creating new ones for carrying on social media marketing for your company? Well, guess what – that route is closed! Even if you manage to build another account, the people already on the last account will think twice, or even thrice, before accepting your requests to have them join your new network. In fact, in the worst case, the brand name of your business…
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Smedio
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4 Tips Wall Street Should Learn from Social Media
26 Jan 2012 | 12:53 pmAt the end of the day it does not matter whether you are on main street or Wall Street or cruising down easy street, the fact of the matter is with these Occupy Wall Street protests is that there lies a problem – the problem of a burgeoning income gap between executives and employees, a corruption of banking and loans and a direction for the country that appears to be headed down some of the biggest protests since the summer of 1968, when America found itself mired in Vietnam and grief stricken from the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. Turn on the news and this… -
The 7 Don’ts of Mobile Marketing
23 Jan 2012 | 4:44 amThe explosive growth of smartphones and tablets has changed the face of marketing for good. Though mobile marketing was considered as experimental few years back, it’s now the mainstream channel of marketing for businesses of all sizes from SMBs to large multinational enterprises. The benefits of mobile marketing are obvious – instantaneous reach, borderless communication and mass coverage. While there’s no doubt that mobile marketing is a powerful tool for marketers, I strongly believe that they need to avoid these 7 don’ts. Multiple Bulk SMS I have no qualms in accepting that… -
How Apple’s iBook Author Tool Redefines the Future of Publishing
20 Jan 2012 | 5:13 amThere are technology companies and then there’s Apple – a class apart and in a league of its own. Whether it’s transforming the future of smartphones with the iPhone or creating a new business segment for tablets with the iPad, Apple’s technology has been a game changer in several markets. And when Apple announced a special event to “reinvent the future of digital publishing”, I could sense what was coming. There was a tremendous sense of anticipation for Apple’s publishing event yesterday and based on whatever I’ve seen of iBooks 2 and the iBooks Author tool, I have to say… -
Are We That Obsessed with Facebook? [Infographic]
19 Jan 2012 | 3:29 amIn year 2011, Facebook further solidified its position as the world’s most widely used social network among users across the board. The question is, are we obsessed with Facebook? The infographic below helps us answer that intriguing question. Source: Online Schools -
How Your Business Can Best Benefit from New Google Changes
18 Jan 2012 | 3:58 amIt’s been an eventful start to the year 2012 for Google. The online search giant’s announcement to introduce tighter integration between its Google+ social network and its organic search results has attracted severe criticism from experts, users and other relevant voices of social media. On its part, Google says that the motivation of including Google+ in search was to “transform Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships.” So, essentially Google+ data as part your Google searches is Google Search Plus. The idea of Search Plus is…
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ReelSEO Online Video Marketing Digest
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Revision3 Saw Major Increase In Viewership, Revenue In 2011
27 Jan 2012 | 4:24 pmRevision3 CEO Jim Louderback took to the Rev3 blog this morning and announced a 359% increase in total views and a 53% increase in revenue for the year of 2011. Revision3 made smart acquisitions last year, including the extraordinarily successful Epic Meal Time, and by the end of the year, picked up one of YouTube's all-time hits, The Philip DeFranco Show, which should make 2012 even better. Rev3 also increased its YouTube subscribers across all shows to 4.5 million. In addition to the audience and revenue, Rev3 is proud of their technological advancements over the year. Revision3 Saw… -
Android Video Viewing Gaining On iOS Devices
27 Jan 2012 | 1:15 pmEncoding.com just released new numbers pulled from Vid.ly which show that Android is gaining on iOS in terms of video viewing. It's no surprise as the operating system has been steadily stealing market share quarter after quarter and is available on far more different devices than iOS. Since Vid.ly is a universal URL for videos and does browser and device detection, it knows exactly what it's streaming that video to. That means all they need to do is keep track of the operating system on the device and they know who's watching what. But not in the creepy Big Brother sort of way, or at least,… -
Google Plus Opens To Teens Age 13 & Up
27 Jan 2012 | 11:50 amGoogle Plus continues to get more open bit by bit, and just today made the service available to teens age 13 and up. Previously, Google Plus was restricted to people 18 and up. Along with the wave of new teenagers, Google Plus is also getting new privacy and security features--a fairly important thing if the service is to become something parents encourage their children to use. Google is probably doing the slow rollout on purpose. This is their third or fourth wave of opening the service up. Each time it's followed by new statistics on membership, and this time will be no different. Millions… -
20th Century Fox Gets YouTube Stars To Promote "Chronicle"
27 Jan 2012 | 10:20 am20th Century Fox has teamed with Big Frame, a YouTube talent company, to produce videos promoting their new movie Chronicle opening on February 3. And Chronicle is the perfect type of movie to get some YouTube promotion, as it is one of the latest films to use this-is-really-happening video, "found footage," very much like Cloverfield did a few years ago by adding crazy special effects. Big Frame got YouTube stars DeStorm, MrDeshawnRaw, and Mystery Guitar Man in on the act, a subscriber base of more than 3.5 million. More Great Creative Advertising From 20th Century Fox Fox was behind… -
The Week's Best Viral Videos & Video Marketing Lessons - Singing Obama Edition
27 Jan 2012 | 9:10 amAfter YouTube's latest updates yesterday to the Browse page, many of you probably spent some time casually playing around with it to see what's new. If you did, you might have come across some of the selections in this week's round up of the best viral videos. Most are probably worth watching again, but I'm sure we've got a few you haven't seen as well. So grab your coffee, put on your headphones, and start your Friday off right with some outstanding viral videos. Artists Question: What happens when you cross Bon Jovi with hot musical act, Bon Iver? Answer: A hot viral video to launch a new…
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TemboSocial
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Hey! Engagement Matters.
26 Jan 2012 | 7:56 amWe all know that engagement matters. When individual employees are engaged in the workplace, everyone benefits. By encouraging feedback, collecting peer-generated success stories, sharing them across corporate and departmental boundaries, you cultivate your greatest competitive advantage – social capital – to earn discretionary effort, attract talent and win loyalty. Join us today for HR.com’s Virtual Conference on Rewards & Recognition where we’ll share 9 tactics for engaging your employees online this year. -
What analytics should an enterprise use for a social intranet?
25 Jan 2012 | 8:36 amIt’s a question I hear asked a lot and one that has surfaced again in anticipation of our February 8 Real Engagement Event with Intranet guru Toby Ward. According to Toby’s study, The Social Intranet, while 61% of organizations have introduced at least one social tool on their intranet most executives are less than satisfied with their functionality. So what in your opinion are the key metrics to ensure that your tools are performing as they should? I encourage you to join our conversation on February 8 @ 2PM EST. Come prepared with your questions for Toby Ward on transforming… -
The Year of the Employee
24 Jan 2012 | 10:19 amThe numbers are staggering: 60% of employees are actively looking for work and 55% of are not engaged. Their lack of engagement not only costs you money (35%-50% of payroll) but there’s also a 52% gap in operating incomes between companies with highly engaged employees and companies whose employees have low-engagement scores. If you haven’t already made 2012 the Year of The Employee, you better. On Thursday, January 26 TemboSocial president and founder Steven Green will outline strategies for engaging employees online in 2012 as part of HR.com’s virtual conference on Rewards… -
The Little Things
23 Jan 2012 | 7:59 amWhile systems to capture documents and other resources that benefit the company have been in place for years, milestones, events and the people tied to them that make your company a great place for employees and customers have consistently been lost to the corporate knowledge base. Why not leverage the power of social software and turn recognition into a business asset? By aggregating recognition into a browseable and searchable space you transform recognition into a business resource for finding the people within the company who have the required peer-validated skills when they are needed… -
More Than Recognition
18 Jan 2012 | 9:59 amI’ve talked at some length about the importance of recognition, specifically non-monetary recognition, when it comes to engaging and motivating your workforce. I feel as if we’ve just started to scratch the surface when it comes to using praise and recognition in effective ways. A new book by Mark Royal and Tom Agnew has me thinking about the other side of the recognition story. The Enemy of Engagement: Put an End to Workplace Frustration – and Get the Most from Your Employees looks at the obstacles that organizations put between employees and successful outcomes, often unconsciously.
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gabycastellanos.com
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Carly Fleischmann: La Voz de Carly.
24 Jan 2012 | 10:04 amA veces no tengo palabras para explicar las cosas. Mirad el video primero, dura menos de 10 minutos, pero creedme que vale la pena. A que es muy heavy? espectacular que la tecnologia sirva para de verdad conectar a las personas. Maravilloso el momento en que el padre puede hablar con ella y entender realmente cuales sus problemas y sentimientos. Pasamos por encima de todo y no nos percatamos de las pequeñas cosas que podrian cambiarnos la vida. Internet no esta solo hecho para que nos comuniquemos, sino para conectarnos. Conectar los corazones de todos y entre todos. Esto es lo que amo y me… -
Hello de Lionel Richie en version de Matthijs Vlot.
24 Jan 2012 | 6:56 amUna de mis canciones preferidas de la vida, en una version que es casi mejor que la original, os presento Hello: Y la version original de Lionel Richie: -
Change for a dollar: Social Media es una gran cadena de favores.
3 Jan 2012 | 8:28 amAmo cuando las cosas se han desde el corazon, desde eso que te hace sentir esas mariposas en el estomago y te genera una energia bestial que te hace movilizarte sin razon alguna por los demas. Este video que acabo de ver (que me saco para variar unas lagrimitas), me hizo pensar en lo que ha logrado y hace cada dia el Social Media en mi. Yo no se si es lo que logra en vosotr@s, pero en mi produce una cantidad de sentimientos tan positivos, tan guays, que uff me hacen sentir de puta madre. Social Media para mi, no es otra cosa que una GRAN cadena de favores. Unas palabras, unos 140 caracteres,… -
¿Que aprendi en el 2011?
20 Dec 2011 | 7:03 amUn año mas, vuelvo a hacer recuento de lo que fue esta año y todo lo que aprendi gracias a vosotr@s. Nada de predicciones, nada de ositos, nada de mariposas (chiste solo para los chicos/as del 2000), solo un resumen de lo bueno, y lo no tan bueno que fue este año. - Aprendi, que a pesar de la crisis, de la dura situacion que vivimos, la gente es capaz de hacer cosas maravillosas. No importan los presupuestos, no valen nos “no” por sentado, nada de eso importa. Importa lo que tenemos en la cabeza y lo que queremos conseguir. Y cada dia desde hace un mes los chic@s de la… -
Me encanta: Terremoto de Alcorcon – All I want for Christmas is you
19 Dec 2011 | 11:07 amMe encanta, no puedo decir mas. El exitazo de la Navidad. Gracias a a mi querido DavidPop. Solo quiero un poco mas , eres tu mi prioridad , mei mai wis cam zru . Ol Ai guon for crismas is yuuuuuuuuuu!
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mysocialmediava.com
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Not Everyone Follows the Same Rules on Twitter
17 Jan 2012 | 9:59 amIn all my social media training sessions… I always add in a slide or talk about how Twitter is really a place where you can make Connections, but should not have any expectations on how other people will network with you. It is something I teach primarily because everyone has different reasons for being ‘on Twitter’. [...] -
Mixing Business with Pleasure on Facebook
6 Jan 2012 | 9:28 pmOver and over again I hear clients and colleagues saying how they don’t want their personal facebook mixed with their business: “I want my Personal and Business Facebook kept separate”. They fear sharing too much information. Some think unliking your own Facebook Business Page is the answer. I truly do not recommend this [...] -
Why Creative Facebook Page Names don’t always Work
3 Jan 2012 | 9:47 pmIf you have recently started a Facebook page – I encourage you to check your page name. This is the title of your page, not your username (which is your unique Facebook link if you have created one). I want you to think about the words in the name as you read this [...] -
Lesson from the Top Social Media Blunders of 2011
30 Dec 2011 | 9:10 amSocial Media Blunders can happen to anyone – I have made some mistakes myself, the trick is learning from them and gaining the lessons needed so you do not repeat the same action in the future. Inc Magazine has posted a collection of the Top 12 – there are some excellent lessons to [...] -
The New, New Twitter – What can it do now?
15 Dec 2011 | 12:27 pmTwitter has begun rolling out their new look and functionality this week. Apparently if you get the app on your iphone, Android or blackberry you will get the new features rolled out sooner directly on Twitter. (just a hint) But if you do not have it yet, be patient it will be there soon enough. [...]
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FastGush
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FAIL: McDonald’s Hashtag #McDStories Goes Terribly Wrong
24 Jan 2012 | 11:27 amThis is perhaps one of the biggest social media fail stories ever recorded. McDonalds has managed to embarrass itself on Twitter after its latest Twitter campaign went horribly wrong. The company’s social media director, Rick Wion told PaidContent that as part of their Promoted tweet ad-campaign, the company switched from #MeetTheFarmers to #McDStories in their tweet, soon after which few detractors hijacked the hashtag and started tweeting tales about animal cruelty. Users soon added additional topics like unemployment and stomach problems. The company’s problem was… -
Europe vs. Facebook: Just Getting Started
24 Jan 2012 | 9:25 amGuest Post By Stephanie Kopf Europe’s relationship with Facebook has been strained of late. The social platform has been facing criticism from both politicians and users regarding its privacy policy and using of personal data. And now it’s on: a team of students from Vienna, Austria is pushing for more transparency and user control from the social networking website. Chances are that you are on Facebook. And maybe recently or a while ago you vented to a friend about something in a message. Then you cooled down and deleted it. No use clogging up your inbox. So how would you feel if you… -
Facebook Open Graph Strikingly Similar To The Beacon Of 2007
20 Jan 2012 | 12:09 pmIf you haven’t read it already, Facebook has partnered with brands allowing them to host applications for you to use on your Timeline. You can grab some of your favorite apps from the market and add them to your Timeline. Last year, in its f8 conference, Facebook announced Open Graph and introduced the concept of frictionless sharing. Since then, many apps have been built on this platform that can send your trail of activity back to Facebook. Facebook uses this information to display your activity to your friends in the form of “Alan read XYZ” or “Alan listened to… -
How Coca-Cola Gets Its Facebook Strategy Right
18 Jan 2012 | 2:55 amNote: This post is a part of our “Social Media Done Right” (SMDR) Series. You can check out our previous post on Dell here. You can follow me on on Twitter at @i_shank or Fastgush at @fastgush. Here’s an interesting fact: Coca-Cola’s Facebook Page was in fact created by two hardcore fans Dusty and Michael after they failed to find one that felt official enough, so they set out to create their own. Soon after, Facebook changed the rules which meant either the Page had to be closed or handed over to Coca-Cola. The soft drink brand instead of booting the creators flew… -
BufferApp Coming To Google+, LinkedIn And Pinterest
13 Jan 2012 | 11:06 pmFor those of you who aren’t familiar with Buffer: the app lets you schedule tweets or Facebook posts so as to spread them across the day, ensuring you reach a wider audience and attain higher CTR and rate of engagement. The app aimed at marketers and power users has already gained traction among who’s who of social media, and while it does have paid plans for heavy users, you can still grab a free account for one of your Twitter and Facebook profiles. Leonhard Widrich who handles Community & Coverage at BufferApp was kind enough to answer questions I put forward to him, and…
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Prepare 1
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Google Plus Your World Launched a Real Game Changer
17 Jan 2012 | 6:45 amTweet Social Media and the Internet has fundamentally changed the way people find, discover, share, shop, & connect. Social networking was the most popular online content category in the world as of October 2011, accounting for 19% of all time spent online, or one out of every five minutes, according to a whitepaper by comScore. Did you know that 34,000 searches are conducted on Google EVERY SECOND? 75% of Internet users never scroll past the first page of search results? US Internet users spend 3x more time on blogs and social networks than they do on email? Websites with a blog… -
12 Steps to Goal Mastery in 2012
30 Dec 2011 | 7:00 amTweet What is a goal? Goal Target Simply a goal is a target, a point of completion for a pre-determined desire or want, a place where we can see if our intentions are being realized. It is extremely difficult for us to get motivated about making any progress towards an unknown target. Without the target, we tend to stop progressing and just exist. We drift aimlessly, just what comes our way. Goals are… Truly personal. Wants. Desires. Dreams Vital part of who we are. The fuel for a satisfying life. Things we’d like to see in ourselves Things we’d like to see in our lives Things we’d… -
[New] Facebook Timeline Guide
9 Dec 2011 | 6:30 amTweet FACEBOOK TIMELINE Facebook anticipated to roll this out Oct 1st, but delayed it. Officially started the roll out in New Zealand Wednesday night. Canada, Germany, Holland and India have reported on Thursday showing up in their countries. Facebook Timeline That means it’s only a matter of days before it comes to you, so brace your News Feed, because the fans and protestors are coming in full-force. In the meantime, here’s everything you need to know about Facebook Timeline. Timeline presents a way to digitally document your entire life, from birth to present, via… -
Facebook Revamps Page Insights
30 Nov 2011 | 6:45 amTweet Facebook Insights is an analytics tool which you can use to see how people are interacting with your fan page, much like Google Analytics. It’s a powerful and free tool which is provided by Facebook to give you a better insight into your following, and with the release of the new version, it’s better than ever before. Facebook page admins now have a new improved FacebookInsights tool for better Facebook marketing. Facebook Insights Admins can find this new Insights tool in the left navigation sidebar once they opt in. A link to the old Insights features is still found in the… -
Google+ Pages Now Open for Business
9 Nov 2011 | 9:56 amTweet Google+ Pages Now Welcome Businesses Now businesses are being welcomed in, through the new Google+ Pages program which rolled out on Monday November the 7th. 5 Cool Tips from Google – What You Should Know About Google+ Pages 1. You Can +1 a Page to Show Support or Add Them to Your Circles We know you love some brands and businesses. Others you may want to show a quick note of support, but not see all their updates. So just drop a little +1 and keep going, or add a page to any circle you want. You’re in control. 2. No Google+ Page Can Follow You Until You Follow Them We want…
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RevMediaMarketing
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Super Social Media For Super Bowl
25 Jan 2012 | 6:00 pmSuper Bowl Gets Super Social For the first time in the history of the Super Bowl, fans will be able to connect, learn more and interact through the use of social media. Super Bowl XLVI will be played in Indianapolis and the city is bracing itself for an influx of more than 150,000 fans. There are parties, concerts and all sorts of football themed events planned. Indianapolis has spent the past few months in preparation of the Super Bowl, renovating streets, installing an events infrastructure and fan complex and turning the 2,800 sq. ft. Morrison Opera House building on South Meridian Street… -
Facebook Timeline Is Here: Are You Ready?
24 Jan 2012 | 3:31 pmChange Is Good If you don’t like change, try not to look at your Facebook profile today. Maybe not for the next week or so. Facebook has decided that their new Timeline feature will become THE De facto profile page setting for all 800 million users starting today. Up until today the switch was still optional. Some users embraced it, while others have complained it was too confusing; too much going on at one time and yet another confusing element in their social media world. But like it or not, Facebook Timeline is now a permanent feature. It is interesting that Facebook decided today… -
Are You Ready For Another New Facebook?
19 Jan 2012 | 3:06 pmFacebook Offers More Changes It doesn’t matter whether or not you’ve updated to the new Timeline Profile feature on Facebook. The company has just rolled out a raft of new updates meant, they say, to further improve the user experience. Facebook has repeatedly shown its disdain for the status quo, opting instead for what seems like an endless array of near constant updates and changes, each of which the company says will make the service more user friendly, and help them share more of their personal information. This is despite the fact Facebook users have repeatedly said they… -
IBM Connections Takes Further Lead In Enterprise Social Networking
17 Jan 2012 | 3:35 pmEverything Old Is New Again In The Digital Age You would be forgiven to think IBM was a member of the old guard; slow to change and unlikely to keep up with the changes wrought by the new social web. However, you would also be mistaken. In fact, IBM Connections, arguably the world’s most effective enterprise social networking platform, has been around for five years now. They were the first to offer this type of social networking capability with enterprise content management and they have continued to integrate, update and improve their system to make it even more fuctional and… -
Zappos Latest Target Of Unscrupulous Hackers
16 Jan 2012 | 2:28 pmIs Anyone Safe From Hackers? In my experience with the Internet it seems the answer to the above question is a resounding: No! In just the past year we have seen successful hacker attacks of what had been considered some of the most secure web sites in the world. The U.S. government, defense department, Google Sony and so many more, that the idea of a “secure” web site is an oxymoron. The fact is, the efforts of hackers who are intent on breaking into a web site or any Internet connected infrastructure will ultimately prove successful. This has been shown repeatedly. Let me be…
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Leader Networks blog
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Community Managers, Unite!
23 Jan 2012 | 9:22 amHappy Community Manager Appreciation Day (#CMAD)! As I sat down to write a blog post dedicated to celebrating community managers - this fantastic, rewarding and often misunderstood profession, I realized that there are few professions (and professionals) as impassioned as a Community Manager. Left-brain, right-brain, artist, scientist, pioneer, organizational change agent - the job is all that, and more. So, in lieu of trying to write about my appreciative thoughts today, I have gathered a few of my favorite blog posts about being a Community Manager from my blog… -
The Social Mind: A New Research Project
13 Jan 2012 | 7:32 amInterrelationships between individuals, organizations, thought leaders and influencers are evolving in new and previously unforeseen ways thanks to the advent of social media networks. This paradigm shift represents a major communications innovation in all markets, and is radically changing the way people and organizations engage and behave online. In order to explore this topic, and give back to the industry, Don Bulmer and Peter Auditore and I are conducting a new study as Fellows of the Society of NewCommunications Research (SNCR) . The Social Mind research project is… -
Online Community Decision: Public, Private or Hybrid?
11 Jan 2012 | 8:21 amYour organization has decided to develop an online community to serve your customers. Congratulations! This is an important step towards building a social business. As the team gathers in the conference room with whiteboards, markers and lots of coffee, you start by talking about other online community examples the organization might want to emulate, or those that have caught your fancy. Features, content, look and feel are usually a major part of this discussion. But chances are you haven’t considered a fundamental but critical question: will the online community be public, gated or a… -
The 20 Minute Social Media Professional
6 Dec 2011 | 8:20 am“I don’t have time to participate in social media” is a common cry heard within enterprise. The concern is that social media has a steep learning curve and is a time vacuum preventing more essential work from getting done. In other circles where social media is more widely used, those who haven't started are sometimes in a pickle. They don't know where to start and won't ask for help, worried about exposing that they haven't developed this professional skill yet. Fear not...while we are led to believe that everyone and their uncle is using social media with great skill and… -
Social Snacking Feeds Online Community
30 Nov 2011 | 7:02 amSocial snacks are digital tidbits of information, ideas and personal presence which offer a quick taste of an online community's content and personality. An effective way to build awareness of a community, these virtual treats get distributed via the burgeoning ecosystem of online tools that support millions of short, sharing interactions daily. Sometimes an online community can get overly focused on internal processes such as moderation, content development, member acquisition and engagement, and lose sight of the vast virtual world outside their domain name boundaries. Looking outward and…
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The Wakeman Agency Blog
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Media Attention – Quick Tips to Help You Get More
27 Jan 2012 | 5:57 amBy Jessica Epperly There are many ways to get media attention for your story. One of the best ways is to hire a public relations specialist with strong connections to the media. Journalists are notoriously hard to reach, but there are a few tricks of the trade that can help get their attention. read more -
Twitter for Good - a Book Review Vlog
25 Jan 2012 | 2:30 amBy Monica Clarke Watch the Vlog that reviews Twitter for Good! -
Marketing for Nonprofits – Why Events are Essential
24 Jan 2012 | 11:47 amBy Katherine Turiano I believe the reason events are essential to non-profits is because they are able to raise awareness and funding for a non-profit's cause within one glittering gala night or mud-covered triathlon day. The Wakeman Agency is able to perfectly partner with your team to take on the production and publication of your events to allow your staff to manage the development and outreach you are best at, creating memorable events that make an impact. read more -
What I Didn't Learn in Journalism School
20 Jan 2012 | 8:26 amBy Katie Cray As a proud Northeastern University alumnus (one of the best journalist schools, in my opinion), I can honestly say that I learned a lot in the classroom and through the co-op program. However, I didn’t learn everything. As beneficial as the co-op program was, nothing compares to jumping into the workforce without the safety net of returning to class the next semester. Everything is very idealistic and hypothetical when you’re sitting in a lecture, but sitting at your desk pitching your client to a reporter, in real life, is a bit different. read more -
Direct Marketing Tips in 2012 to Improve Marketing ROI
17 Jan 2012 | 9:25 amBy Soo Dawson You know and I know that direct marketing tactics can really backfire at times. I recently heard of a bakery owner in a small suburb who offered a deal on her Facebook page – order a cake by such and such date and you will get a second cake for free! She ended up having to fulfill over 2,500 orders and lost $20,000 in labor costs and baking supplies. What she probably didn’t anticipate was the overwhelming response to her promotion, and it ended up becoming a costly mistake for her. But many marketers fall prey to this type of poor planning from…
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thebrainchildgroup.com
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Social Media Strategy: Finding the Right Balance
25 Jan 2012 | 2:08 amIf you were sitting on a seesaw across from one of the world’s largest sumo wrestlers, the one thing you’d wish for is balance. Social media marketing requires the same mindset. It’s important for companies to solidify their social media strategy and determine the correct balance. In essence, what should be shared and how often? The goal [...] Related posts:Reactive Social Media Strategy (RSMS): What The Heck Is It? Social Media Monitoring Tools: My 3 Favorites Social Media Marketing: The Right Way & The Wrong Way -
Scrum Master Certification Course in San Francisco, CA
17 Jan 2012 | 8:33 pmPlatinum Edge, Inc. will be conducting a Certified Scrum Master (CSM) course in San Francisco, CA from January 30, 2012 to January 31, 2012, which will be taught by industry-recognized expert Mark C. Layton. Related posts:Scrum Master Certification Course in Oklahoma City, OK Agile ScrumMaster Certification Course by Mark Layton of Platinum Edge Newport Beach Certified ScrumMaster Training Course -
Had a Realization: Social Media Marketing is Like Fishing
16 Jan 2012 | 3:50 pmAfter many years of working with social media including sleepless nights thinking about what it truly is, I recently had a realization that social media marketing is very similar to fishing. Sounds crazy, I know, but hear me out. Related posts:Social Media Provides Huge Marketing Opportunities for Dentists Bacon of the Month Club: Yes, It’s Real Social Media Marketing: Are You Setting Obtainable Goals? -
Social Media Prices in 2012: Expect Increase, Broader Range
1 Jan 2012 | 2:24 amThis article by Aaron Schoenberger of The Brainchild Group touches on social media pricing in 2012, including hourly consulting rates and monthly social media retainers. Related posts:Social Media Marketing Budgets in 2012: Expect Big Increase SEO Prices: What Does Search Engine Optimization Cost? Interested In Late-Breaking Social Media Marketing News? Expect Us -
Los Angeles Holiday DUI Arrests Up, Criminal Attorneys Busy
26 Dec 2011 | 1:38 amFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Los Angeles, California (December 26, 2011) – The city of Los Angeles has experienced an increase in DUI arrests during the holiday season with a whopping 1,028 arrests in only 7 days, which shows that law enforcement is cracking down on individuals driving under the influence. The 1,028 arrests for Driving [...] Related posts:Top Criminal Defense Attorneys Launch San Fernando Website: 818Crime.com Los Angeles Criminal Defense Attorneys VALERIO | WEINRIEB Open New Office Naderi & Weinrieb Defends Individuals Charged with Domestic Violence in Van Nuys, CA
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Garious Blog
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Trending News: Social Media Meets Real Estate
27 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amWhen it comes to social media marketing, many are still in the dark as to where and how to connect with leads, prospects and customers to ensure that business goals are met. Is it all about a question on management, branding.. or both? Can real estate professionals get down to the bottom of social media engagement by mixing best practices with SEO? Two things are certain though: Your online reputation matters a lot and measuring the impact of your campaign is very much real. theBrokerList for Commercial Real Estate Professionals ( Source: AG BEat ) Commercial real estate has a small… -
How Does “Phoenix Real Estate Guy” Attract Clients On Twitter?
26 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amWe love featuring social media success stories because they prove, in actions not just words, that social media marketing works, if planned intelligently. In a previous post, we raved about two dedicated Realtors who used social media to spread love during the holiday season. Today, we are honored to feature Twitter success story of Jay Thompson – aka “Phoenix Real Estate Guy”. (If you are a Real Estate professional and love to share your social media success story with our readers, we will be happy to feature your story in Garious book and/or blog. Please check the end of… -
Four Ways to Tap into the Social Media Partnerships Treasure
24 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amWhat does the word “partnership” mean to you? In plain English, a partnership means a collectively beneficial agreement to all parties involved. Because of its win/win nature, partnerships are generally easy to form if the best interest of everyone involved was taken into account. Today, I will focus on the different levels of social media partnerships. I brainstormed the possible types of partnership that can result from social media and will be presenting them in an orderly fashion from shallowest to deepest levels. 1. Implicit Visibility Partnerships I assume that anyone who… -
On-Ramp: Determining Your Customer Segment
21 Jan 2012 | 12:25 pmWe will now continue our journey of helping real estate agents utilize the lean canvas to determine if they have a viable business model and create a social media marketing strategy through the same process. This is a section from our new “On-Ramp: Your Social Media Roadmap” book. The introduction to this section is available here. Please try this out and share the results with us in the comments below! ———— Let’s get started! Discover Your Life Circles Who is your target customer? Describe them with at least 3 attributes: Your target market… -
Trending News: Taking a Stand on Freedom of Information ( Blackout 2012 )
20 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amKnowledge is power and our voice is tested once again as sites, big or small, took on a blacklash this 18th.. by blacking out their websites to protest the internet censorhip bill under the guise of SOPA, PIPA ( and who knows what’s next ). Never underestimate the power of the Social Web.. and people are united once more in this fight to protect our rights to freedom of free information, free speech, privacy and innovation. If you missed the action, we scoured the Web to keep you updated: What Is SOPA Anyway? A Guide to Understanding the Online Piracy Bill ( Source: The Wall Street…
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Pixable Blog
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Pixable is featured in the app store!
27 Jan 2012 | 2:28 pmGreat news Pixable fans! Pixable is currently featured in the app store. That’s right, millions of people from around the world will see Pixable in the featured section of their iPhones and on iTunes this weekend. We just want to … keep reading >> -
Photos from your different Social Circles!
13 Jan 2012 | 1:29 pmYour Facebook friends are a motley crew. You have current co-workers, former co-workers, new friends from the other night, old friends from high school, your family and then some. Pixable sorts through all their photos for you and automatically pu -
Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!
27 Dec 2011 | 10:59 amHappy Holidays everyone! We hope you are enjoying the time with your family and loved ones this holiday season. We just wanted to take the time to thank you for all the love you have shown Pixable over the past … keep reading >> -
A better, faster, stronger Pixable!
12 Dec 2011 | 3:55 pmIf you have an iPhone make sure to check out our brand spanking new update, Pixable 2.2.2. This new version is a big performance upgrade from 2.0. We've spent time tweaking the innerworkings of Pixable to make it as fast … keep reading >> -
Pixable places as Runner Up at Disruptathon!
30 Sep 2011 | 5:19 pmThis past Monday I went down to Washington DC to participate in an event held at the Washington Post, called Disruptathon. Disruptathon was the first tech conference I've attended in DC and I must say I was impressed and had … keep reading >>
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The North Blog
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North Social Page Admin of the Week: Jake Carpey of Love and Pride
19 Jan 2012 | 11:54 amFacebook Page:http://www.facebook.com/loveandpride What does your company do and what is your role there…besides running the Facebook page of course? Love and Pride is the first high-end designer jewelry online destination for people who believe in equality, diversity and tolerance. Our jewelry collections include engagement, commitment, wedding and anniversary rings, necklaces, pendants, earrings, watches and other accessories for women and men. Sometimes romantic, sometimes serious, sometimes whimsical…always captivating. Love and Pride works with some amazing organizations such as… -
North Social Page Admin of the Week: Irene Lee of X-Doria
12 Jan 2012 | 1:09 pmWhat does your company do and what is your role there…besides running the Facebook page of course? We make fashion-forward accessories for iPhones, iPads, iPod touch, and more. We are a global company, selling our products just about everywhere but we’ve recently upgraded our product line and online presence, so we’re very excited to get out there and connect with our fans. So my day is about connecting with media, bloggers, Facebook fans, and more. Spreading the word on our products, sending out products for review. We want to put X-Doria products in front of as many people… -
North Social Page Admin of the Week: Dianna Holland of Universal Technical Institute
4 Jan 2012 | 8:08 pmWhat does your company do and what is your role there…besides running the Facebook page of course? Universal Technical Institute Inc. (UTI) is a nationwide provider of technical education training for students seeking careers as professional automotive, diesel, collision repair, motorcycle and marine technicians. As the Social Media Specialist, it is my task to engage our audience through Facebook and YouTube, as well as, monitor our online reputation on a daily basis. Why does your company have a Facebook page? Our demographic grew up on Facebook! We MUST be there! What’s the most… -
10 Video Shorts To Watch Before The Ball Drops
29 Dec 2011 | 7:22 pmUnless you’ve been living under a rock for the latter half of 2011, you’ve probably met Jonny Like on at least one occasion. Jonny is the face of all Facebook Fan Page fails, which occur all too frequently in a social media world chock-full of interns-turned-page-admins and self-labeled gurus. There are 10 fail video shorts in all, each of which allude to various learnings of being on the front lines of managing a Facebook page. Will you post up on the street corner with your brand’s billboard? We’ll bet not, but chances are you’ve mimicked the page of another… -
9 Facebook Predictions for 2012 That Don’t Suck
28 Dec 2011 | 1:36 pmAt North Social, we usually leave the end-of-year prediction posts up to top economic advisors like Snooki and political prognosticators like Gary Busey. But for some reason that can’t be fully explained (okay, we had a few cocktails at the holiday party), we felt it was time for our team to get in on the fun with a Facebook-centric list of useful predictions for next year. So without further ado, here’s what our Magic 8 Ball has confirmed: 1. The word “brand” makes a comeback. Sounds silly to say “comeback”, but the truth is many businesses got so caught…
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ProMovieBlogger
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Interview: Reel Talk’s Candice Frederick: Moving Beyond the Blog
21 Jan 2012 | 4:31 amBuilding a movie website or blog is not the end of a movie webmaster’s journey when it comes to expressing themselves about film and the film world. It can be only the first step if they want it to be. There are other avenues such as podcasts, newsletters, video reviews or film commentaries on YouTube, newspaper, radio, and television opportunities. Candice Frederick of Reel Talk has availed herself of some of these options. What sparked the idea for Reel Talk? I’ve always been really passionate about movies and, after several extended movieanalyses with people I know, I decided… -
How to Submit Single Reviews to IMDb’s External Reviews
15 Jan 2012 | 3:19 pmNow that you know how to apply to IMDb’s External Reviews and bulk upload reviews into their database, its time to learn how to submit single reviews there as well. The bulk upload method is the easiest way to submit reviews into IMDb’s External Reviews but depending upon the size of your website, you might not need such a large function. A smaller one might do. That smaller process is easy and straight forward. Here are the steps, from the beginning for the uninitiated: 1. Make sure you have oodles of film or TV show reviews published and easily found on your website (or… -
How to Create a YouTube Channel that Drives Traffic to Your Website: Conclusion
12 Jan 2012 | 9:24 amCreating a YouTube Channel that drives traffic to your website can only be beneficial to your sources of direct and referral traffic. YouTube is a visual and audio search engine that can bring traffic to your website if you treat it as such and employ the right methods. It is also a tremendous marketing tool for your website, a new way to build your brand, and a entreatment to a constantly expanding user base. Next Time Hopefully some of the strategies presented in this series will help you with driving traffic to your website. There are many out there, many. I only spoke about the ones that… -
How to Create a YouTube Channel that Drives Traffic to Your Website: Strategies
3 Jan 2012 | 6:12 pmWith your YouTube Channel created and setup, there are strategies that you can employ that will drive traffic from your YouTube Channel and your uploads back to your website. These strategies apply to both the old YouTube Channel design and the new YouTube Channel design. And now, on with the Strategy or as George W. Bush would say, Strategery. Where to get the videos to upload to YouTube For videos on YouTube, this is your start point. If you have no videos to upload, you have no need for YouTube strategies to drive traffic back to your website. A few source suggestions: 1. Get them from… -
How to Create a YouTube Channel that Drives Traffic to Your Website: Set Up
29 Dec 2011 | 5:50 amNow that you’ve read the introduction of how to create a YouTube channel that drives traffic to your website, its time to create and set up the YouTube channel for use and viewing by your audience. YouTube recently rolled out a new design for its channels but the new design is optional as of now. This post will cover setting up and optimizing the old YouTube channel design as well as the new YouTube channel design to drive traffic to your movie site. The YouTube Channel Designs are not twins of the same Google mother, and… I wish more of the old YouTube Channel design was…
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Hudsonhorizons.com RSS Feed
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Google Changes Privacy Policy; Learns More about User’s Personal Information
27 Jan 2012 | 4:16 pmIf you thought Google's new ‘Search Plus Your World' feature was a violation of users' privacy, Google's revised privacy policy will impact almost all of its services, including the search engine, YouTube and Gmail. This action will give Google more access about its users' internet behaviors. Scared yet? The intentions behind Google's policy changes Google's idea with the new p You can read the full store at Hudson Horizons Web Development Blog Google Changes Privacy Policy; Learns More about User’s Personal Information -
Obama and the White House Get Social
26 Jan 2012 | 9:45 amIt seems that everyone is leveraging the power of social media these days. Businesses have been utilizing social media to create a buzz about their brands and to better connect with their customers, while celebrities, politicians, and other influential figures (as well as average people) have already utilized the social platforms to share personal thoughts. As the social media bandwagon continues to grow, the most influential figure in the United States, President Barack Obama, is leveraging the power to create interaction about his recent State of the Union speech. -
Why I Love Working in Social Media
20 Jan 2012 | 11:19 amAs a professional in social media, I will confess there are moments of my workday where I want to just throw in the towel. But for each instance that those thoughts cross my mind there are double the instances where I can revel and embrace what I do. Careers in marketing or public relations are demanding, fast pace, and stressful-it is a known fact. Now add social media into the mix, when disconnecting or taking a break just isn't an option for us; overwhelming is only a slight understatement. So why at the end of the day can I say that I love my job and being in the social industry? Social… -
Anonymous Strikes Again; Department of Justice, FBI and Others ‘Tango Down’
20 Jan 2012 | 10:24 amHacktivist group, Anonymous, has launched a retaliatory cyber-attack in response to an FBI shutdown of Megaupload.com, a file-sharing website that allowed users to upload and download files from a site-generated link. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) In the heat of the SOPA/PIPA war, Anonymous' largest internet attack in its histor You can read the full store at Hudson Horizons Web Development Blog Anonymous Strikes Again; Department of Justice, FBI and Others ‘Tango Down’ -
Karotz: The Social Media Smart Rabbit
19 Jan 2012 | 3:41 pmThe 2012 Consumer Electronic Show (CES) brought us many different technologies that consumers can be excited about for the future. From smartphones to laptops, tech gurus and curious onlookers were not disappointed. But a unique introduction to the fold was a little tech-savvy rabbit that looked like nothing more than a ‘cute' paperweight. As viewers looked on, U.K.-based company, Violet, revealed the many features of Karotz - the first ever hardware device with the ability to connect to your social media profiles.
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Other Side Group
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Infographic of the Week: Social Networking at Work
27 Jan 2012 | 7:55 pmA new set of stats show that two out of every three people agree that social media should be banned in the workplace. Simply Zesty brings us some interesting visuals on how social media is seen at work (in the UK…but let’s be honest, it’s probably similar in the US!) -
Infographic of the Week: How America Spends on Electronics
20 Jan 2012 | 9:46 amEver wonder the who, what, where of electronic lovers in the US? Bundle shows us some cool stats. -
MarketingProfs B2B Content Marketing Report suggests increasing use of content to meet 2012 marketing goals
17 Jan 2012 | 9:52 amA study released last month by MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute highlights some significant numbers in the area of content marketing for the B2B industry. In short, content production has become and will continue to be a major piece of the marketing mix for B2B marketers. There are several high-level takeaways from the report: Content marketing is still very widely used. 90% of B2B marketers used some form of content in their marketing program in 2011, and no individual industry reported lower than a 70% adoption rate. More budget is being spent on content… -
1 in every 5 minutes online is being spent on social networks (and more data from ComScore’s 2011 Social Report)
16 Jan 2012 | 9:02 amI’ve finally gotten around to reading ComScore’s 2011 Social Report that came out in late December. There are some great, granular pieces of data taken from March 2007-October 2011. Some key stats: Social Networking is the most popular online activity. 1 in every 5 minutes of time online is now being spent on social networking sites (up from only 6% in early 2007), reaching 1.2 billion people total. Facebook is important. Facebook takes up the largest part of this time, reaching 55% of the worlds’ online population in October. Facebook also has incredibly high engagement,… -
Infographic of the Week: How Text Messaging Has Changed The Way We Communicate
13 Jan 2012 | 9:37 amThis great timeline from Tatango shows how text messaging has changed the way we all communicate over the last 19 years.
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Digital Pivot RSS News Feed
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The FBI Wants to Watch You on Facebook (Just Like Facebook Does)
27 Jan 2012 | 6:36 amSummary: It seems the FBI wants a "social media application" that would allow the agency to gather intelligence from publicly shared information on social networks like Facebook and Twitter, as well as news media outlets such as CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC. Reactions are mixed. -
Redefining the eBook
27 Jan 2012 | 6:35 amSummary: Though I write for this blog, I'm not a writer in the traditional sense. I have several book ideas and, yet, have never put pen to paper. For me, the barrier hasn't been as much the time or the discipline needed to write as much as it has been the odds of anything I wrote ever being published that has stood in the way. Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing started to open that process up. -
More Than Birds: 4 Android Apps Worth Purchasing
26 Jan 2012 | 12:30 pmSummary: At the beginning of my experience as an Android user, I would frequently insist, "There's no way I'm paying for an app." However, as time went by and I began to explore the operating system more, becoming increasingly comfortable with its many functions and the apps available in the marketplace, even I could not resist the pull of certain apps, most of which cost me $0.99 or less. These apps have now become part of my Android experience, and the paid versions offer features that I find to be worth the investment. -
What Can Be Done When Facebook Place Recommendations Go Rogue?
26 Jan 2012 | 9:50 amSummary: I'd like to share a "duh" moment with you. I was recently asked about what could be done to erase an inappropriate recommendation showing up on a Facebook page. Even though the rogue recommendation was deleted from the page, and it had been reported, it still showed up for other people. -
Are Brand Pages on Their Way to Extinction?
25 Jan 2012 | 10:02 amSummary: Like many people I know, I hate automated phone systems. This goes double for the one my bank uses. Very often, my questions are too complex to be answered by a series of pre-programmed messages. So I've figured out how to quickly get through the annoying series of directions and go right to the answer I want.
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Buzzom
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Vodafone India launches Zoozoo Comic Series on Facebook
27 Jan 2012 | 9:00 pmVodafone India has launched a new comic series on Facebook featuring its much loved Zozoos. The comic called ‘The Adventures of Super Zoozoo’ has been created by Vodafone’s advertising agency OgilvyOne Worldwide, and would be available on Vodafone Zoozoo’s Facebook page. The Super Zoozoo character which made its debut in 2011, in Vodafone’s 3G campaign, is portrayed as a superhero. The comic introduces fans and readers to the black and white Zoozoo universe, where crocodiles invade picnics and superheroes don’t need secret identities. “We have seen that our fans constantly… -
Google+ is now available for teens
27 Jan 2012 | 8:30 pmGoogle has opened its social networking site to teens. The service was until now limited to users 18 years and above. Now, all teenagers, except those in Spain, South Korea and Netherlands, where the age requirements are higher, can be part of the Google+. Announcing this news Google+ Vice President Bradley Horowitz writes in a Google+ post, “With Google+, we want to help teens build meaningful connections online. We also want to provide features that foster safety alongside self-expression. Google+ for teens is similar to that for adults, but with additional security features. For… -
Google says ‘No’ to web censorship in India
27 Jan 2012 | 5:30 amTechnology giant Google has stated that it’s not possible for the company to censor objectionable content on the web. “I’m hoping there will be a balanced debate around it and eventually the right thing would happen. We cannot censor the Web. We cannot censor the ability of people to express themselves. You are asking not just censor the Web in India, you are asking to censor the entire world wide web. The Web has no borders,” Google’s chief business officer Nikesh Arora stated. He further added that censoring everything and pre- clearing everything is going to taint the growth… -
Apple is building a Touchscreen Remote for controlling multiple devices
27 Jan 2012 | 4:43 amApple is working on a new remote control that would automatically control a variety of devices. According to the AppleInsider, the US Patent and Trademark Office has published a patent filed by Apple on Sep 30, that shows the company working on a universal touchscreen remote capable of controlling multiple devices. According to the filing, Apple’s universal remote control will include a touchscreen which functions as the display screen and the user input mechanism and a discovery mechanism that would discover available appliances to control. The remote will control one or more of a… -
Google brings more options to Google+ Badges
27 Jan 2012 | 3:48 amGoogle launched Google+ badges in November last year, to help brands drive more traffic to their pages; and allow users to +1 pages, and add pages to their circles, without leaving the site. Today, the search giant has rolled out more options, that enable brands to choose and integrate the Google+ badge that suits their website the best. “Starting today in developer preview (and soon available to all your users), we’re adding more options for integrating the Google+ badge into your website. You can configure a badge with a width that fits your site design and choose a version that…
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Sean Clark
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How To Create A QR Code [VIDEO TUTORIAL]
28 Jan 2012 | 2:00 amFacebook Page QR Code They are appearing everywhere, on buildings, in magazines, on buses and trains. QR Codes are a growing phenomena. They can bridge the gap between off-line and online, enhancing user experience. There are not the best looking marketing devices, but the alternatives NFC – Near Field Communication, are technical to implement and limited to a few mobile handsets. Digimarc, another alternate, uses information hidden in an image and was originally invented as a digital watermark. The issue with Digimarc, how to easily tell people they should scan the image. QR Codes on… -
Curate Content Like a Museum to Attract an Audience & Revenue
26 Jan 2012 | 4:17 amTyrannosaurus Millions of people visit the Natural History Museum in London every year. They queue around the block for hours in busy periods to see the latest exhibition. To take in the awe inspiring Tyrannosaurus, to experience the sheer size of a Blue Whale; to see parts of our world close up, in a way we couldn’t in the wild. Yet the museums don’t create this content, the exception being of the life size replicas, largely the exhibits have been collected from around the world over tens of years by specialist in their field. The Ultimate Curator The museum is the ultimate curator,… -
Google Is Destined To Become A Social Platform
20 Jan 2012 | 10:28 amDavid Beckham Hangsout on Google PlusThe popularity of Google+ is growing, quite rapidly to according to CEO Larry Page there are now over 90 million users. Celebrities are now starting to take to the service including Lady Gaga, who has over 18 million followers on Twitter, and even David Beckham who recently held a Hangout for fans on the platform. It’s not just the amount of users and who is starting to use it that is most striking, it’s the continued innovation that makes it increasingly important to everyday business. As it currently stands Google+ is a fantastic tool for… -
5 Steps To More Effective Content Marketing
19 Jan 2012 | 10:36 amGet in the HabitYou are probably aware of the importance of content marketing. You may even understand its role in online marketing, not just from a search engine optimisation perspective, but in it’s ability to attract and engage an audience, otherwise known as Inbound Marketing. If you’re not yet convinced you only have to look at studies by companies like Hubspot showing that inbound marketing costs 62% less per lead than traditional, outbound marketing or the change large brands like Coca-Cola are making to their marketing strategy. So if many are aware of the pro-active part… -
How To Claim Your Twitter Name
14 Jan 2012 | 4:31 am@SeanClark A few weeks ago I wrote a post pleading for Twitter to release dormant usernames. The astute amongst you may have noticed that I now have my real name as my Twitter username @SeanClark. Thanks to a suggestion in a comment by @SeeBiz, Twitter transferred ownership of @SeanClark over to me in a matter of weeks. A Simple Process Under Twitter’s Policy Information there is a section on Inactive Accounts but at this time there is no way to claim a username from an inactive account. As you would expect Trademarks are protected, but you can also claim against impersonation. Stop…
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L2: A Think Tank for Digital Innovation
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2012 Predictions: Digital Will Decide Luxury’s New Icons
26 Jan 2012 | 3:29 pmA common misconception when it comes to prestige brands is that companies like Tiffany & Co. and Christian Dior earn this title solely because of a high price point. There are actually many things to consider, one of the most important of which is legacy—how iconic is the brand in question? Has it maintained its reputation for superior aesthetics and quality over not just decades but generations? Is it a fashion house or a hotel group or jeweler whose name evokes both immediate aspiration and thoughts of, ‘One day, I’ll share this with my children’? Like class, a hard-won,… -
2012 Predictions: Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest Will Move to the Mainstream
25 Jan 2012 | 5:34 pmWhen blogging first became popular a decade or so ago, the platform choices were painfully limited. If you wanted to launch a fashion blog, a photography blog, or a sports statistics blog, it didn’t really matter whether you went with Blogger or WordPress. Text went in the text box, images were uploaded and inserted, and tah-dah a new post was born. Today, it’s a very different blogosphere, in large part because entrepreneurs recognized online writers’ need for specialization and their desire to be part of a likeminded community. Enter Tumblr, which was launched in 2007… -
Tablet Ownership Nearly Doubles Over Holiday Season
25 Jan 2012 | 8:47 amA new survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project finds that U.S. tablet ownership rates skyrocketed from 10 percent to 19 percent between mid-December and early January (See yesterday’s 2012 Predictions: Brave New Mobile World). Despite relatively little change in ownership rates earlier this autumn when Amazon introduced its $199 Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble introduced its NOOK Tablet, these relatively affordable devices proved disruptive over the holiday season, displacing dozens of other devices to become the second and fourth best-selling tablets in the U.S. -
2012 Predictions: R.I.P. Google+
24 Jan 2012 | 10:18 amYesterday, Google executive Bradley Horowitz announced that Google+ would soon soften its strict line on usernames. Unlike other networking sites, when Google+ launched last year, it did not allow members to join under any non-Latin, non-legal name. No nicknames, no Chinese characters, and certainly none of the punny play-on-word-type handles you often see in your Twitter feed. But soon, that will change. The question is, does anyone really care? Google+ was no doubt one of the most successful marketing stories of 2011, reaching 20 million users in just 24 days. Neither Facebook… -
2012 Predictions: Brave New Mobile World
24 Jan 2012 | 8:34 amWe have now entered a long, persistent mobile era. And we doesn’t just mean the 1 percent. Not anymore. A Pew report released yesterday found that the number of American adults with tablets nearly doubled from 10 percent to 19 percent in just the last month. More and more, people all over the world, in every demographic and, increasingly, more varied socioeconomic levels, are shedding their desktop anchor. For the first time ever, global shipments of smart phones and tablets exceed shipments of PCs. And this past December, Americans averaged 22 more minutes a day with mobile apps…
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Joey Strawn
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Where You’ll Find Me Today
27 Jan 2012 | 6:08 amTweet Come and join me if you’re in town. Related Posts:Progress: A Social Media HaikuSocial Median [Joetoon]Looking For Me in 2012?Working Out of Work7 Things Twitter Is Not (And 1 Thing It Is) -
[Title of the Post]
25 Jan 2012 | 6:11 amTweetThis is one of my favorite posts and it’s about a year or more old so I know there are a lot of you who may not have seen it. Today, I’m reposting it in all it’s glory (which a few new fun things added in) for your enjoyment. “Targeted quote about the subject of [...] -
Social Median [Joetoon]
20 Jan 2012 | 6:43 amTweetWord play is fun. : ) Related Posts:Progress: A Social Media HaikuWhere You’ll Find Me TodayFun Friday Caption ContestWorking Out of WorkWe’re No Cannibals Here -
Using Gamification To Motivate A Team, Pt. 2 – Excitable Bodies
17 Jan 2012 | 6:14 amTweetI started work on this post last week after we discussed the terminology rampant in our offices. I was almost done when I came across this article in the Harvard Business Review (it’s not the whole article on the website, to read it all you’ll have to buy the magazine like I did). I realized the [...] -
Progress: A Social Media Haiku
13 Jan 2012 | 6:04 amTweet In honor of the closing of another CES, here’s a Friday Haiku for you: Smart TVs are here Car apps, Android, Smart Fridges; All drive us forward. What were your favorite announcements so far from CES? Can you put them in haiku form in the comments? Related Posts:A Friday Branding HaikuA Matter of PerspectiveIgnorance [...]
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DaveLinabury.com
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When you say X, you really mean Y
3 Jan 2012 | 3:18 pmWhen You Say… All I hear is… "We’re the leading social media app developer…" "We’ve weaseled into large client meetings, but have yet to bag one" "We’re market leaders in social media ROI" "We just figured out what ROI stands for from an article in Mashable" "We’re looking to expand our horizons…" "You have money [...] -
What’s Hot (and Not) in Social Media
5 Dec 2011 | 9:55 amWhat's Hot (and Not) in Social Media View more presentations from Dave Linabury. -
More Visual Music
24 Oct 2011 | 9:34 amBased on the popularity my post, The Future of Music is Visual, I decided to share with you more companies that exemplify the marriage of visuals and audio. Korg iKaossilator First up is an iPhone app from Korg. If you recall popularity of the Kaossilators, it will come as no surprise that Korg has created [...] -
The Future of Music is Visual
1 Oct 2011 | 6:35 pmI have one synth that dates back to the ’90s, a Roland EG-101. It was a fairly standard Hip-Hop synth, really nothing outstanding except for one feature; the D-Beam. This is an infrared beam that is still being added to current Roland synths. Moving the hand near it and around it interrupts the notes and [...] -
An Internet Guide for Baby Boomers
13 Aug 2011 | 3:34 pmDear Baby Boomers, It’s time you learn to talk about the Internet intelligently. Seriously. You’re really embarrassing the rest of us every time we hear you say, “The Google” or “all those Facebooks”. Here’s a quick, but handy guide to get you up to speed with the rest of the planet so you won’t have [...]
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Techlationships
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11 Biggest Social Media Idiots of 2011
3 Jan 2012 | 11:53 amThere is no doubt that 2011 was a breakthrough year for social media. Google+ was born, Twitter exploded, Facebook reinvented itself, and Pinterest emerged and pinned itself into millions of new followers. A lot of good has resulted from people’s use of social media. Friends connected, long lost relatives reunited, worthy causes raised money and awareness, and even a kidnapping was thwarted. While many people have integrated social media into their lives, this is [...] Finish this off at techlationships.com! -
Five Ways to Send Card-less Christmas Greetings via Facebook
14 Dec 2011 | 11:41 amStep aside Hallmark! The 170-year old practice of sending holiday cards is about to become a fond memory. Don’t get us wrong…we’re not going all Grinch on the Yuletide tradition. We love receiving cards. But the 19th Century concept of Christmas cards takes the 21st Century family a lot of time and money to pull it off. It all starts with trying to figure out what kind of Christmas card your family will send [...] Finish this off at techlationships.com! -
10 Tips to Ensure Your First Christmas Together Isn’t Your Last
5 Dec 2011 | 11:20 pmYou know how people always ask, “if you could share just one piece of marriage advice to newly married couples, what would it be?” Here’s ours: “With your first Christmas, when you get married, take control of the holidays or you will feel like the Grinch stole your Christmas!” The reason? With the first Christmas, too many people have too many competing expectations for the newlyweds. Both sides of the families want to spend [...] Finish this off at techlationships.com! -
How Porn is Damaging Facebook and Ruining Your Reputation
16 Nov 2011 | 1:58 pmWhat do the Ellen DeGeneres Show, Manchester United, Bruno Mars and Monster Energy Drinks have in common? Graphic, hardcore porn images and links can be found on their Facebook Wall for all to see. And they aren’t alone. The most popular brands in the world are getting hit…daily. The Facebook Pages for television shows (NCIS Los Angeles, Desperate Housewives, Chappelle’s Show, The Amanda Show, BBC America, Colbert Report, CSI Miami), sports teams (FC [...] Finish this off at techlationships.com! -
Social Media Experts Warn Couples to Have a Face-to-Face about Facebook’s Timeline Sooner Versus Later
27 Sep 2011 | 10:38 amSeattle, WA - Facebook has frequently been indicted by many scorned lovers and betrayed spouses for causing their relationship woes and broken marriages. But, the newest feature from the popular social network called Timeline could expose things one partner doesn’t want the other to know, or reveal things to the world about their relationship that were meant to be private. Every couple should have a sit down to discuss how their virtual life [...] Finish this off at techlationships.com!
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Social media news today
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How to: Search in two languages at the same time!
26 Jan 2012 | 10:29 amMostly internet users use Google for search. However, in Google we can search in one language. If want to search another language we want to change language settings. 2lingual site will help to internet searching peoples for search in two type of language at the same time. Go to 2lingual, Search your favorite language. Both language results are show at the same page. It is a one of the interesting engine. This site search format support with Google. Try your self: http://www.2lingual.com -
Futuristic fold-up car makes its debut pictures
25 Jan 2012 | 10:22 amA tiny revolutionary fold-up car designed in Spain's Basque country as the answer to urban stress and pollution was unveiled Jan. 24 before hitting European cities in 2013 -
Satellite view of Italy shipwreck
21 Jan 2012 | 7:32 pmA near-death experience and the sheer miracle to be alive. Around 75 Indians of the 200 rescued from the sunken Italian cruise ship 'Costa Concordia' returned home on Thursday to the relief of their anxious families. -
Apple unveils interactive iPad textbooks
21 Jan 2012 | 7:15 pmApple Inc unveiled a new digital textbook service called iBooks 2 on Jan. 19, aiming to revitalize the U.S. education market and quicken the adoption of its market-leading iPad in that sector. -
Online companies win piracy fight
21 Jan 2012 | 6:37 pm
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Digital Diva
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[Infographic] What are the Best Times to Blog?
23 Jan 2012 | 9:18 am[Infographic] What are the Best Times to Blog?: By Dan Zarrella -
"Social media sites beyond Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are seeing significant boosts in usage,..."
23 Jan 2012 | 9:16 am“Social media sites beyond Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are seeing significant boosts in usage, both in the US and elsewhere in the world. And where users go, marketers will follow. Research from social marketing software firm Awareness Inc. indicates US marketers plan to do just that this year. The December 2011 survey found that the leading area for new social media marketing investments in 2012 would be increasing marketer presence across platforms, cited by 70% of respondents.” - Marketers Follow Users to More Social Sites - eMarketer -
Peer Index launches PeerPerks - exclusive rewards for the "influential"
5 Jan 2012 | 4:54 amI like Peer Index. They’re helpful, friendly, quick to respond and improve their system….and now they’ve given me a free book. Yay! I’m not sure what your PeerIndex score has to be to be considered influential for PeerPerks. Give it a try…see if you are eligible for a free copy by going to: http://www.peerindex.com/vip/pear-shaped …and fill in your Twitter or Facebook details. -
Social Media boosts Purchase Intent even after a year
4 Jan 2012 | 9:31 amLooking at the impact on brand metrics is a preoccupation of any social media manager or digital planner worth their salt. Likes and shares are great, but those interactions have to actually mean something! Trouble is, there isn’t much research around. BzzAgent (social media marketing arm of dunnhumby) are trying to rectify that. Beginning in summer 2010 they began studying the immediate and lingering results of several social media marketing campaigns involving consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands in the USA (or FMCG as we call them here in the UK) and brand advocates. Purchase Intent in… -
Google caught violating its own rules
4 Jan 2012 | 6:04 amGoogle caught violating its own rules: Whoops!
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janwong.my : online strategist malaysia, youth advocate, entrepreneur
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What Would You Do If All Odds Are Against You?
15 Jan 2012 | 12:45 pmYou’ve probably heard that one of the main attributes of an entrepreneur is the ability to take risks. However, what an entrepreneur actually does is to take CALCULATED risks. That’s right, they don’t take risks for the sake of taking it. They take risks because there’s something worth fighting for and have considered all options before taking the risk. But what happens if all odds are against you? Recently I stumbled upon a particular comic strip in Chinese which resonated quite a bit with me that I thought it’ll be great to share with you (I’ve translated… -
A Crawling Restaurant Experience @ The Hungry Hog
10 Jan 2012 | 12:45 pmIt was my mum’s birthday last weekend and we decided to head to a nearby cozy local restaurant for a simple celebration dinner. It wasn’t our first time there so we ordered our usuals and all was well… until my dad started swinging his leg about. He stood up and lo and behold, a cockroach fell out of his trousers. Yes, it crawled into his trousers when we were eating. Disgusted, we decided to get the bill and leave. Being concerned customers, we told the waiter (or what seemed like the boss) what happened and to my disbelief, she just shook her head saying: “Sorry,… -
Have You Stopped Improving Yourself? 4 Ways to Stay In The Game!
8 Jan 2012 | 12:45 pmI’ve always enjoyed the game of badminton and I’ve been playing the game ever since I could remember. I could safely say that I’ve been a decent player with some tournament wins here and there and have also learnt a great deal from this sport. As time passed, I got pretty busy. From playing the game everyday (in high school) to thrice a week and now, barely once a month. Needless to say, my plays naturally declined as I wasn’t playing enough to improve – and that got me thinking. It is really the same in real life I’ve known of some really talented tech… -
4 Social Media Predictions for Malaysia 2012
5 Jan 2012 | 1:45 pm2011 has been an amazing year in the digital realm. From the major Google Panda update somewhere in February 2011, to the design overhauls with major social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and even StumbleUpon, the introduction of Google+, the beta launch of Kred and the list goes on. What excites me most is that more and more businesses are seen to be adopting and experimenting on social media, leading towards exciting times for both marketers and consumers alike in 2012 – a concrete indication that social networking is indeed changing the way we communicate, do… -
Brand Focus #11: Interactive Videos As A Social Media Marketing Campaign [Wing Heong]
3 Jan 2012 | 1:45 pmThe local dried barbecue meat industry in Malaysia has always been competitive especially when the Lunar New Year is around the corner as it is commonly made as gifts during the festive season. The delicacy producers, however, have been relying on traditional promotional methods over and over again – television commercials, radio commercials, print ads, in-store promotions, roadshows to popular shopping malls, giving out free samples and etc until recent. The Change Wing Heong, one of the producers of this delicacy decided to make a change. A change in which was told (after the…
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Techwarzone
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Browser based Facebook Chat Application
19 Jan 2012 | 12:30 pmOur online Facebook chat doesn’t require you to “install” anything on your computer so is ideal for work or school. Wiltshire, England – Adding to its long list of successful Facebook applications for both Windows OS and BlackBerry mobiles, Athena IT Limited has released a browser-based version of Chit Chat for Facebook to bring cross-platform [...] -
Best 5 PHP Open Source Content Management System
10 Jan 2012 | 7:26 amJoomla is one of the best and most widely used CMS applications. It is suitable for creating corporate websites or intranets, online magazines, community-based portals and more. It has numerous build-in features as well as a large selection of extra modules and components which will enhance the value of your website and will enrich your [...] -
Twitter’s New Embeddable Tweets
6 Jan 2012 | 1:14 pmTwitter is going to launch of a brand new version of the site. It’s been available for a few weeks now, but not all users have it enabled yet. And new design is coming up with new features. Embedded tweets are part of the mix. While it’s been possible to embed tweets on blogs, websites [...] -
10 Best Open Source eCommerce Solutions
6 Dec 2011 | 12:23 pmThe best e-commerce solution is dependent on the type of data trading partners need to exchange to run their businesses effectively. 1- Magento Magento is a feature-rich eCommerce solution offering complete flexibility and control over the look, content, and functionality of an online store. Magento Features: Site Management Control multiple websites and stores from one [...] -
Add Facebook Like Box to Your Website
3 Dec 2011 | 2:26 pmFacebook pages are becoming more popular with brands, organisations and celebrities who want to boost their social exposure on the web. Facebook pages have become an important tool for expanding the reach of websites and blogs. The Like Box is a social plugin that enables Facebook Page owners to attract and gain Likes from their [...]
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Social Poser
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How I Bought a Ford Explorer via Twitter and Email
17 Jan 2012 | 5:44 amIn an earlier post titled I’m Buying a 2011 Ford Explorer in Madison, WI. Who Wants my Business?, I noted that I was in the market for a 2011 Ford Explorer, and that I was turning it into a case study. I posted this on Twitter a couple hours prior to the blog post: I was able to find three local Ford dealerships on Twitter – @KayserFord, @MiddletonFord and @CapitolFordKia (which has since been sold). I expected one of them to earn my business, but only if they chose not to sit around the dealership on a Friday afternoon waiting for me to walk through the door. As Chris Brogan said… -
Social Media Bullying by So-Called Professional Photographers
8 Dec 2011 | 6:39 amMy first post on this blog, Is Groupon Killing the Photography Industry?, was actually less about Groupon than it was about experienced professional photographers and their attitudes toward less experienced professionals. These attitudes have reached a new level of absurdity and cruelty with the emergence of Missy Mwac on Facebook and MWACAttack on YouTube. Here’s how “Missy” describes herself on Facebook: I am a stay at home MWAC (Mom with a Camera) to two adorable children! I decided to become a professional photographer while my kids are at school and found it much easier… -
Stick a Fork in Klout – They Are Done
27 Oct 2011 | 10:55 pmAbout five months ago I wrote 5 Reasons Why Klout is Total BS. Since then, I haven’t paid them much attention until yesterday, when a friend informed me that my Klout score had dropped by nearly 20 points. Guess what? I don’t care! Klout is dead to me. After Klout’s announcement yesterday about A More Accurate, Transparent Klout Score, it should be dead to you too. First, how can anyone take their score seriously when Klout measures influence based on sites like Foursquare, Instagram and LastFM? Second, People don’t love Klout. They love their Klout scores. -
Paying the Marketing Department with Free WiFi at @AJBombersMSN – AJ Bombers Madison
7 Oct 2011 | 5:54 amA few weeks ago, I posted about a QR Code Done Right at AJ Bombers Madison. In that post, I praised Joe Sorge, the owner of AJ Bombers Madison, for posting a QR code in the window of the restaurant before it opened, allowing curious passers-by to get more information about the restaurant. AJ Bombers Madison is open now, and Joe has done it again! On a recent visit, I noted the presence of six posters just like this one scattered throughout the restaurant: (Click image to view full size.) Curious I was curious, so I scanned the code with my smartphone. Go ahead. Try it now if you must, but… -
12 Ways to Get People to Like Your Facebook Fan Page
20 Sep 2011 | 5:33 amEvery day on my job as a social media administrator, our insurance agents ask me how to get more people to like their Facebook pages. Here are a few of my most common answers. #1: Share quality content If you post and share interesting, engaging, and quality content, you’ll keep the followers you have, they’ll share it with their friends, and those friends may also become fans. What is quality content? Everything you post should be entertaining and/or informative, and should compel your fans to either post a comment or click like. These interactions by your fans will contribute to…
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Abitha' blog
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Common Mistakes to be Avoided in Petty Cash Maintenance
18 Jan 2012 | 5:11 amGenerally, managing the petty cash in a company is regarded as the simple bookkeeping task and it is given less importance. But unfortunately if these petty cash mishandled can lead to account bungling. The common mistakes range from missing or replacing small receipts to larger business audit. So bookkeeping should be given much importance in a company. As far as the petty cash account management is concerned, the first mistake that the petty cash custodians make is that they sometime ignore the small amount spent for the company. For example may be 5 to 10$ for buying stationeries like pen,… -
5 Amazing JQuery Photo Slideshow Effects
30 Dec 2011 | 5:06 amJQuery is very fast and concise Javascript library with amazing functionalities. With just a few lines of code, event handling and smooth animation effects can be produced. Nowadays, JQuery has become so popular that no web theme can be found without JQuery effects. It is for sure that the visitor can get unique experience with these image effects.Among the various striking effects of JQuery, image slideshows are the very interesting ones. Below are some of the most popular slideshows that can be used on the web sites. Itunes Image Slider: JQuery Itunes Image Slider is one of the most popular… -
Cloud hosting : Solution for Small Business
23 Dec 2011 | 7:14 amCloud hosting has become buzz word in the hosting industry today because this kind of hosting benefits the users from various angles. Unlike the traditional hosting where the site is hosted on a single server, in cloud hosting, the site will be hosted on multiple servers. This ensures the uninterrupted service even during any issues in any one of the server. Compared to other hosting techniques, cloud hosting is very economical because of the reason that we pay for what we use. Generally, the expensive shared and dedicated hosting best fits for stable and large and established companies… -
How to avoid downtime when we change the web hosting provider?
23 Dec 2011 | 4:21 amIt is very obvious for any customer to change the service when they are not satisfied. It is applicable to web hosting business too when the customer service is not satisfying,or if any diskspace and bandwidth related issues exist. During this process, if we don’t have enough experience and skills, it might lead to downtime. This can be avoided if we follow certain steps. We will discuss about it here. The very first step is to take a backup of all the files from the older server that has to be transferred to the new server. All the files such as images files, database files and text files… -
Benefits of using live chat for your websites
17 Oct 2011 | 5:31 amWith the arrival of Internet technology, everything has gone online. People want everything instantly with a few clicks on their computers. Online business has exploited this and measures are being taken to expand the business online rather than usual marketing techniques. Without even make a visit to the stores physically, people surf in the internet to find the products and services. This creates a dire necessity for the companies to launch a website that includes the details about their product with payment options and online chat support for solving queries. Especially when a customer has…
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48 Dots
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Vulnerability: Good for business?
19 Jan 2012 | 9:06 pmMy new boss was smart, vibrant and vulnerable. She was brilliant at her job, brought energy and enthusiasm to the office whilst being comfortable admitting the areas she struggled with. She even recognized her style of dress was a ‘work in progress’. Exercise, as far as she was concerned, despite being overweight, just wouldn’t happen because, as she said, she had no co-ordination. -
Read this and pass it on
3 Jan 2012 | 4:26 pmThis isn’t a prescriptive ‘how to’ guide to change your life for the better, but a message to help inspire your own journey. If you have the skills, confidence and motivation, with the right plan you can get to where you want to be. -
How to give the good gift these holidays
20 Dec 2011 | 8:57 pmI was recently asked to act as a Santa - hopefully, for my personality, rather than my body shape (I’d need the white beard, but not a pillow, unfortunately!). -
I learn, therefore I do
14 Nov 2011 | 11:30 pmI often wonder what the underlying reason is for why they really want to attend a course. Conceptually people may feel it will help them in their everyday roles or expand their resume but how do we measure the value of what we have learnt by attending such courses? -
…As good as a holiday?
7 Nov 2011 | 9:27 pmIt isn’t easy to change the way you have been functioning and running your life for years, though the true rewards of change are paid to those who can recognise that adapting to stay ahead of the game is essential.
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Social Media Dudes
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13 Great Ways To Repurpose Your Content!
17 Jan 2012 | 6:59 amI think you would agree that valuable content on your website or that was authored by you and hosted on other sites is critical to your success to drive traffic and ultimately make sales. At the end of the day, it separates a good blog from a great blog! So creating great content is job [...] Related posts: Best Ways to Drive Traffic To Your Blog! The following article was written by Dorothy J Bellisario who... Content Marketing Principles: 3 Highly Effective Things to Incorporate Into Your Blog Posts! One of the things that I learned from my attendance... Related posts brought to you by… -
3 FREE Ways to Increase Your FaceBook Fans – Often Overlooked
11 Jan 2012 | 7:40 am3 FREE Ways to Increase Your FaceBook Fans – Often Overlooked In my opinion more fans are better than fewer fans. You can talk about “quality” all you want but you will not change my mind on this one. The more fans you have the more likely you will develop new business or even create [...] Related posts: 5 Ways Our Family Uses Social Media 5 Ways Our Family Uses Social Media Much is made... Get Better Engagement From Your Facebook Page! Dennis and I have had several people come up to... 20 Helpful Facebook Fan Page Tips! Strategy 1. Life is short! So have some fun from... -
Why Your Blog Didn’t Take Off in 2011 and How You Fix It for 2012!
7 Jan 2012 | 7:36 amFair warning! This blog post is not for the meek or the faint hearted! About this time last year, you were like a lot of folks who decided that they were going to follow Gary Vaynerchuk’s advice and “Crush It” (no slam on Gary…if you do what he says, you are going to be farther [...] No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. -
LinkedIn Profile Essentials – Part 2
5 Jan 2012 | 7:02 amThis is part 2 of a 2 part series written by Janet Slack. See Part 1 by clicking here. Today we are looking at strategies that will make your LinkedIn (LI) profile a true asset for your business. You want it to be a great place for people to learn more about you and we [...] Related posts: LinkedIn Profile Essentials – Part 1 You need a great LinkedIn profile. It really is no... Getting Setup On LinkedIn! Social media is gaining massive popularity these days due to... 10 Ways To Promote Your Business With LinkedIn! LinkedIn in many regards is the forgotten member of what... Related… -
What is “The Cloud” and should I be using it?
15 Dec 2011 | 12:45 pmWhat is “The Cloud” and should I be using it? So what is this cloud thing I keep hearing about? It sounds kind of scary to have my data and information stored somewhere other than my computer. Couldn’t someone get it? Isn’t it more at risk? Think of the cloud as water. You turn on [...] No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
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Social Media Blog
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Mobile World Congress Meetings
25 Jan 2012 | 8:37 amI am currently scheduling meetings to be held during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. I offer a range of highend marketing services at a lower cost then digital marketing agencies. My low overheads (shared office in Camden) are reflected in my day rate (£280 per day). My clients range from Vodafone and Nokia to Shell, Channel 4 and a number of start-ups. If you are currently being overcharged by one of the many overpriced marketing agencies or need effective marketing services to increase sales, loyalty etc then get in touch. I will be in Barcelona and free for meetings between 25th… -
How do you plan to spend your 2012 marketing budget?
8 Jan 2012 | 5:18 amResearch recently carried out by StrongMail states that brands are planning to increase their marketing spend on Social Media in 2012. Huge increases in email marketing spend (60%), social media (55%) and mobile (37%) are forecast. Survey Statistics ✔ 92% plan to increase or maintain marketing spend in 2012 ✔ 60% plan to increase email marketing budget; 55% social media; 37% mobile/search (tied) ✔ 45% cite data integration as primary email marketing challenge in 2012; 43% lack of resources/staff; 40% content management ✔ 48% cite increasing subscriber engagement as top 2012 email… -
2011 Reviewed Through Social Media (Infographic)
31 Dec 2011 | 6:00 pmSource: http://frugaldad.com -
My Photo was recently used by the Guardian
19 Dec 2011 | 9:46 amHappy that my photo for Camden Theatres (client) was recently used in the Guardian following Chris Mellor's very successful production of 'The Virginity Project'. -
Intern Opportunity
25 Nov 2011 | 1:05 pmI am looking for an intern to help assist on a variety of marketing campaigns in Camden, London over the next two months. This position offers (expenses paid) work experience that could lead into full time employment. The post will involve working from the office preferably on a 10-5pm bases You will receive one to one tuition in order to: • Develop / execute social media strategies • Virally distribute content across social media platforms & the wider web • Run a blogger outreach campaigns • Bug test websites and web applications…
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Digital Marketing Inner Circle
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Chinese Migroblog Infographic
19 Jan 2012 | 11:27 pmSocial media has become an effective medium for influencing our ideas and views andhas drastically changed the rules of an effective Brand Marketing campaign. Due to the growing importance of e-commerce and online activities, reaching customers through digital means has become an essential part of marketing plans globally. In times when social media influence is flourishing, new technologies and ideas can be embraced and adopted with astonishing speed, instigating significant and often unpredictable consequences. Recent evidence of this is the unexpectant rise of… -
Digital Jungle gets Festive (and a little crazy)
17 Dec 2011 | 8:52 pmAround this time of year, many lucky or depending on how you look at it, unlucky people are attending their awkward, alcohol-fueled office holiday parties. For this year, Digital Jungle went with a 'talent show' theme. Where the various groups got the opportunity to show us their 'talent' ! Within the various 'acts' there were some party games played- mostly because is it fun to watch your colleagues do crazy things in the name of Christmas but the Digital Jungle crew got out in full force and showed the world that we have many more talents beyond 'social media' 'search… -
5 Best Practices for an Effective Weibo Presence
9 Dec 2011 | 8:21 pmWith many Western Brands wanting to create a voice in the Chinese social media world it is not surprising that most turn to Weibo. With over 200+ million users on Sina Weibo alone (not including the Tencent Weibo users), this rapidly growing microblogging social networking platform offers an easy way for businesses to stay in front of and stay engaged with customers on a daily basis. Unfortunately, many businesses struggle with optimizing this opportunity, not fully understanding the full potential of the tool. Here I have put some simple practices that should help your business… -
How to traverse Chinese Social Media jungle
7 Dec 2011 | 8:17 amExpert Interview with Dr. Mathew McDougall, CEO & Founder of Digital Jungle Social Media is widely known to be an effective medium for influencing our ideas and views which makes it an obvious channel for tourism and destinations marketers to use in promoting their hotels, airlines, and countries tourist destinations. Social Media serves as an effective marketing tool. The idea is not new, but it has reached new horizons in China. China is growing its Internet users. Everybody wants to get on this train of promising perspectives, especially global brands and celebrities… -
Sina Weibo... Super Hot for Marketers
9 Nov 2011 | 7:21 pmWhen I explain to people about the rapidly changing social media landscape in China I simply bring this point to a sharp point by conveying the Sina Weibo story. Twitter clone come China Internet Superstar. From microblog to Entertainment and eCommerce hub. These are all part of the remarkable journey that this platform has taken over these past few years. Today, my praise of this platform has be amplified by the Sina corporate news that advertising revenue hit $101 million in the latest quarter thanks to a 200 million and growing user base on Weibo. Wow!
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Blue Media Boutique Blog
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Knoxville’s Blue Media Boutique Merging with Efficience
26 Jan 2012 | 10:34 amInteractive Firm to Become Division of Knoxville’s Second-Largest Software Developer Knoxville, Tenn. – Efficience, Knoxville’s second-largest software development and consulting company, announced today its merger with Knoxville-based Blue Media Boutique, an interactive creative services firm. The Blue Media Boutique brand, established in Knoxville in 2008 and led by Tori W. Rose, will become a trademarked division of Efficience to provide user experience and interface design for Efficience’s custom application software. The two companies began working together in 2011, with projects… -
BlueOut Knoxville: a charity event you don’t want to miss!
9 Aug 2011 | 8:07 pmWant to give more than $5,000 to your favorite charity and have a great time doing it? On September 29th, 2011, Knoxville is going to be a BlueOut! Bluegrass, Blue Moon, Pabst Blue Ribbon, BBQ and Bleu Cheese Cole Slaw. BlueOut Knoxville was born out of a collaboration between two of Knoxville’s most involved social media creative marketing firms. During Social Slam ‘11, Tori Rose of Blue Media Boutique and Jeremy Floyd of Bluegill Creative discussed opportunities to break the traditionally competitive mold of local marketing firms and consider opportunities to work together for good. A… -
QR mistakes to avoid (from Mashable)
7 Aug 2011 | 10:26 amAlthough QR codes are becoming more and more popular with our clients, many are still learning, and some are actually learning from their mistakes. The following Mashable article outlines five big mistakes to avoid. The biggest takeaway—put yourself in your client’s shoes. Is your campaign message compelling enough that you would pull out your Smartphone? And, would you be happy with the the pay-off behind the code? Tell us what your QR campaign is doing. We want to hear from you! Mistake 1: Not Testing the Code Common sense right? Until you’re able to read a QR code just by looking… -
A Lawyers Take on Social Media
11 Jul 2011 | 11:05 amRecently, we have had numerous law firms contact us with an interest in social media. This is a fun challenge for us, given the clients do not know much about social media and wonder why they should have a social media presence in the first place. This article and video we ran across are very helpful in explaining why law firms should take social media into account. It is not common to find a previous Public Relations specialist working for a law firm; Vivienne Storey’s perspective is definitely something to take into account when faced with this issue. Tagged: Blue Media Boutique,… -
75 B2B Facebook Marketing Tips from Social Media B2B
10 Jun 2011 | 9:16 amOne of the blogs we follow and really enjoy, Social Media B2B, recently compiled a list of the top 75 Facebook tips for B2B marketers. We’ve blogged before about the importance of compelling content within the social media space and really engaging/interacting with your audience. We’ve also posted about the need to align your SEO efforts, driving traffic back to one spot (your Facebook page, your website, your blog). With those two things in mind, take a look at the list below for great ideas on how to get great results from your business Facebook page. Liking the Page 1. Ask your…
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25 hours in a day
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Cougar Town Is Coming Back in February!
26 Jan 2012 | 11:00 pmI recently learned that one of my favorite shows, Cougar Town, is finally coming back to ABC! It has been on a long hiatus and I doubted that it would ever come back. Not because the show isn't awesome. More because the creators of the show went through a divorce (Courteney Cox and David Arquette). Anyways, I am happy to announce that the show will be back and I am sure it will be better than ever! If you have never seen the show, or don't want to watch a show called "Cougar Show" I urge you to change your mind! Here is a best of clip from the show!Am I the only Cougar Town lover?!? -
5 Things Pinterest Is Like
23 Jan 2012 | 11:00 pmIt has only been about a week since I joined Pinterest and this is already my second blog about it... yes I am obsessed. Every female social media nerd I know is really into this network. I thought to myself, 'Why are all these women into Pinterest? What is it about the network that really gets us excited?!' After mulling this over with co-worker, I decided that girls like Pinterest because it is like so many other fun things we enjoy:CollagesYes gentleman... Women like to cut up magazine with pretty words, pictures, colors, etc. and paste these pictures onto a shoe box or a poster… -
BOOK REVIEW: Water For Elephants
20 Jan 2012 | 11:30 pmI had seen the movie and really liked it so I figured I would probably love the book. I mean, I don't think there has ever been a movie that was based on a book that was better than the book (if you can think of one, please share below!). It was not a very quick read but I really enjoyed it and here are some of the highlights. Spoiler Alerts!I love the back and forth from the present to the past. First you are in the nursing home with this cranky old man, and then you are at the circus with this wide-eyed moral vet. It is a nice balance between the two and it keeps you on your toes.I was… -
Another Second Chance At The Golden Globes
18 Jan 2012 | 12:00 amActors, especially in TV, are lucky enough to get their one big break. When you are on an extremely popular television show that goes on for years, you may get type-casted. Being on one hit TV show is GREAT but being on two... it is rare and very lucky! I like to root for the underdog and I was thrilled to see Matt Le Blanc win a Golden Globe for his work in Episodes. I have never seen the show but I am obviously a fan of Friends and I will always root for Joey... I mean Matt when he is in the running for an award.I don't think anyone would have thought that after her stint on… -
My Plea To @Pinterest
17 Jan 2012 | 7:00 pmYes, I am obsessed. I love Pinterest. I love pinning. I would pin all day if I could but I can't because I have a job. I keep trying to think of new ways to use Pinterest such as making movie and book reviews, creating unique boards, etc. Only a few days into getting an invite and I am a full-fledgedbeliever in the network. However, there is something that struck me immediatelyas one huge thing missing in this platform, and that is embedding.I createthese awesome boards, and I am proud of them, and I want to show them off.However, I am limited in how I can do that. Anyone on Pinterest can see…
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fingercandymedia.com
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Whats Your Social Media Game Plan for 2012?
24 Jan 2012 | 6:15 amThis was originally written for a Broadcasting/Music community I have a column in, but change a couple job titles/adjectives and this could be any industry. Hat tip and big thanks to Guy Kawaksaki, Jay Albright, Scott Stratten, Valerie Geller, Sarah Austin, Andie Lynne, Amy Howell, Adam Drake and Nick Schneck for their practical and relevant 2012 [...] -
Music Icon @CharlieDaniels Joins #CMchat on Monday, January 23 at 8pm CT
18 Jan 2012 | 6:07 am“Few individuals have symbolized the South in popular culture as directly and indelibly as Charlie Daniels.” From the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. The Music industry has seen a lot of changes over the years. Probably one of neatest to watch has been Artists/Musicians making the digital, and social media transition. Not so long ago, the only way [...] -
Emotional Tweeting
12 Jan 2012 | 7:30 amIt happens. Emotional tweeting, posting, texting, emailing….we are all *mostly * humans, having a human experience, both online and in REAL time. In my opinion, some of the best content comes from emotions that trigger passion. Passion has been the touchstone for inspiration for me from the beginning. Enthusiasm for music, that is contagious, is my signature. My love of Social [...] -
Hidden Birthright: The Story of Jett Williams, Daughter of Hank #CMchat
23 Dec 2011 | 10:30 amIf Jett Williams had made up the story of her life, she says, "it wouldn’t compare to the real thing," and I am sure you will agree. Her bio reads like a sinister plot from a Lifetime movie, that wouldn't have to be edited, or added to, for dramatic interpretation to make it more complicated or compelling, in fact it has made my head spin just trying to figure out how to interpret it to this blog post. Jett spent most of her life not knowing her real last name, or that her father was "The Hillbilly Shakespeare,"and Music Icon, Hank Williams Sr. -
The Tweet Before Christmas (video) #TweetB4Christmas
18 Dec 2011 | 6:25 amTHE TWEET BEFORE CHRISTMAS Written by @JessicaNorthey Video Edited by @SClarkWXYZ - This was created last year, but it is definitely timeless. There is more info below about all contributors to this video. Happy Holidays! ENJOY! Performed by: In Order of Apprerance Jessica Northey aka @JessicaNorthey Austin Keyes aka @AustinKeyes Jason Ramsey aka @Jason__Ramsey Tony Hastings aka @TheTop10Blog Gina Stark [...]
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For Free Blog
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RIT on TV: SOPA Blackout Reaction
19 Jan 2012 | 11:13 am -
A New Year Checkup – Facebook: Step 4 - A Final Check
7 Jan 2012 | 3:46 pmIt’s a new year and it’s time for social media types to be more conscientious about their social outposts. As part of a focus on social media strategy this is the fourth in a series about Facebook.If you have followed this series then you’re ready to double-check that you’re done. A Final Checklist• Changed Facebook to Timeline Yes No• Checked each month and each year’s postings to hide anything inappropriate Yes No• Checked my Privacy Settings Yes No• Sorted my Friends into the… -
A New Year Checkup – Facebook: Step 3 - Friend Lists
7 Jan 2012 | 3:40 pmIt’s a new year and it’s time for social media types to be more conscientious about their social outposts. As part of a focus on social media strategy this is the third in a series about Facebook.Consider Using the Lists FunctionDo you really want to share everything with everyone you’re connected to on Facebook? Probably not.You can start your control of who sees what in two ways.First you can go to Lists (on the left side of your home page – where you may have to click on the “More” to see it).Facebook automatically adds some of your friends to lists and suggests dozens of… -
A New Year Checkup – Facebook: Step 2 - Privacy Settings and Friends
7 Jan 2012 | 3:32 pmIt’s a new year and it’s time for social media types to be more conscientious about their social outposts. As part of a focus on social media strategy this is the second in a series about Facebook.Check your privacy settingsFacebook insists that the pending switch to Timeline for all 800 million of its users will not change any individual’s privacy settings. But this ignores the fact that Timeline will expose everything you’ve ever done on Facebook. Besides, when was the last time you checked your privacy settings? Do you know what your current privacy settings are? Given Facebook’s… -
A New Year Checkup – Facebook: Step 1 - The Timeline
7 Jan 2012 | 3:23 pmIt’s a new year and it’s time for social media types to be more conscientious about their social outposts. As part of a focus on social media strategy this is the first in a series about Facebook.Get ready for TimelineFirst, consider whether you want to stay on Facebook once Timeline becomes the default way you interact on Facebook. Some privacy advocates are now concerned that the new Timeline will allow Facebook even more access to your information and will then share that data with others (businesses). For example the Electronic Privacy Information Center has sent a letter to the…
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Hypertext
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What’s New in the Tumblr’hood?
27 Jan 2012 | 11:40 amAwhile back, we rounded up how microblogging platform Tumblr is a quickly emerging force for brands looking to up and/or solidify their digital profiles. But beyond that, it’s grown to become an invaluable tool for connecting with audiences beyond a brand name, and showcasing some personality. I myself can attest just how influential it can be in showcasing said brand personality – one stumble upon the NYC office’s Tumblr during my New York City job search last October, and I basically knew that I must work here (I even mentioned a few posts during my interview, which ultimately led to… -
The Rise of Content in Communications
26 Jan 2012 | 10:00 amThere’s been a lot of debate over the future of PR. From PRSA’s #PRDefined initiative focused on revitalizing the definition of PR, to the evolving role of communications professionals and agencies. Historically, “traditional PR” has been heavily defined by media relations. And while media relations remains important, the industry is increasingly seeing our function becoming something much bigger. PR’s success focuses on building companies’ brands and growing their businesses – using storytelling and compelling messages to communicate to the people your company wants to… -
Does your smartphone stress you out?
25 Jan 2012 | 11:13 amA work colleague shared an interesting article last week on the use of smartphones and their impact on stress levels. The article was based on a study by the British Psychological Society that found a link between stress levels and the number of times a person picks up their smartphone to check messages and mail. The result of the study can be read in their site.Mobile use statistics for 2011 show us how the use of smartphones has increased over the years:1.08 billion of people in the world have smartphonesBy 2014, mobile internet should take over desktop internet usageOn average Americans… -
Celebrating #CMAD – A Video with our Community Manager
23 Jan 2012 | 9:26 amToday marks the third annual Community Manager Appreciation Day since Jeremiah Owyang first coined it as the fourth Monday of January back in 2010.In celebration, we wanted to share the video below. We sat down with our community manager, Amber Rinehard, just before the new year to get her thoughts on how the community manager role evolved in 2011, what she sees for the future and what she considers the three most important qualities in a successful community manager.Are you celebrating #CMAD today? Want to learn more about community management and how it can help your business? Reach out to… -
Big Social Media & Digital Trends for 2012 – Part II
19 Jan 2012 | 4:00 pmSocial media is struggling through its adolescence. Growing pains are very real for many businesses, torn between the social business nirvana and the pragmatic realities of the day-to-day. To help those keen to get a jump on the year ahead I offer five more trends that are likely to shape PR, social media and digital communications in 2012. 1. From Bolt-on to Business as Usual The advent of social media saw marketers attach themselves to channels such as Twitter, Weibo and Facebook with palpable glee. Many felt they were low-cost ways of pushing more marketing messages at a…
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Sprout Insights
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This Week: Social Media News You Need to Know
28 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amWhile you’ve been busy updating your company’s Facebook page, keeping your customers up to date through Twitter and posting the latest corporate video on YouTube, we’ve been reporting on the latest in social media news for businesses large and small. In case you’ve missed any of it, here’s a recap of this week’s breaking stories. We’ve arranged them by category to help you quickly find the news you’re looking for. Facebook Facebook News Feeds Are More Influential Than Pages Facebook Rolls Out Timeline to All Profiles How a Seventh Facebook Ad Could Reduce Your… -
How to Use the Old Facebook Insights
27 Jan 2012 | 3:00 pmIt’s Facebook Friday — each week we’ll offer one tip for leveraging Facebook to increase customer awareness of and engagement with your brand or business. This week we’ll show you how to use the old Facebook Insights analytics tool, just in case you don’t like the new Facebook Insights. It’s actually very simple, but we know a lot of people miss it because we’ve had some requests for a tip on this subject. First, make sure you log in as your Facebook Page instead of your personal profile. To do this, click the arrow in the top-right corner of any page of… -
Google Business Photos Partners With Local Photographers
27 Jan 2012 | 2:00 pmGoogle just announced an expansion to its Business Photos program that will introduce business owners to local photographers through its Trusted Photographers initiative. Last October, the search giant launched Business Photos, which brings Street View indoors to give consumers a real-world look inside your business. Indoor images are then integrated into Google Maps and Google Places profiles. Originally you would have to apply and wait while Google contacted you to arrange a photo shoot. Now the company has teamed up with local photographers so you can get started right away. There’s… -
How a Seventh Facebook Ad Could Reduce Your Clickthroughs
27 Jan 2012 | 12:53 pmAdvertisers on Facebook might begin noticing lower clickthrough rates soon as the social network increases the number of ads displayed on a single page. The social network began displaying six ads at once last November, which put about half the ads below the fold where consumers had to scroll to see them. Now Facebook has added a seventh ad. Currently Facebook Pages contain a lot of information, which forces ads to be placed along the sides and below the fold. An increase in ads could lead to a reduced clickthrough rate as it pushes ads further down the page and increases competition among… -
Drive More Traffic to Pages With Updated Google+ Badges
27 Jan 2012 | 10:08 amWhen Google launched Google+ Pages last year, it also introduced the Google+ Badge, which can be used to promote a Page directly from a website. The company has just added more options that help to improve integration with your site. Previously, when creating a Google+ Badge you were given a few pre-made sizes to choose from. Now badges can be customized with a width that fits your site design. You can also select a version that works better with darker backgrounds – which helps to blend the button so it doesn’t distract from the rest of your site. Additionally badges now include…
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Social Media School: Social Media Tips
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SheCon New Media Expo Orlando
21 Jan 2012 | 1:32 amSocial Media Tips: Attend Low Cost Conferences SheCon Expo Orlando and Disney World Coronado Springs Resort Nice central location to bring back those VIP Founders from the first conference last spring in Miami with great benefits. Affordable conferences are usually better for networking with some of the best while not denting your travel budget for something that may be a hobby or an aspiring entrepreneur. We are not doing this on a Corporate account. We are real people with a great desire to pursue our passion looking for like-minded people. Hand massages last year SheCon Expo Miami Sassy… -
Make money blogging with Affiliate Associations
9 Oct 2011 | 11:36 pmWe are wide eye when we start a Website Photo by Eileen Ludwig Blogging is a great way to share information, teach others, and develop business relationships. Making money to pay for your time, knowledge, and resources is a good business model. Finding the right affiliates, advertising, products, services, and other methods is part of the Marketing Strategy. Marketing strategy is part of the Business plan for any viable business. We come to realize it is a business. A business that needs to generate income in order to survive. Affiliate ads market products or services for the same cost to the… -
Klout Subway Tuna Fish Sandwich Perk Ten Dollars
24 Aug 2011 | 8:42 pmSubway Tuna Fish Sandwich with Klout Perks Photo by Eileen Ludwig A perk from Klout was a $10 gift card for Subway. They sent me a email where I accepted and gave my address. The gift card was mailed and I went to Subway and had a Breakfast sandwhich one day and a Tuna Subway another. Since then I have been back several times to have Tuna Subs. The Tuna Sandwich with all the extras is delicious. It is cost effective as a $5 sandwich that is filling, tasty, and great for your health to add fish to your diet. This was a nice perk. I missed out on the Flip Camera. Those are the only real perks I…
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Social Signal: Latest Blog Posts
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Alex on why you should stop apologizing for your online life
9 Jan 2012 | 10:55 amIt's easy to fall into the trap of thinking what we do online isn't real, and doesn't matter. And it doesn't help that we've developed the acronym IRL, In Real Life, to refer to the offline world. But why shouldn't we regard our online lives as just as real, just as valid and just as meaningful as our offline ones? That's the question Alex posed a few months ago at TEDx Victoria, proceeding from a blog post she wrote last year for the Harvard Business Review.The talk, titled "Ten Reasons to Stop Apologizing for your Online Life", just went live. And if you've ever wondered why a valued… -
Just because you have numbers doesn't mean you have insight
6 Jan 2012 | 4:43 pmOne of the most seductive things about social media is the way it allows us to quantify things. I have more friends than she does – I must be more popular. That blog post got more hits than this one, so that one's more effective. We have more Twitter followers this month than last month, so we're on the right track. Numbers are lovely that way. In a world where everything seems open to interpretation, numbers offer certainty. Five is bigger than three: end of argument. Problem is, a beautiful number can hide an ugly bunch of oversimplification. Trying to quantify the complexities of human… -
15 best practices for managing your first (or subsequent) web development project
13 Dec 2011 | 5:05 pmBack in the day, the only real way to have an online conversation was to build your own blog or online community. These days, many people, companies and organizations have their first taste of online conversation and social media through pre-established social networks like Twitter, Facebook or YouTube. But eventually, you might outgrow what you can do with those sites alone, or decide you want to have a new kind of conversation that is best supported with an online community of your own. When that day comes, you’ll face the painful, terrifying and thrilling experience of building a website… -
Engage your audience before your speech
12 Dec 2011 | 9:55 amA lot of speeches begin with someone introducing you to the audience - reciting your background and qualifications, and then encouraging them to greet you warmly as you head to the microphone. And once the applause dies down, you're looking at a sea of people who are probably as unfamiliar to you as you are to them. Your first few lines not only have to launch your speech, but establish a rapport and some degree of trust with your audience. But in the era of the social speech, you don't have to speak to an audience of strangers. You can get acquainted and start the conversation days or even… -
The social speech: How your friends and followers can help you write your next presentation
7 Dec 2011 | 4:44 pmSpeechwriting is a notoriously solitary profession. You might have a few conversations with a client, their staff or — if you're writing for yourself — a mirror. But a lot of your work is going to be just you, a keyboard and the unforgiving blank screen. At least, that used to be the case. But when you're crafting a social speech, speechwriting can be a team activity. And even though you still have to do the actual writing, you can draw on the ideas, experience and ingenuity of a large networked audience. You may feel a little hesitant about asking your network for help, especially out in…
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Carrot Communications
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Brands: engage your Facebook fans in five simple ways
18 Jan 2012 | 10:11 amIt’s all very well having a Facebook page bulging at the seams with “Likes”, but what does the brand do to keep those people coming back for more? Keeping informed about special offers may drive many to “Like” the brand, but it doesn’t mean that they will engage with the brand, or even visit the page occasionally. Brands have to invest more effort encouraging their fan base to participate than it took to get them there. A well timed competition from an already popular brand can create an impressive spike in “Like” numbers, but the effort must be made to keep these people… -
PR for start ups: why reputation management matters for start-up businesses
13 Jan 2012 | 4:27 amWe work a lot with fast-growth, often investor-backed businesses. So every few weeks we’ll be posting a blog on ‘PR for start ups’ that we hope will be useful to businesses looking to use PR to support their growth.We’re starting with the big one: why reputation matters to start-up businesses. “Our product is much better than anything else on the market, so how come no-one’s heard of us?” Sound familiar? When a business is in start-up, or fast-growth phase, it’s easy to forget how important it is to create, nurture and build your reputation… -
2011 in social: we went there, we got the T-Shirt
21 Dec 2011 | 10:50 amWhat we watched Until about 3 minutes ago I had managed to go the entire year without knowing, hearing or caring about who or what Rebecca Black is. I now know that she’s that teen who has the mum who paid for her song and music video to be released. The one with the video that became a viral hit earlier in the year. The one with the number one most viewed YouTube video of 2011. Let’s let that sink in for a moment. Maybe you’d like to watch it? Sorry. Anyway, the only positive thing that I can take from this is that the video has over 306,000 dislikes opposed to 80,708 likes. -
A Facebook sharing review of 2011
30 Nov 2011 | 10:42 amcredit: Master Isolated Images Facebook has just released its top 40 most shared articles on Facebook in 2011, and the top three most shared articles – about the Japanese Tsunami, parents vs teachers and star signs - provide an intriguing glimpse into the Facebook user’s mind. What’s more, there are some interesting omissions from the top 40. Nothing on the London riots. Nada on the Arab Spring. Zippo on the Conrad Murray trial. Odd. Of course, it could be because these are the top 40 articles, rather than the top 40 most discussed topics. Maybe people that are passionate… -
How Chapstick responded to criticism on Facebook
28 Oct 2011 | 6:09 amhttp://www.facebook.com/pages/Butt-seriously-Chapstick/209382635798407 Oh dear. I’ll bet that in the scale of things, innocuous (though popular) consumer brand Chapstick didn’t expect to find itself in the centre of a social media firestorm this week. I mean, it’s Chapstick, right? A useful, trustworthy, dependable, brand. What could it possibly do to upset people? Well, it could put a picture of a woman bending over a sofa with the caption “where do lost Chapsticks go?”, for a start. (Despite the helpful suggestions by one or two people on Facebook, I believe the lost Chapstick is…
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SocialMouths
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How To Increase Clicks On Your Tweets [Infographic]
26 Jan 2012 | 10:40 amTweet If you are an entrepreneur using Twitter as part of the marketing strategy for your business or you are a blogger trying to improve your traffic, one of the most important metrics you look at is how many clicks your tweets are getting, specially when those tweets are containing links to your own site. One thing I’ll tell you right off the bat is that, marketing in general works different for each one of us and it delivers different kinds of results too. Twitter is no different and, while I always say that you should not rely on anybody’s advice but instead run several tests… -
My Life Without Klout
24 Jan 2012 | 10:37 amTweet This is a guestpost by Brad Shorr from Straight North. Like many social media participants, I “joined” Klout without really knowing it, without really caring one way or the other. Towards the latter half of 2011, Klout became quite prominent — and controversial. Despite a lot of criticism of it from people I respect and my own ill-defined angst, I kept playing along. Eventually I decided not only that Klout has fatal flaws, but also that I needed to put my money where my mouth is and disconnect from it. So I did. The purpose of this post is to share my reasons for opting out… -
Don’t Get Lost – Your Content Marketing Roadmap
17 Jan 2012 | 11:26 amTweet This is a guest post by Eugene Farber from ContentStrategyHub.com. More and more business are hopping on board the content marketing train. Marketers across all industries are recognizing the power and effectiveness of content for producing an online business presence. Statistics show that a vast majority of marketers believe content is a key to future marketing success. And a majority of B2B marketers plan on increasing their content marketing budgets compared to last year. And yet, even with this recognition and mindset shift, most are likely to get lost along the way and find… -
Six Ways to Throw Your Audience a Curveball (in a Good Way)
12 Jan 2012 | 10:58 amTweet This is a guest post by Garrett Ira, a digital marketing strategist who blogs at garrettira.com. Over the last few years, just about everyone has given their two cents on how to “do social media” the right way. You know what I’m talking about: connect with your audience, add value, it’s about relationships, and all the other advice we hear over and over. Something has happened that few are ready to admit: companies have gotten much better at social in 2011. Yes, there are still plenty of companies doing it terribly, but if you compare the present day to two years ago, there’s… -
Google+ Brings Out The Big Guns
10 Jan 2012 | 12:22 pmTweet A lot is speculated every day about the future of Google+, one of the main topics is how the social network will affect search. So far we are all just talking about the great potential and what we want it to become while Google doesn’t say much. But Google decided to bring out the big guns today with the announcement of “Search, plus Your World”. This is basically the integration of Google+ into search results and it represents one more big step into the world of personalized search, or social search. Let’s look at what this means in terms of features… Who…
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A David Creation » Blog on: Marketing | Websites | Mobile & Business Solutions & More
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Why Companies Fail At Implementing Change
23 Jan 2012 | 9:59 amThis week’s blog is a guest post from Brian Nolan, owner of Summit Services. Summit is a professional business consulting firm working with small and medium size businesses. This weekend I was reading a book called Leading Change, by John P. Kotter. A couple things jumped out at me as being very relevant for the Summit group. There was a chapter dedicated to why companies fail at implementing change. Two of the main reasons were: Under communicating the Vision by a factor of 10 (or even 100…. or even 1000) Failing to create short term wins Kotter spends a great deal of timing… -
Narrow Down Your Service Area
19 Jan 2012 | 2:12 pmMost service companies would love to be well known all over their city, even a large metropolitan area. In order for that to really happen, one would need a substantial marketing budget. Instead of trying to market all over your city, it is best to target your market closer into your key area. Take a look at where you do most of your work. Ask questions like, “Where do most of my leads come from?” and “Where do my most profitable jobs take place?” Look into the sizes of those cities or towns and see if there is enough work for a company of your size to dominate the… -
How To Free Up Space on Your iPhone or Android using Google Music
5 Jan 2012 | 6:30 pmIf you are an iPhone user like me, I don’t see the big reason to buy the $299 or $399 iPhones with more space. Why? Because many companies offer cloud (online) storage. The only reason to upgrade to a 32GB or 64GB iPhone device is to store more photos, videos and songs. Now, thanks to Google Music, there is a simple way to store all your music on Google’s servers (for free) and clean up your iPhone device for other important things. The steps below will work for Google’s Android phones too. Once complete, you can remove all music from your device! Visit Google Music Sign… -
Don’t Make Your Customers Get Defensive
29 Dec 2011 | 9:07 amThis week’s marketing tip is a no brainer to most of us, but unfortunately many businesses overlook this principle. Marketing Principle: Never make your customer feel uncomfortable when a problem surfaces. If you are at fault, do what it takes to take full responsibility. If the customer is at fault, don’t let them get defensive. Create a win-win outcome Related To Marketing? How does this relate to marketing, one might ask? Everything you do in your business, good and bad, is marketing. The way you answer the phone, your voicemail greeting, customer service, the appearance of… -
Writing Before and After Blogs
13 Dec 2011 | 2:02 pmI’ve heard these statements numerous times, “I am not sure what to write about!” or, “I may run out of ideas.” and even “Nobody wants to read about painting!” What is my response to these comments? “Head trash!” It is head trash. Now I doubt most of your customers or the general web visitors will be signing up to read your weekly blog post, but I can guarantee they are reading good content online and researching answers to their home improvement questions. So get rid of the head trash and start writing. Use good content and answer…
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Social Meteor
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Two-Minute Tips: Creating & Managing Private Facebook Groups
18 Jan 2012 | 2:09 pmIt’s easy to create a private Facebook Group and invite individuals to participate in the group — even if they’re not your friend on Facebook. Learn the basics in this two-minute video. This video features Heather Maves (@heatherm17), blogger & social media content writer for Sentry Insurance — and a mighty fine archer. -
The real truth: What business owners need to know about social media
12 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amWhen you work in social media regularly, one of the best things to have on hand is a book that you can hand to business owners that don’t recognize the benefits of social media. One of my favorites Eric Harr’s recent book entitled The Real Truth About Social Media. Despite it’s modest size (about 100 pages), Real Truth is filled with actionable insights that are easily understood by traditional marketing executives and business leaders, without time-wasting jabber or hollow social media evangelism. Real Truth answers the most common question that business leaders have… -
Social Pro Files: an Interview with Sam Espinosa
9 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amWe recently had the opportunity to interview Sam Espinosa, Director of Marketing for stickK. Sam is a Social Pro, so we wanted to share this entire interview with everyone. Enjoy! Stickk.com is a tool to help people meet their life goals. Can you explain how stickk.com can help someone meet their goal? Espinosa: stickK.com helps you reach your goal by utilizing the fundamental tenants of behavioral economics. Put simply, money and reputation are powerful motivators, and we use both to positively influence your behavior. By combining incentives and third party accountability to… -
Get a free taste of financial responsibility with Mint.com
3 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amFor the first time in decades, in 2012, I’m starting the year with a complete understanding of my income, expenses, savings. I’ve also created financial plans for the year and identified steps to get there. These are things that don’t come naturally to me. It’s been more than 30 years since I’ve balanced a checkbook, created a formal household budget, or given adequate attention to my family’s personal finances. However, I’ve been able to restore financial responsibility almost overnight with help from Mint.com — a free web-based from Intuit… -
Auld Lang Syne: Old Friends and New Beginnings
31 Dec 2011 | 11:07 amI’m Resolute on New Year’s Eve, 2011. So much, in fact, that I offered to purchase a new house today — nearly 100 miles away. The offer to purchase a home on the Wisconsin River, near Stevens Point, WI, is part of a change that I triggered 60 days ago, when I accepted a great new job at Sentry Insurance. The new job is only 90 miles away– but its a whole new life for EVERYONE in my family: New home, new schools, new community, new friends, new opportunities — and a new cloud of uncertainty as we consider the good friends and the good life we’ll be…
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Social Media NZ
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Four new media and technology trends to watch for in 2012
25 Jan 2012 | 4:04 pmWe’ve started to see it already but these trends are set to become more evident in the year ahead. Cate Owen tells us what to look for. 2012 is going to be an interesting year for new media and technology in New Zealand. Online media consumption, in particular video, has had strong growth in 2011, as has the number of Kiwi businesses using social media platforms. Meanwhile advertising agencies digital spend continues to climb. What does this mean for 2012? I’ve picked four trends I think we’ll see throughout this year. The rise and rise of On Demand. New… -
Making it big on YouTube by doing it small
25 Jan 2012 | 1:48 amYou aren’t famous until someone’s mama knows who you are – Chris Rock YouTube has become a certified media empire, with a billion accounts, 4 billion views per day and with one hour worth of video being uploaded every one second. A distribution model where it is global, instantaneous, free and where new shows are being discovered and other shows are getting axed. Many experts are now calling it the anti-establishment where one doesn’t need to go through casting calls and there are no gatekeepers you need to impress. But the downside to this vast and… -
How Chaos In The CBD made friends and influenced people
24 Jan 2012 | 10:00 pmBEHIND THE STATUS UPDATES is an irregular column written Wellington based music writer, radio host, DJ and chronic social networker Martyn Pepperell. In each installment Martyn will breakdown and analyse a situation involving the music industry and social media. It might all look simple when you see the status update or tweet revealing the big breaking news, but there is a lot that goes on in the background to make it happen. Auckland duo Chaos in the CBD gets a big break from a top US music website. It’s a great underdog story, as told by Martyn Pepperell. On the 22nd of… -
Stop Being Crap Online: Stop being just a number!
23 Jan 2012 | 4:11 pmThis week’s Stop Being Crap Online video Hannah shares her tips on getting more out of social influence tools, and saving yourself from being just another number. How much of a player are you online? You’ve got your ‘I’m huge on Twitter’ t-shirt, and you are rarely challenged in the street over its legitimacy – but are you really a social media boss? Thanks to social influence start ups, you can only talk yourself up so much these days: Klout, Kred and PeerIndex are the ones who are really sorting the men from the boys. I guess a few years… -
SOPA: good for big business but bad for the Internet
19 Jan 2012 | 8:08 pmDon’t believe the hype. SOPA may be about tackling online piracy but it damages the Internet as we know it and is a threat to our freedom of expression. Some topics and issues will transcend the social media arena. In the United States, people elect their executive leader directly which is different from the Westminister system we are used to. This distinction is important for those of you unfamiliar with American politics. The pending American Internet legislation, Stop The Online Piracy Act (SOPA), was introduced into the United States House of Representatives by a…
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Live.Learn.Love.Leave
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How to Download Music From YouTube, FREE
25 Jan 2012 | 10:49 pmDid you ever wish you could download that one song from You Tube? This post is probably one of the most useful post I have ever written. I must also add that it does come in poor timing since the SOPA Bill and fighting online piracy is a hot topic right now. But what if there was that one amazing cover that was not for sale on iTunes or available for download by the artist. How the hell are you going to get it? How are you going to play it on your phone and groove to it on your way to school or work? I buy my music online and believe you should too. However, if you are a person who sometimes… -
Motivation: Stay True to Your New Years Resolutions
14 Jan 2012 | 4:11 pmI found a great video that will help motivate you to achieve your goals for the New Year. UFC commentator Joe Rogan makes some very great points on what it takes to be successful at anything. Karate teach you the same principles.When you train in Karate your are suppose to put 100% effort and focus into whatever you are doing. So every kick, punch and block is done with absolute resolution. In the video Joe Rogan makes the point that in order to be successful in anything you have to give it your all. Time is something you will never get back, so if you waste it half-assing and being lazy you… -
A Great Twitter Strategy To Land A Job
27 Nov 2011 | 10:34 amThe Back Story I recently was on the hunt for a job in Social Media and decided to use Twitter as a way to separate me from the rest of the applicants and get the attention of the companies that were hiring for positions that I wanted. I created the Twitter campaigns using My Likes, Tweet And Get it and My Blog. How It Works The goal was to get the companies attention by connecting to them through their Twitter account. I aimed to grow their Twitter account and direct them to a landing page that had a note introducing myself. I felt that this approach showed the companies that I knew… -
Glenn Ligon, 15 Great Works of Art
27 Nov 2011 | 9:16 amGlenn Ligon, 15 Great Works of Art Below are my favorite works of art from Glenn Ligon. I jut learned about him so I don’t know much, but I love that he uses different mediums to create his art. Most of the other artist that I have written about like Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso and Sally Mann used either painting or photography to create art. Glenn Ligon created art via photography, painting, sculptures and videos. I like that Ligon uses video as well to create art. I am a video editor and every time I shoot and edit a video I feel like i am creating a work of art (here is one). My… -
Tim Burton, 5 Halloween Costume Inspirations
31 Oct 2011 | 3:44 pmTim Burton, 5 Halloween Inspiration Tim Burton is one of my favorite directors ever because he has the ability to humanize the horrific and add a unique perspective to what monstrous is. Burton’s work in Beetle Juice, Edward Scissor Hands, Big Fish, A Nightmare Before Christmas, Alice In Wonderland and of course Bat Man has always left me truly inspired. It is not just the stories that get me, it is Burton’s ability to create truly remarkable characters. His movies although often dark and bizarre they have a way of making me feel that I can accomplish anything. Every Halloween I…
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Eli Rose Social Media
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YouTube: How to Enable the Featured Video Option on your Channel
27 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amEnabling and adding a featured video to your YouTube channel is l way to bolster your online brand. Implementing this built-in function can be easily done in 4 steps. Enabling the Featured Video for your YouTube Channel 1. When signed in and viewing your YouTube Channel, click the Edit Channel button on the right side. Choose the Info and Settings tab, and then select the Featured Tab option from the drop-down menu. 2. Next, click on the Featured Tab tab and check the box that reads, “Enable Featured Tab“. Click Done Editing and you’ll be returned to your regular channel… -
4 Popular Social Bookmarking Websites: A Review
25 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amTo say the world of social media is “expansive” is a gross understatement. Even the smaller subset of social bookmarking websites is exponentially larger than any single person can realistically use or incorporate into their daily social media To Dos. Four of the most popular social bookmarking websites are StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious and Reddit. Below you will find an overview of each site along with a list of what type of content works best on each. StumbleUpon Website: http://www.stumbleupon.com Bills itself as: A discovery engine to find the best of the web. Content Topics:… -
Using Webmaster Tools to Improve your Keyword Ranking
23 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amIf you spend any time at all on SEO efforts for your website or blog, you’ve probably wondered how good a job you are doing with your keyword choices and what are the most popular search terms that lead people to your site. Setting up and integrating Google Webmaster Tools into your Google Analytics is the perfect way to find the answers to these questions. A quick glance through your top search queries (in the past 30 days) on the top left side of your Webmaster Tools dashboard shows the impression and number of clicks for your top 10. Digging a little deeper into your search queries… -
The Facebook Subscribe Button
22 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amWhen the line blurs between your social media connections and real life family and friends, it can be hard. Deciding whether or not to follow someone back on Twitter is not the same type of decision as whether or not to accept a Facebook Friend request. Granting someone you’ve never met access to a more personal “you” is not something many Facebook users are very comfortable with. Enter: Facebook’s Subscribe button. Allowing for subscribers to your personal profile might be the perfect “in between” solution. Offering the option for your social media… -
Planning your Content: Building a Business Blog, Part II
20 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amYou’re a small business owner who understands the benefits of blogging for your business and have decided to start writing a blog. You’ve determined the level of content to be shared, who your reader groups will be and how much time you will devote to your new business blog. So, the next step in the process is to plan your content. Planning your content does not mean that you need to decide right now exactly what all the future posts on your business blog will be. But making some decisions about the topics you want cover, the depth of those topics and other resources you’d…
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AriHerzog.com
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How Commentluv Premium Promotes Your Blog
24 Jan 2012 | 1:55 amPhoto by Edumigue. Every blogger wants people to visit, read, and comment. Visiting is the easy part. Type in a URL or click a link and voila. Reading is also easy, especially if the content flows smoothly and is not long. Commenting has a stigma of being hard. While it’s easy for you to comment, [...]Please continue reading How Commentluv Premium Promotes Your Blog and leave a comment if inspired. Ari Herzog invites you to join his Facebook blog community. Related articles you may enjoy: How CommentLuv Promotes Your Blog How to Enhance Your Blog Comment: Focus on KeywordLuv and… -
Why You May Want to Date Online
19 Jan 2012 | 11:30 pmThe following is written by Brianna Phillips. It used to be the way to find a date was going out to the bars, being set up through mutual friends, meeting at the gym, or by merely holding onto the hope of running into a tall, dark and drop-dead gorgeous stranger in the produce section of [...]Please continue reading Why You May Want to Date Online and leave a comment if inspired. Ari Herzog invites you to join his Facebook blog community. Discover more articles on new and emerging media. Recent commentsMore and more of my friends are going this way…it'll be ... by JohnNever did it,… -
Introducing The Monday Muse: Your Weekly Dose of Social Media Inspiration
16 Jan 2012 | 1:46 pmWhatever your reason for reading my blog, I thank you. My ideas on new and emerging media come from many places — and people comprise a large part of my inspiration. I want to share those people with you. I want to share my muses with you. Beginning Monday, January 23, 2012, you will be [...]Please continue reading Introducing The Monday Muse: Your Weekly Dose of Social Media Inspiration and leave a comment if inspired. Ari Herzog invites you to join his Facebook blog community. Discover more articles on new and emerging media. Recent commentsRecent comments -
Your Right to Comment Here
10 Jan 2012 | 5:05 pmPhotograph by Matthew Hull. You have the right to say whatever you want online. You can say it in the comment section below or you can say it on your own blog. You can visit an internet newspaper and comment there too. But you do not have the right to expect a response. Do you [...]Please continue reading Your Right to Comment Here and leave a comment if inspired. Ari Herzog invites you to join his Facebook blog community. Discover more articles on new and emerging media. Recent commentsits too nice that you are offering other to comment here . from ... by Rahul MehtaI agree with you… -
FUN: Are You a Nerd, Geek, or Dork?
5 Jan 2012 | 12:30 pmThe question is simple. Which are you? Photo by Anita Patterson. Thanks to an entrepreneurial OKCupid online dater, you now can take the test inside of five minutes and quickly learn which of the three identifiers most resembles you. Nerds are passionate learners. Geeks are passionate niche learners. Dorks have difficulty with social norms. With [...]Please continue reading FUN: Are You a Nerd, Geek, or Dork? and leave a comment if inspired. Ari Herzog invites you to join his Facebook blog community. Discover more articles on new and emerging media. Recent commentsNo, I'm not a nerd,…
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Oman Collective Intelligence - MPiRe
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H&M faces a Facebook backlash
27 Jan 2012 | 1:33 amRetailer H&M is facing criticism on Facebook after the company was accused of stealing an American artist's design.Artist Tori LaConsay back in 2008 painted a billboard in Atlanta with the message “You Look Nice Today” to make residents in her town feel good about themselves. A few days ago she realised that H&M were selling towels, pillows and doormats with a similar design. H&M's reply was that “We employ an independent team of over 100 designers. We can assure you that this design has not been influenced by your work and that no copyright has been infringed.”Of course… -
The unconventional burger
26 Jan 2012 | 12:07 amThe Wimpy fast food chain in South Africa came up with a great idea to target the visually impaired. The campaign, aimed at “letting people know that Wimpy is a place where everyone can feel at home”, used Braille, the international language of the blind, to deliver such message.15 “Braille Burgers” were prepared by a chef who meticulously arranged sesame seeds on balls of dough with the end result being a message baked right on the burger bun, customised for the diner who can read Braille. Wimpy then delivered the burgers to three organizations that help blind people.Cleverly… -
Porsche Cayman S Facebook edition
20 Jan 2012 | 11:03 pmThe Stuttgart carmaker has unveiled a special edition model to celebrate a milestone of reaching two million fans on its Facebook page. The color scheme, red tinted, comes from the Porsche 917 K, the same vehicle that won the company’s first overall Le Mans victory with Richard Atwood and Hans Herrmann at the wheel. The car features the avatars of all their 2 million Facebook fans and the front-plate area reads “100% Porsche, 100% you.” If you’re a Porsche fan on Facebook you can go here and check out a 360-degree view of the ride, search yourself on the car as well as download… -
Banks and the fear of social media
8 Jan 2012 | 10:42 pmBanks generally, in Oman too, are not open to social media, that’s a fact. There seem to be the same initial fears that ATMs, internet and mobile banking created: security, reputation and control. Everybody is on social media especially generations Y and Z (born in the mid-1980's and later). Generations Y and Z have strong preference for communicating electronically and do much of their banking online, rather than walking into a branch. Knowing that the majority of the population is very young shouldn’t local banks be on social media too? Shouldn’t they find a secure way to interact,… -
Ninja flahmob
5 Jan 2012 | 1:09 amA light post for the weekend. A flashmob is a group of people who get together in a public place to usually perform something unusual. I thought this is quite funny :).
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Social Amateur
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StumbleUpon 101: How & Why to Stumble
26 Jan 2012 | 9:00 amHow do you continually find new & interesting content ideas for your blog? How do you get your blog posts noticed & read by people who don’t know who you are? One way is through StumbleUpon, a site that “learns” what kinds of articles you like and recommends those kinds of articles and websites. How to Use StumbleUpon Getting started is easy. Simple visit StumbleUpon and click the big “Join for Free” button in the middle of the screen. You can sign up with your Facebook log-in or enter your email, birthdate, a username and a password. Confirm you are a… -
Blog Challenge – What’s The Point?
23 Jan 2012 | 9:00 amPulitzer Prize-winning author James A. Michener once said, “Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.” If you’ve ever considered participating in a blog challenge, this quote may be a good one to keep in mind. My 2012 New Year’s resolution was to write every day. To “keep motivated,” I decided to participate in the popular Ultimate Blog Challenge. The rules are simple and ambitious – 31 posts in 31 days. Each post must have a minimum of 100 words. Post a link to your post in the Facebook Group and on Twitter. Take the time to… -
5 Tips for Identifying a Strong Ghostwriter for Your Local Business
17 Jan 2012 | 8:55 pmOnline marketing becoming a necessity for local businesses to stay in the game and compete with the big players, and when it comes to online marketing, content is king. From blogs to web copy, the need for good, clear and relevant content is crucial to attract a target audience, and often more importantly, to keep readers coming back for more. You also need your content to be seen by as many people as possible to build leads and attract more sales, which means getting current readers to forward your online content to others. But if you’re like many local business owners, you either struggle… -
Quora – What It Is and Why I Haven’t Been Very Active (Yet)
15 Jan 2012 | 9:00 amEveryone has questions, but where do you find answers when you don’t know who to ask? Many are turning to Quora. Quora is all about asking questions, answering questions, discussing topics of interest and sharing expertise. This large internet community features questions and discussions on just about any topic. It’s kind of Wikipedia meets Facebook meets Ask.com meets Yahoo Answers. Quora explains, “When you want to know more about something, Quora delivers you answers and content from people who share your interests and people who have first-hand knowledge — like… -
7 Things To Do After You’ve Written That Blog Post
11 Jan 2012 | 9:00 amYou’ve done the research, thought about this issue, put in the time and written a post for your blog. Now you can just sit back and watch the traffic grow and the comments flood in, right? Not quite. Just because your post is written, doesn’t mean your work is over. There are thousands of great posts out there that nobody sees, in part because the authors or blog owners haven’t followed through. Here are 7 steps you need to take after every post you write. (Yes, EVERY post. I know it takes extra time to go through these steps, but the more you do it, the more it becomes an…
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Community Connect
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The IBM CMO Study: Strengthened Visually
23 Jan 2012 | 9:04 amWhile I read the report, or rather re-read it, I realised some of the data could be better explained and hence this visualization. It’s only when I went thru this exercise of visualization, I realized that there are some areas which they need to highlight much more, well at least according to me, and I feel that’s the crucial part. More on that down below. IBM CMO Study(From Stretched to Strengthened: Insights from the Global Chief Marketing Officers Study). Firstly it’s a good report, however, I doubt most will be able to leverage it. Note: I think it’s a good report, however, it has… -
Social Media Enchantment: The Guy Kawasaki way
10 Jan 2012 | 3:54 amLast night I was enchanted and I couldn’t help but draw out Guy’s ideas on “how to make enchantment endure by building an ecosystem”. The idea applies to anything you wish to do. In today’s social world, it’s about building an ecosystem around your company and it’s social media, brand advocate and community program. Guy does an awesome job of explaining it. Check the visual below, before I dive into the details of applying it to your social media and community strategy. The components/key players of the ecosystem are visualized above the grey line and the part on how to… -
6 reasons why you need Brand Advocates not just FaceBook Fans
25 Oct 2011 | 4:09 amIn the online world fans are typically seen as people who like your FB page etc, advocates on the other hand are people who would rush to defend you. A broad term encompassing fans and advocates would be evangelists. I choose to separate fans and advocates based on their level of engagement and activities they do. Some people choose to use the term active fan. I feel that the term advocate does justice. There is a huge difference in the two. A fan clicks a like button and an advocate on the other hand does a whole lot more, both online and offline. Advocate’s typicall do the following:… -
Creating a Community Brand Advocate Program
1 Oct 2011 | 9:45 amFirst the Big O Building a brand advocate program begins by first defining the big O, your business objectives. What are you hoping to achieve from your advocate program. What is the purpose of your advocate program? Are you trying to build an advocate program to get inputs or to help with your product R&D, or is it to help increase the brand awareness via word of mouth marketing, or are your trying to encourage your customers to support each other. Each of these are valid and very different objectives targeting different business units within your organization. R.I.D.E. – A framework… -
Five Things To: Successfully manage your Business Reputation With Social Media and communities
30 Sep 2011 | 3:11 amWhat do you do when you view an adverse comment about your product/service, do you even come to know about it? Do you ignore it? As an organization you need a comprehensive strategy in place.Social media can prove to be a boon or a bane for your business reputation. Unlike traditional media where businesses broadcasted messages via mass media, social channels enable people to respond back to you, as well as take and convert your messages across their circle of influence. Additionally, filtering thru the noise and responding can be challenging for traditional corporate and PR personnel who now…
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Arekibo Digital Blog - Your resource for Social Media , Development ,Business and Trending articles
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Why I don’t like the Facebook “Like” button
17 Jan 2012 | 11:30 amThe Facebook “Like” button has been hailed as one of those great, game changing inventions online and for a while it actually was. It did make an impact in the early days, giving the Facebook users a say regarding their friends’ posts and the likeability of a product or services.Nowadays however, the Like button is used to create the perception of a great service instead of indicating something you really like or enjoy. The “Like” has turned in to a key to open a door which stands between users and the greatness of the Facebook wall. This concept has turned the power of the… -
The fully automated Twitter Experiment
12 Jan 2012 | 3:46 amHere in Arekibo we love Twitter, really we do… But there is also a compulsion to over analyse what is going on with this Social Networking messaging system.What is the end value of having a successful twitter account? Are we fooling ourselves, investing a lot of time in tweeting?To answer this question we decided on a twitter experimentThe goal was simple; create a successful Twitter account,not Justin Bieber successful, but successful enough! One thousand followers was our target with only one condition, everything needs to be automated, from following, to twitter welcome messages and… -
Have you covered your business on the web yet?
3 Jan 2012 | 9:04 amIt’s the beginning of a new year and you might find a spare hour or two this week before the new business mayhem begins. So why not spend those hours in checking and maybe even adding your company profile, website and employees on some of the many different internet platforms available.Why? Well currently there are around 582,716,657 websites (source: http://news.netcraft.com/ ) and your business is one of them. Adding your profile on multiple platforms will give it an extra boost with a chance of more traffic, more clicks and hopefully more conversions.Social Bookmarking – Submit your… -
Did your profile get in the LinkedIn Top 100 for Ireland yet ?
19 Oct 2011 | 8:32 amWhile we researching LinkedIn for one of our clients we noticed something interesting we like to share. Searching for the keyword “LinkedIn” on Google Ireland, will give the main LinkedIn Ireland page with a few internal site links to actually LinkedIn User profiles.Searching for LinkedInGoogle bases it’s search result on Authority, Relevancy and many more factors so by changing the search string slightly we have a Top 100 LinkedIn users in Ireland ! What is your rating ?Top 1 – 10 of users profiles1.Krishna De – Ireland | LinkedIn2.Stephen Judge – Ireland… -
Steve
6 Oct 2011 | 3:23 amWhen Leonardo Da Vinci found a new pen, he would take a scrap of parchment and write “Dimmi” (talk to me) on it. It was Da Vinci’s word to test the pen, to see how it wrote or drew. It was his way of making sure it flowed on the parchment and sat well in his hand. The tool was important to him, and the art he created, is without question among the greatest we have ever found. But when we look at a Da Vinci drawing or painting, we don’t think about the pens or the parchment he used. We don’t question the tools. Their design was irrelevant to the finished work that we revel in today,…
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Social Glitz
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The power of words…
17 Jan 2012 | 5:25 pmI’m a numbers person. Numbers don’t lie. They tell you the truth and we don’t have to question them (that is if they aren’t skewed). And yet, all of us communicate with words. Sometimes I wish we didn’t because, quite frankly, life would be easier if we communicated in numbers. No lies. No questioning. No mind games. Simplicity would be at the heart of our lives. At the end of the day, however, that is a wishing game. Words accompany us at any given time and while most of us have the best of intentions when we use them, we often forget the real power of them. The… -
The one where I don’t have a title because airport santa distracts me with his bells..
18 Dec 2011 | 5:12 amIt’s been one hell of a year. Ups and downs mark my first year as an expat. It’s not been glorious but it has been important for me to make this change. At the end of last year, I wrote about my ambitions for this year. They were simple. All I wanted to do was embrace life. And embrace life, I did. While change, inevitably entails all sorts of emotions, I learned that in order to become whole again, I need to stop being self destructive. I also realised, that I’m not alone in my self destructiveness. All of us do it, most of us do it daily. We tell us we are not good enough,… -
This is why you should read “Shoot the damn dog” by @SallyBrampton
7 Dec 2011 | 10:58 amDisclaimer: I’m about to *totally* pimp a book. I used to be a book worm. I read and read and read. Bringing characters to life in my head, envisioning the story an author is telling or even imagining them outside of the story I was reading, seemed to be some sort of refuge. For a while however, I had lost my love for books. I’m not sure why but what I once loved turned into effort. It’s been a while since I picked up a book and this time round it isn’t a novel. It’s not fiction. It’s real. As real as it gets. It’s Sally Brampton’s book… -
Holy cow, apparently I’m running my first 10k race on March 4th and how working out taught me an important life lesson!
18 Nov 2011 | 8:56 amDisclaimer: Profanity ahead! People keep asking me, do you enjoy going to the gym? Seriously people? Who ENJOYS going to the gym? I don’t see many people with smiles on their faces. Practically none. Unless they are trainers and find pleasure in causing other people pain. I certainly don’t stand in front of the big fat gym mirror, lift weights and smile at myself thinking, woman, you are awesome. Instead I’m thinking something along the lines of ‘holy shit this is going to kill me.’ I’m starting to believe that all those people featured in fitness magazines… -
A little bit of happiness.
31 Oct 2011 | 2:54 pmYesterday, my dad, brother and I sat in a perfectly nice Italian restaurant. We got a table next to the window and while we were enjoying a jolly good time, my eyes started to wander and through the passing crowd I saw something I see ever so often. A homeless man, sitting on the floor with a coffee cup in front of him. No sign was propped up in front of him, he didn’t say anything either. There was no sob story. He just sat there. His dog was laying on his legs, sleeping. All the man did was stroke him. Over and over, at the same pace. A strange calm surrounded this man. He was…
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eModeration Blog
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eModeration LOTW: Law and Order Edition, plus a little Pinterest
28 Jan 2012 | 7:32 amA social media links of the week list curated from a (mostly) US perspective. This week, gangs, the FBI, global censorship, cat herding (er, no - make that, live chatting,) Facebook's IPO and 11 deadly sins of social media. Enjoy! Photo Credit: www.graffiti.org Gang Use of Social Media With more than 70 known gangs, Chicago is now officially the most gang ridden city in the US. The Chicago Crime Commission reports on the use of social media by street gangs in a new book, The Gang Book of 2012, exploring the concepts of “cybertagging” and gang leader calls to… -
Happy Community Manager Appreciation Day and some predictions for 2012
23 Jan 2012 | 7:17 amCourtesy of Uservoice You’ll have heard, I’m sure, that today is global Community Manager Appreciation Day. The day you get to say ‘thanks’ to your friendly local community manager, and community managers throughout the world meet up virtually in a G+ hangout or with real live glasses in their hands at real live meet ups. You can check out some global goings on at Jeremiah Owyang’s Plancast here, and the Twitter hashtag for chat and events is #CMAD. We thought it would be a good time to look back over our eModeration Community Management milestones of 2011. It’s… -
eModeration LOTW: POTUS sings a solo and other news to peruse
21 Jan 2012 | 12:55 pmA social media links of the week list curated from a (mostly) US perspective. Enjoy! Obama Goes Viral US President Obama found himself a trending topic for his charming falsetto. At New York’s Apollo Theatre for a fundraising event, Obama sang a few bars of Reverend Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together.” Since Thursday, the video has become a viral pick for mainstream news as well as bloggers. Al Green thinks Obama “nailed it.” We agree! SOPA/PIPA Smushed January 18th, 2012 is being called the “largest online protest in history.”… -
FDA Guidance for Pharma on Social Media and Off-Label Use
19 Jan 2012 | 6:31 amThe pharmaceutical industry has been waiting (and waiting, and waiting) for guidance from the United States Food and Drug Administration on what is and isn't allowed in terms of social media communication and marketing. Now just a little has come through - but is it of any help? We think not much ... In November 2009, the Federal Drug Administration held a public hearing on its intention to issue guidance to companies on the FDA’s approach to regulating the promotion of medical products on the Internet and through the use of social media tools. The speakers included… -
eModeration LOTW: Tebow reigns, SOPA darkens, and Google shakes our world
14 Jan 2012 | 11:29 amA social media links of the week list curated from a (mostly) US perspective. Enjoy! SOPA Blackout Only time will tell which sites "go dark" on Wednesday, January 18 in protest against pending US SOPA/PIPA legislation. Reddit, Minecraft, Tucows, Major League Gaming, I Can Haz Cheezburger Network and others have stated their intentions to silence their online presences in protest, with Wikipedia mulling the decision. Forbes continues to push Facebook and Google to join in, but the expectation of what will actually happen in terms of protest is…
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blog till you drop!
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How the Sainsbury’s Customer Service Letter went viral; my theory
25 Jan 2012 | 5:43 pmI am sure you’ve all seen the lovely Sainsbury’s customer service letter that was doing the rounds in the social media world today. I’ve been doing a bit of digging around to try to understand how the story went viral; here’s my theory. If you Google ‘Sainsbury’s Customer Service Letter’ you’ll find 420,000 search results;… -
NFC Marker Spotted at Bus Stop
23 Jan 2012 | 4:12 pmI spotted this NFC marker at a bus stop a couple of days ago. NFC has been a bit of a buzzword since 2011, however there have been very few concrete examples of campaigns integrating the technology, in the UK anyway. What’s quite interesting here, is that they’re essentially prompting marketers to… -
Heinz Limited Edition tins
15 Jan 2012 | 3:10 pmI spotted those unusual tins of Heinz soup in Selfridges the other day, and whilst the packaging is iconic, the messaging is definitely unusual! Following their limited edition ketchup last year, Heinz are toying with social commerce again, by giving fans the opportunity to send a personalised tin of Heinz soup… -
A few social, search and mobile trends for 2012
3 Jan 2012 | 4:58 pmI am not usually a big fan of prediction posts, particularly when it comes to social, but recently spotted a handful of predictions by industry experts worth mentioning. Without further ado, here are a handful interesting social, search and mobile trends for 2012. These 3 disciplines are inextricably interlinked, yet too often siloed,… -
It’s that time of the year again. What are you New Year’s resolutions?
1 Jan 2012 | 6:04 pmPhoto via Dear blog, It is that time of the year where I should publish my New Year’s Resolutions for all to see. Wish me luck, and thanks James for inspiring me! Resolution #1: blog more I’ve been suffering from blogger’s fatigue on and off since I started blogging back in 2006, which has…
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Useful Social Media Blog
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Buying Facebook fans: quantity or quality – both or neither?
27 Jan 2012 | 4:50 amA PR agency can deliver 50,000 new Facebook ‘likes’ but where did those potential customers come from? Can they be qualified? And can corporations base their marketing on this data? Facebook has more than 800 million members, and most of the active ones tell each other on a regular basis what they like and dislike. In theory, these individuals can be profiled: simply by age and gender, or in detail according to their buying habits and preferences. So the Facebook community is a potential goldmine for businesses, especially those in the B2C space. You can keep close to customers, telling… -
This week’s Wednesday update with social gaming profiles, app loyalty, and new social markets
25 Jan 2012 | 5:45 amHi all, Hope everyone is well? We’ve moved our weekly update and will be posting on a Wednesday from now on. So, onto the social news and analysis of the week! Tech companies need to be more sociable You would think that tech companies would have embraced the social networks, but research carried out by PR agency EML Wildfire showed that technology companies are missing out on the potential of social media by not being social and failing to use these new channels to engage with their audiences. While tech companies understand the importance of social networking, only 31% of brands with… -
Social Law: Social Media Regulation and Policy
19 Jan 2012 | 6:28 amThe days of anything goes within the social media space are gone. Regulation and legislation now have a profound influence on your company’s social media policy In the 1990s and early part of this century a few things happened: First the Internet arrived. It feels a long time ago but it’s a very recent thing. Then almost immediately people started making wrong assumptions: that if for instance a photograph appeared on the Internet, it was free to use on any other website. Even professional newspapers were guilty of this and found themselves in court for copyright and intellectual property… -
Facebook selling: changing the face of retailing?
18 Jan 2012 | 2:50 amOnce considered commercial suicide, commerce on Facebook is becoming well established and could be your company’s most lucrative sales channel It’s a cliché, of course, but the speed with which Facebook has developed is astonishing, with over 800,000 members signing up since February 2004. However, this pace seems relatively sedate compared with the speed with which Facebook selling has developed. It’s less than three years since the pioneer Facebook shop was established: the first sale was of a bunch of flowers in July 2009. Since then, Facebook selling has become a way to market for… -
The Long Tail of Social Media
17 Jan 2012 | 7:42 amEstablishing that social media is good for contacting many customers en masse is easy. It can catch a lot of people and its appeal is broad. Except when it isn’t. Many businesses are finding the often cited “long tail” approach to marketing pays them handsomely when they aim for specific niches in social media. There are businesses that have used the new networks for recruitment, for finding investment and for numerous other purposes. To have your eyes opened search Facebook for Marriott Hotels; you’ll find not only a recruitment video, which is commonplace enough, but also a game in…
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Online PR Company
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WordPress Editorial Calender- 2012 Blogging Made Easier
22 Jan 2012 | 2:45 pmAs my work schedule has been busier than ever in 2012 my blog has taken a back seat and I haven’t had chance to write anything over the last four weeks. Whilst searching for blogging ideas, I came across this new plug in for wordpress which enables you to plan ahead and schedule in new posts. The Editorial calendar looks very similar to the Windows Outlook calendar with small boxes for each day of the week. There is an option to drag and drop information if you want to move content ideas around. If you are struggling to remember when to post or forget those genious ideas that pop into your… -
My love for Polyvore
4 Dec 2011 | 11:48 amI came across Polyvore a while ago and had lots of fun playing around with it. However, I recently discovered a way to use it effectively and incorporate it into a brands social media strategy. Since joining the team at Daniel Footwear I have been sourcing new ways to promote their products rather than blatant advertising. What is Polyvore? Polyvore is a social sharing website that is image based. People from all over the world are invited to create profiles and join the website to share their love of fashion. This website enables people to discover style and set their own trends to influence… -
An Encounter With a Greyhound- A PR Girls Worst Nightmare
13 Nov 2011 | 5:08 pmThis is the first time in 5 weeks that I have been able to blog again and I am bringing you a more personal post. Unfortunately I was left with one working hand due to a frightening experience involving a very angry greyhound. I was out in the park walking my elderly collie dog when we were unpleasantly faced with a large grizzly hound that was in ‘the red zone’ and definitely saw my dog as dinner. It was quite terrifying and in my attempt to stop the attack and save my dog, it appeared that I had been bitten along with acquiring broken bones in my right hand. As much as the horror story… -
The New Facebook Changes: From the Eyes of the Average User
6 Oct 2011 | 8:21 amI was delighted when I received this interesting guest post from enthusiastic Sophie Bratt (Psychology graduate from Cheshire). Sophie outlines the changes put in place for Facebook and how they can effect the standard user. A great way to ‘stay connected’: Facebook proves how credible it is with some astonishing figures: 1) Over 800 million active users, over 50 % of which log-in daily 2) Over 250 million photos are uploaded per day 3) More than 2 billion posts are ‘liked’ or commented on per day 4) And, the site is now available in more than 70 languages. So… -
Elephant Parade, Supporting the Asian Elephant Foundation
25 Sep 2011 | 10:51 amI have just returned from an amazing long break in Milan, and apart from the stunning scenery, fantastic culture and ultra-tasty cuisine this little or rather, BIG campaign caught my eye. The Elephant parade- Milan In support of a fundraising event to protect Asian elephants, international artists, designers and celebrities have decided to paint over eighty elephants with their unique designs and place them around the city and suburbs of Milan. This is the largest open air art exhibition to take place and I even found one in the airport! You can see a quick collection of the elephants below…
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Liz King Events: Social Media Event Planning Specialists
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Event Tech of the Week: @CheckInEasy
27 Jan 2012 | 8:14 amI love, love, love all things events and technology. If you can't tell by my tweets, Facebook posts and all my other social media interactions, I love to talk about events and the tools that help us do what we do better. In June 2011, I partnered with an organization called Pogby to bring you PlannerTech - an event technology showcase. This weekly blog series is going to help continue to expose you to new tools you need to be aware of as an event planner. Also, in case you missed it, PlannerTech could be coming soon to your area! Today, we're talking about CheckInEasy Your name: Justin Baer… -
7 Questions to Ask Before you Begin Your Event Location Search by @LizMazzei
26 Jan 2012 | 8:20 amLocation. Location. Location. One of the most essential pieces of any event is the location where your event will take place. In New York City alone, the Official Convention Bureau, NYC&Co (nycgo.com), estimated in 2010 there are 23,499 active restaurants alone. But it’s not just about Restaurants or the other ‘traditional’ event locations like Hotels and Conference Centers anymore. Bars, Lounges, Museums, Loft Spaces, Clubs, Bowling Alleys, Pool Halls, Arcades, Conference Centers, Offices and Conference Rooms, Concert Halls, Art Galleries, Retail Stores, Malls, Movie Theatres,… -
9 Things a Luxury Cruise Taught Me About Event Planning by @ProjectMaven
25 Jan 2012 | 8:22 amNote: I wrote this post just before the tragedy of the Costa Concordia began to unfold on January 13th. I decided it would be best to delay publishing of the piece, out of respect for all the people involved and the extreme nature of the situation. While my heart goes out to the survivors and all of the affected families, I continue to support the exemplary hospitality and technical innovation exhibited aboard the world's finest cruise ships, and their ongoing significance to the international travel and tourism industry. -Deborah Pannell… -
Hey Big Spender by @PenthouseLord
24 Jan 2012 | 8:25 amHey Big Spender: The largest party LJS Events has ever put together, both in terms of cost and logistics and one that most stretched the company’s resources to the limit, was to mark the bi-centenary of a international media consortium. This company was recently in a lot of trouble for listening to some phone calls of phones they did not own...oops. Initially the client had only a vague idea of what kind of party it wanted and it was left up to me to go to the company HQ for a brainstorming session with its PR people. The outcome was they could spend £2000 a head – I was already picking… -
Plan for Emergencies to Happen at Your Event by @GregRuby
23 Jan 2012 | 9:11 amThe recent tragedy of the cruise ship Costa Concordia serves as a vivid reminder to those of us in the events industry that we need to prepare for possible emergency situations at our events. I’ve been involved with events since 1978 (there were no child labor laws back then). Since that time, I’ve seen a plethora of incidents occur: Heart attacks, Childbirth, Injuries, Suicide, Public intoxication, False Fire alarms, Fires (with real flames), Property damage, Flooding, Public fighting First step – Analyze what risks are likely to occur during your event. You are not going to be able to…
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Leonard Sipes.Com
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Using social sites to accomplish your goals
25 Jan 2012 | 7:37 pmHttp://LeonardSipes.Com Question; can you effectively engage multiple social sites with limited staff? I attended BlogWorld in Los Angeles and went to a website marketing session. There was general agreement in the room that the purpose of social media was to direct traffic to your website. If the conversation takes place on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or LinkedIn (the definition of social media for this article) and it didn’t happen on your site, it was a wasted experience. There was also general agreement that people don’t like to leave their social sites via links to time-consuming… -
Why do we mistrust the media?
23 Jan 2012 | 11:15 amHttp://LeonardSipes.Com I conversed with a reporter for well-known national news organization. The subject was media coverage of government (or at least my portion of it). The conversation was fun and honest but I asked if we within government were better at transparency and openness compared to past years. I expected a rather gratuitous answer of yes. In this day and age of social media, openness and transparency I had assumed that we understood the value of a cooperative and honest relationship with the media. Her answer was disturbing. She stated that openness and access had declined… -
Business, fundraising, technology and social media
18 Jan 2012 | 8:48 amHttp://LeonardSipes.Com I just did an article (link below) titled “Want contributions? Reach out to the socially connected tech community.” In it I used data from Pew Internet suggesting that those technically and socially inclined are willing and able to respond quickly to calls for contributions. Now the Columbian (WA, link below) offers a short article about a local bank providing matching funds raised through social media with training provided throughWashington State University Vancouver’s Digital Media & Culture department. Banks providing matching funds, universities… -
Want contributions? Reach out to the socially connected tech community.
16 Jan 2012 | 8:16 amHttp://LeonardSipes.Com This site is dedicated to government, associations and nonprofits and nothing stirs the soul of people in the latter two categories than fundraising; money moves public policy far more than ideology. The research below from Pew Internet is based on charitable giving during emergencies. Charitable donations from mobile phones have grown more common in recent years and 9% have used text messaging to send a charitable donation. The ability to react immediately via technology has relevancy for giving across the board. The findings are summarized below but to me, the most… -
Yearning for a Quality Web Experience
10 Jan 2012 | 8:50 amHttp://LeonardSipes.Com Holly Finn from The Wall Street Journal writes about Humanizing the Web where she addresses deeper meanings from the online experience. The Internet is blazingly fast with people who run madly from page to page; skimming and not reading. The pace is tiring and the online experience becomes less than satisfying. We yearn for a quality web experience. I thought of Ms. Finn’s article when I engaged in a series of debates with two people in two social forums regarding an article I wrote as to “Why Facebook Doesn’t Send Your Traffic to Your Website”…
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DreamGrow Social Media
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Social Media Timing: Should You Tweet Morning, Noon or Night?
27 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amYou may already feel as though you are tweeting morning, noon and night as it is, but is this the right strategy for you? In this article, we will look at sometimes neglected aspect of your tweeting strategy… what time of the day and week that you tweet? As it turns out, the times you choose to tweet could have an impact on how those receiving your updates perceive you and your business. So is timing everything? Maybe not “everything,” but you can be sure it plays a vital role. Those wishing to convey a professional persona should note that the timing of their tweets… -
Timing Your Social Media Marketing B2B vs B2C
27 Jan 2012 | 4:08 amI found this very interesting infographic from Argyle Social about timing you social media activities for B2B and B2C. I’m also using it to test how Pinterest embedding works. Source: argylesocial.com via Dreamgrow Timing Your Social Media Marketing B2B vs B2C is a post from: DreamGrow Social Media -
Four Reasons Why You Should be Using Google Plus
26 Jan 2012 | 10:30 amThere are four major reasons that you should consider using Google Plus. If you are not already using Google Plus, the odds are that this article will motivate you to consider doing so in the near future. Google is an amazingly large company with a variety of long term aims and goals. This fact certainly factors into the reasons that you should consider using this social media tool to promote your business. 1. Google Isn’t Big on Failure Google may periodically have its small failures, but the company rarely lets something “big” fail, at least not completely or… -
What’s Pinterest and How to Use It for Marketing Your Brand?
26 Jan 2012 | 7:37 amIn December 2011 I reported that there was a new entry to the list of top 10 US social networking sites. It’s Pinterest. Pinterest debuted with almost the same market share a s Google+. So what’s Pinterest? Wikipedia tells us that: Pinterest is a vision board-styled social photo sharing website and app where users can create and manage theme-based image collections. Users label and create theme-based image boards. I have to say that I didn’t pay much attention to that site. But that changed as we got a pretty impressive peak of traffic from that site. Before January 14 we… -
Is Starting Your Social Media Campaign Too Early a Huge Mistake?
25 Jan 2012 | 7:38 amEveryone wants to jump on the social media bandwagon, especially small businesses, entrepreneurs and marketers. And can you really blame them? According to Joes Blogg, nearly 60% of adults maintain a social media profile and 33% post at least once a week. Facebook alone has 800 million active users with 50% of those users logging in on any given day. Who wouldn’t want to tap into that? There’s just so much potential between connecting with new people, generating leads and making sales. But is it possible to tap into social media too soon? I’m sure I’m not the only one…
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EduTek n Social Media Advisor
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Blended Mode of Learning using MyOpenCampus
19 Jan 2012 | 1:22 amI had already blogged about ‘SocialMediaLearning through MyOpenCampus’ at http://bit.ly/g8324F Now MyOpenCampus is available in the new version enabling you to Start a discussion, assign users and user groups and send notifications about them to users through email. Upload files and share them with users Create assessments, assign users to take them, announce the test results after deciding minimum passing %. This is simpler version of original MOC brought out earlier, enabling you to interact with users of your choice without using Twitter and blog. Hence when MOC (MyOpenCampus) is… -
NCHER Bill
10 Jan 2012 | 5:17 amI had already mentioned about Higher Education and Research Bill in my blog post titled ‘NCHER Bill’. The bill has been introduced in Rajya Sabha. The important details of the bill can be learnt by reading the article in Hindu titled ‘A mission to boost innovation, promote accountability in education’ The full text of the bill can be learnt by clicking here. As I had already mentioned, it really is a bold step in improving quality, research, innovation in Higher Education. As I talk about improving quality in Education, I recently read another interesting article in Hindu titled ‘A… -
Happy New Year 2012
31 Dec 2011 | 7:56 amWishing all my readers a 'Very Happy & Prosperous New Year 2012!'. My last 200 tweets in the form of PDF diary available at http://www.twitario.com/pdf?twitterUser=ELnSMediaExpert -
EduTek on Scoop.it
11 Nov 2011 | 11:30 pmWant to know the latest happenings in Educational Technology. I am curating content related to Educational Technology and scooping them on webpage EduTek You can view some of the articles I’ve scooped on the webpage EduTek below. Would like to keep yourself up-to-date with what is going on related to Educational Technology? Then follow me on EduTek and know the latest and important information related to Educational Technology. -
Educational Technology & Digital Marketing on Facebook
10 Nov 2011 | 11:27 pmThe following are some of the links and information I share on my Facebook page 'Advisor2U' related to Educational Technology and Digital Marketing / Social Media Marketing. Just visit the page ‘Advisor2U’ and like it, to update yourself with the information I share related to above mentioned topics.
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Madras Geek
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MegaUP : Upload if you can! Xbox, Windows Phone 7 Game Inspired By Megaupload Shutdown
27 Jan 2012 | 9:41 pmLast week, after the protest of SIPA, POPA the internet piracy act – the US Justice Department came down hard on Megaupload and its mega founder, Kim Dotcom was arrested. You all might have known about Megaupload.com, a site that lets users to upload and share files with friends and public which also had movie, music streaming online. The American FBI shuts down the Megaupload.com for copyright violation which causing $500 million dollars and arrested the owner Kim Dotcom and several of his employees. Want to know about Kim Dotcom, the owner of Megaupload ? I read an article few days… -
5 Android apps to Find cheap hotels
27 Jan 2012 | 10:40 amFew days back we told you about few android apps to find used cars, dealers and their reviews. Today we are going to see set of android apps that helps you to find cheap hotels, last minute book hotels around the world. You get to find cheap hotels, discount hotels at lowest fares right at your palm of your hand via android apps. Let’s check out some Hotel android apps : Hotel Finder : Once you’ve installed the Hotel Finder app on your android mobile, based on your GPS, it finds the location and near by hotels automatically. Positive feature is the crisp and easy to use interface… -
Delete All Your Tweets at a Time
27 Jan 2012 | 7:39 amIt’s been a long time since we talked about twitter apps. Previously we had reviewed alot of twitter applications such as to find who unfollowed you on twitter, twitter plugins for wordpress, share music on twitter and ultimate list of 170+ twitter apps, tools and guides. Today we are going to see a tiny app that helps you to delete multiple tweets at a time or you can say it deletes all your tweets at once. You cannot recover deleted tweets, so beware before using this app. If you had planned to start a new twitter account, instead of creating a new one – you can simple delete… -
10 Websites to Print Custom Business Cards Online
26 Jan 2012 | 10:45 pmRecently I got my Facebook cards for free from Moo.com. Moo, a leader in printing custom business cards, online flyers, stickers etc. Their new initiative that lets you to print your Facebook timeline cover as your business card and send it to you for free. Yes, they made it free all over the world. You get 50 cards for free. Today we are going to see some of the best websites that helps you to get your business card printed online and ship it over to you. The business cards can be designed with the easy template or you can upload your own business card design to these sites. You can create a… -
Android apps to Help Quit Smoking
26 Jan 2012 | 10:40 amThis might sound crazy, because there are many health guides that advices you on how to quit smoking and how to overcome the addiction, but how come these android apps will help in quit smoking addiction. I know quitting can seem so hard, but with regular practice and tips you can easily overcome it. I just read this post ” 50 Creative and Crazy Ways to Quit Smoking Once and for All ” – Just loved it. So adding to it, lets discuss some of the creative android apps that helps you in the process of quitting smoking. Quit Now : A simple android app with a minimal user interface…
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Travel Online Partners (TOP)
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(Google) Analytics Jargon Explained
11 Jan 2012 | 2:10 pmI’ve had a lot of thanks for the tips in our email marketing jargon explained piece, so I thought I’d dive right in with some explanations of typical analytics jargon, because sometimes it can feel downright confusing! For the purposes of today’s discussion, I’m mostly referring to Google Analytics, but in fact these terms are used wildly across a variety of analytics platforms. If you’re not sure what analytics means, that’s ok – let’s start right there. Web analytics are simply tools that you use to measure how much traffic your website… -
How to Manage a Community like a Pro
29 Dec 2011 | 7:56 pmBefore I get started with this review of Online Community Management for Dummies, I have to provide a hearty disclosure. That’s because one of my best friends wrote it – one of first people I ever met online, Deb Ng. So heck yes, my review is biased, but when your friends do great work, you tell people about it. Deb’s book is the first “for dummies” book I’ve read. Not that I have anything against them. I was not surprised that the dummies format makes things very digestible and also well organised so you can just read the sections most applicable to you… -
Are you a different person on different social networks?
20 Dec 2011 | 2:12 amHere’s a question I get a lot – I thought I’d just answer Joline’s email today via the blog (thanks Joline!): So, we’re doing the Facebook thing, and the Twitter thing, and we wanna make sure that we’re really being targeted to how users interact on those platforms. I read the recent post on Should I take travel bookings on Facebook – that was helpful, thanks, we’ve decided “not right now.” Ok, so my question is, I’ve seen other people have special links on their Twitter and Facebook pages. Like,… -
Promotion Probably Isn’t The Problem…
12 Dec 2011 | 11:32 amMy good friend Becky McCray from Tourism Currents always is a pithy tweeter, and this weekend was no exception, especially when I saw this gem pop up in my Twitter stream: Promotion Probably Isn’t the Problem I see this a lot – you could easily change the word restaurant to”website” or ”tour” or ”bed and breakfast.” People jumping up and waving frantically, trying to flag down traffic to get people to stop for something they aren’t interested in, and isn’t that good anyway. Looking at what people say when taking our free… -
It’s Time to Get More Focus (Big Biz Changes Inside)
5 Dec 2011 | 7:30 amYup, it’s that time again. It’s time for myself and the TOP team to take some of our own advice. One of my personal pet peeves is when someone tells me “they’ll do anything.” What does that mean? It’s really hard to refer clients to someone who “does anything,” because when you do anything, you kind of… well, you do nothing. Nothing special anyway. Going Back to Our Roots One of our first packages was our website evaluation package. It was very successful. It was based on the work I’d done for years when my work at PeopleSoft…
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Social Media Club of Dallas
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Content Marketing Careers Interview with Joe Pulizzi
24 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amI had the pleasure of interviewing Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute, when he visited Dallas to speak to SMC Dallas. As we were talking I was curious about the evolution of the content marketing career and discipline. Tune into the interview here: What are you thoughts about content marketing roles? -
Blogwell Dallas: #SMCDallas discount code
19 Jan 2012 | 8:02 am“BlogWell is a fantastic opportunity to learn best practices directly from the professionals who are implementing them.” — Shelby Stoolman, ConAgra Foods We are excited to offer a discount for SMCDallas to BlogWell being held in Dallas on Tuesday, January 24th. BlogWell: How Big Brands Use Social Media 8 Great Case Studies on the Best Social Media Programs at Large Corporations The companies: Advanced Micro Devices Shell United Northwestern Mutual Coldwell Banker AT&T Level 3 Texas Instruments And if that wasn’t motivation enough, Use code SMCDALSENTME to save… -
January SMCDallas Event: Managing Content Marketing Book Tour
18 Jan 2012 | 11:42 amReminder: Early registration ends at midnight 1/18 Brands around the world are spending (on average) over 25% of their total marketing budget on content marketing. There have been countless books and resources that have covered all aspects of content marketing… from the why to the what to the where…but oddly enough, rarely the how. Not until now that is. Who: Marketing, PR, and Social Media professionals from a variety of agencies, companies and brands throughout the Dallas Fort Worth area. What: Monthly speaker event. Networking, a Speaker, a Book, and always fun! Where: Angelika Film… -
Get Your Jingle Mingle Ticket Today and Save $5!
25 Nov 2011 | 11:42 amAh, Black Friday, that special time of the year when folks feel the strong urge to wake up at the crack of dawn to line up at the local Wal-Mart in hopes of scoring huge discounts on items in their holiday shopping list. Fortunately for you, this special Black Friday deal requires none of the headaches associated with typical day-after-Thanksgiving offers. No – for you, we’ve made this as simple as can be. If you still haven’t purchased your ticket to the Jingle Mingle, now’s your chance. If you purchase today and use the code BLACKFRIDAY you’ll save $5 on your… -
Smart Business, Social Business Book Tour with Michael Brito [Event]
24 Oct 2011 | 3:21 pmSocial Media Club of Dallas October 20, 2011 #smcdallas @smcdallas http://www.smcdallas.org Smart Business, Social Business Book Tour Agenda: 1. 6:00 Networking 2. 6:45 Welcome and intro 3. 7:00 Introduction to Sponsors @JaredRey 4. 7:15 Sponsor presentation 5. 7:30 Smart Business, Social Business Book Tour with Michael Brito @Britopian 6. 8:45 Post Tweetup at Trinity Hall @TrinityHall About our Speaker Michael Brito is a senior vice president of Social Business Planning at Edelman Digital and leads the digital team in Silicon Valley. He provides strategic counsel, guidance, and best…
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Rick Mahn
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Technology Redux
12 Jan 2012 | 11:16 pm'nixie' by teclasorg So I find myself a year into another technology consulting gig for “the big client”. It’s an interesting thing after spending a couple of years working both the corporate IT world and growing a community for social media professionals. While I’ve grown a little tired of social media for its ability to enable too much interaction, I do find I miss the action. Sometimes. As you may have noticed, I’ve backed away from the social media space in the past six months or so. It’s a conscious decision on my part to get back to basics, and focus… -
Happiness CCCXCIX
26 Dec 2011 | 8:48 pmNot having to… wait for it. (God I’m tired of everyone saying that.) -
Stacked!
9 Oct 2011 | 7:37 pmFinally, all done. -
Getting Back to Where We Came From
9 Oct 2011 | 7:06 pmIt wasn’t so long ago, not quite a decade yet, when I first discovered what a blog was. The idea of sharing ideas and publishing them to the world was new to me. That was what journalists did, and story tellers. Not some computer guy from Minnesota. Yet I was wrong. I read blogs from all sorts of folks, from all walks of life. The blogs with topics furthest from my own experiences were the most interesting, of course. Through the months and years, the people I knew grew from a couple dozen to hundreds, then a few years later, thousands. The impact personally, was tremendous, allowing me… -
Happiness CCCXCVIII
25 Sep 2011 | 9:35 amA simple fire on a clear, crisp, cool evening.
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Callis & Associates - Marketing Blog
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Everybody’s Talking at the 2012 SHOT Show
26 Jan 2012 | 11:22 amIf you are involved in the shooting sports industry, especially as a member of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), and you follow the industry through any of the various traditional or digital media outlets, then you know what everybody’s been talking about for the past several months; that’s right, the SHOT Show. SHOT is the largest trade show of its kind in the world, showcasing products and services offered by manufacturers and distributors representing the firearms, ammunition, hunting and outdoor sports industries. So when did this SHOT Show conversation start? -
Focus On the A, B, C’s
18 Jan 2012 | 3:13 pmAt the start of each year, I challenge our associates here at Callis to come up with three words that they can use to bring clarity to their work in the coming months. We even include those words in their annual performance goals. I do the same and I use those words as a daily reminder of what I should be focusing on. It’s easy in today’s world to be attracted by shiny objects, distracted by everything going on around you and lose focus. Hopefully, these words can help you remember what’s important. My 3 words this year are Awesome, Believe and Create, ala the A, B,… -
Finding the Good in Spam
28 Dec 2011 | 10:26 amMy personal email inbox probably looks much like yours: a few emails from friends, a larger group of emails I’ve subscribed to, and spam - lots of it. Doreen, Azzie, and Elnore - ladies I don’t know - want to tell me about Lasik eye surgery, sell me Apple iPads for $30.00 (right!), and supply pills designed to improve my marriage. Nearly everyone ignores spam or moves them to the trash… but not everyone. Successful spammers generate a lot of cash. How do they succeed at something that is universally despised? I don’t like spam, but I’ve learned to pay attention to… -
Why Read Callistetics (our marketing blog)?
22 Dec 2011 | 12:00 pmYour time is valuable so we know we have to give you value in our blog if you’re going to invest your time to read it. Callistetics is targeted to marketing and business people on both the client and the agency side. Our goal is to give you relevant, useful and timely content that might help you do your job even better. Each member of our agency contributes so you get a variety of perspectives from executives, account management, creatives and technology. Topics which we write about are also varied so they appeal to a broad group of readers working in different levels of positions in… -
Shopping Carts & Customer Service: An Online Shopper’s Perspective
13 Dec 2011 | 2:25 pmI’m a working mom with a one-year old and we live an hour from the nearest mall, so I don’t have a lot of opportunities for shopping trips. I also have 17 family members on my gift list so I do A LOT of online shopping. However, I rarely buy if I’m not getting free shipping. So if you have a shopping cart on your website and are offering “deals,” make sure you make the experience easy and follow through on what you’re promoting. Here are a couple of recent encounters I’ve had. I’ve purposely not used actual website or brands because it’s…
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Kherize5 Blog
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Honda Targets Life Stages With New Leap List Campaign
27 Jan 2012 | 4:02 pmA new year, new budgets, new campaigns, and the kick off to what promises to be the best of the best in advertising for the Super Bowl. It is such an exciting time for advertising as we wait with anticipation for the spots during the game (unless you peek and watch the ones that were released early). Who ever would have thought that the 1st weekend in February would place advertising and advertisements in the spotlight? Thereafter, we we start seeing ads catered towards holidays, seasonal ads with spring around the corner and summer knocking as well with ads that try and tie their brand into… -
Choosing Your Audience Without Apologies
19 Jan 2012 | 12:05 pmChoosing your audience without apologies is traditional advertising of tv, radio and print as these spots tend to reach the watchers of a certain show, magazine/newspaper or station and not necessarily those that would ever purchase. This holds true on the web as well with sites that have ads that reach the target market and then some who are viewers of the site but do not fit the exact target of the ad. Sure, we look at the numbers provided by the media outlets and strategically place ads based upon the demographics provided by them and see where our target is there and bam, we place and… -
Advertising Isn’t Dead – The Creative Process Is
25 Dec 2011 | 2:27 amEvery single year we hear advertising as a whole or the various mediums (ie radio, print, outdoor, etc) are dead. And, every year we see new advances in technology and advertising thrive. There are new mediums emerging and we are expanding advertising so, to say that advertising is dead is ridiculous. Advertising is more alive now than it ever has been. I admit, I am a bit old school when it comes to advertising and, like many, think radio, tv, print, outdoor. But, there is a whole other medium that we tend to not necessarily consider advertising: the social platforms; which are very much… -
Fear or Trust
13 Dec 2011 | 9:00 amMany years ago, as a young 26 year old entrepreneur in Atlanta, I was invited to speak at an event where President Clinton was also speaking. As people mingled backstage I’ll never forget watching him as he put his hand on the shoulder of the Governor and said, “It’s all about psychology. You need to understand the psychology of the voters. It’s all about psychology.” Not surprisingly, Clinton and his team came up with the famous phrase, “It’s the Economy Stupid.” They understood that psychology drives elections and the economy. Fast forward to today, it’s no wonder the… -
How To Add Facebook Subscribe Button To Your Website
9 Dec 2011 | 9:48 amIn less than 24 hours after the big announcement of the Facebook Subscribe button for websites, the feature is now live and appearing on some of the biggest news sites like MSNBC, Huffington Post, Forbes and Washington Post, to name a few. The Subscribe button has the same functionality as it does on Facebook pages which eliminates the need for users to have to read an article and then have to go over to Facebook to Subscribe. You may recall that back in September the Subscribe button was launched eliminating the need for users to have to be friends to see updates, well on the ones that are…
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Social Media Philanthropy
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Do You “Bucket?” How to Create a Funnel On Any Network.
20 Jan 2012 | 2:56 pmHere’s something cool about business, whether you are in a B2B or a B2C environment your sales funnel looks almost the same. You have varying degrees of relationships with people. Some are “warm leads,” some are “cold leads,” and some are just part of the rest of the world that you have no contact with and who don’t know who the hell you are. It looks like this: The way you grow as a business is by converting more leads into clients. So here’s how to do that systematically on ANY network (any network that supports the organization of your… -
Facebook Launches 60 New Applications for Timeline: What It Means for Users and Marketers.
19 Jan 2012 | 1:26 pmLast night, at 8pm Eastern Standard Time, Facebook unveiled the next evolution in the Facebook platform. Following up on last year’s F8 conference in which Timeline was introduced, Open Graph was extended to “frictionless sharing” applications and Gestures were explained, Facebook has partnered with 60 websites that want YOU to set it and forget it. For those that don’t know what the hell I’m talking about here’s the whole thing in a nutshell: Open Graph Frictionless sharing Frictionless sharing apps apps let you authorize an application once, and then… -
What is your dream?
16 Jan 2012 | 5:26 pmOn Martin Luther King Day, the phrase “I have a dream…” is spoken and written more frequently than on any other day of the year. Though Dr. King said many things of value, the I have a dream speech is by far his most well known. The speech is about seeing a future that you want to exist and speaking that vision into existence for others to share. Once the vision is shared, it can begin to create a movement. A Dreamless Business Environment The current business environment doesn’t seem like much of a dream. While there are flashes of brilliance,… -
Truth is…maybe you’re not ready to be a Social Business
11 Jan 2012 | 7:45 amThis post is not aimed at anyone. It’s more of a culmination of things I’ve experienced, writing proposals and sifting through new business opportunities. Truth is, some companies aren’t going to ever become a Social Business and may never succeed in Social Media. Quite frankly, maybe some companies just don’t belong on Social Media. Here’s why? They’re not going to succeed because they don’t “get it” That’s the BIGGEST reason. Not only DON’T they “get it,”they think they DO “get it.” I’ve… -
Focus on Clarity. You Are What They Read.
6 Jan 2012 | 9:36 amAs some of you may have noticed, Social Media Philanthropy looks a little different. If you have dropped by my Social Business Agency‘s website, you will notice that looks different too. These changes come amidst my goals and priorities for 2012. One goal is speed, I want all of my websites to load quickly and get right to the point. Another goal is clarity. is a function is precision in communication intended to reduce the variation in how people interpret a piece of content. In 2011, there was far too much variation in my content and messaging thereby causing a lack of…
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Ernest Barbaric
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What is Content Marketing?
27 Jan 2012 | 6:49 pm2012 seems to be the year of Content Marketing. It’s everywhere. When you have global organizations such as Coca Cola committing their strategic and marketing resources to content marketing, it’s a significant enough shift to warrant a deeper look. To me, it seemed like a repackaging of the term “Social Media Marketing”, so I thought to investigate and share some of those findings here. Content Marketing This is a fairly recent term used to describe “the creation and sharing of content in order to engage current and potential consumer bases”,… -
3 Brass Tacks of Engagement
26 Jan 2012 | 9:55 amThe term “engagement” has been tossed around like a wet sock at a college dorm for a while now. If you were to play a drinking game, taking a shot every time a presenter said “engage the audience” at a social media conference… I don’t believe you’d be awake to see 10AM. So, let’s take a moment and see what this “engagement” is really all about. Engagement = instance of interaction One of the ways to define engagement is as an instance of interaction. This is usually manifested when someone clicks “Like” on your… -
Why You Suck at Social Media
15 Jan 2012 | 6:53 pmThis article was literally JUST inspired by a podcast interview I listened to, in which a certain executive coach and consultant goes on to berate Twitter as a waste of time. Well Sylva, let’s dance… By the way: following applies equally to virtually anyone who gripes that social media is a waste of time. Let me give you some context before we tear into this. The example used in the podcast was that she tweeted she was looking for a videographer, but nobody got back to her. She was ready to engage someone in a paid (I assume well-paid) contract to provide videography services and… -
Future of Marketing in 2012 and onward – Interview with Julien Smith.
11 Jan 2012 | 10:00 amUncut Marketing Podcast returns for 2012 with an exclusive interview with Julien Smith, the author of Trust Agents and Flinch. In this episode we talk about what’s changed since Trust Agents was first published in 2009, where the marketing industry is headed and what are some of the ideas today’s brands should focus on. You can now find our podcast at its new home: uncutmarketingpodcast.com Links from the show: Mount Royal’s Social Media for Business certificate Julien Smith’s blog and website Trust Agents – on Amazon – on Chapters… -
Social Media for Business at Mount Royal Calgary
8 Jan 2012 | 9:46 pmIn the last half of 2011, Marc Binkley and I have been working on a brand new certificate program for Mount Royal University. Finally, it’s time to launch. Starting on January 29th, 2012 the Social Media for Business extension certificate is getting under way. Composed of 5 really great courses, this continuing education program will bring participants up to a high level of competency in social media marketing. Starting from the basics in the introductory course all the way to Digital Marketing Strategy and Analytics, finally culminating in something I’m personally VERY excited…
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albarce
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Is Google shooting itself in the foot with social search?
17 Jan 2012 | 6:12 pmPersonally, I was very excited when Google+ came out. I thought they could be a true competitor to Facebook. However, since they’ve started, Google has done nothing to keep my enthusiasm for their social network. First, they failed miserably with brand pages. Brands wanted to get out there and promote the network, what did they do? They shut down those accounts and told brands to wait. Really? People are really anxious to try your product and promote it for you and you’re going to tell them no? Really?! Then, they finally came out with brand pages and I was disappointed big time. Not… -
Why a Facebook Contest is a Bad Idea for Your Small Business
22 Dec 2011 | 12:21 pmFacebook is an excellent place to businesses to gain instant popularity. People who would have never walked into their physical store can now find out all about a company by viewing their Facebook profile. Granted, most people can also find all they want to know about a company on their website, but Facebook gives users a different experience. Unlike your site, it’s in a community that millions people are familiar with. They expect your page to be a little less corporate than your site and much easier to interact with. All this being said, most would think that Facebook would be a great… -
Weak sauce Google+, weak sauce
15 Nov 2011 | 8:15 amMonday of last week, Google rolled out their Google+ business pages to mixed results. Since Google+ debuted earlier this year, brands have anticipated the launch of business pages to promote their message through another social channel. I must admit, I myself was antsy to see what Google would do with these highly anticipated pages. I was quite underwhelmed. First, the roll out was pretty weak. The announcement seemed a bit haphazard and with all the buzz (no pun intended) about Google+ when it first came out, I expected a bit more for the business pages. Next, these pages seemed to launch… -
How Social Media Has Changed PR
15 Oct 2011 | 6:58 pmCourtesy of AllPosters.com I’m really not that old, but a lot of my friends will tell you I have an ‘old soul’ – mostly because I like to watch 70’s westerns and go to bed early. But that’s beside the point. My point is that I’m not that old. I graduated college 3 (almost 4) years ago. My degree is in PR and I feel like almost everything I learned in my PR classes is so out of date it’s like I learned it all 25 years ago. While writing a press release the other day, it hit me that I still make my releases fit the rules that were drilled into my head every class, even… -
Why Google+ is great for Facebook
6 Jul 2011 | 8:47 pmIt’s only in its BETA stage and I’m already a fan of Google+. Why? Because I see it as a real competitor to Facebook. And I truly believe that competition inspires innovation. Facebook’s announcement of video chat is not innovative in and of itself, but the UI of its group and video chat is sleek and easy-to-use. People tend to get a little over excited (and upset) when Facebook makes changes to their interface but, in the end we all realize that they know what they’re doing. Take, for example, the Newsfeed; when this first came out, I remember seeing groups popping up all…
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gizmogyan.com
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Wikipedia to Go Dark on Wednesday to Protest Anti-Piracy Legislation
17 Jan 2012 | 1:42 amTo protest anti-piracy legislation under consideration in Congress, Wikipedia will black out the English language version, the organization said in a statement. According to the statement, the website, which is quite popular among the internet users with millions of visitors daily, will go dark for 24 hours. Not only Wikimedia, several other online communities such as Reddit, Boing Boing and others have announced plans to go dark in protest as well. Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia said the bills are a threat to the free, open, and secure web. Wales was the first to announce the move on his… -
5 More Games to Keep You Busy, Other Than the Angry Birds
17 Jan 2012 | 12:21 amIf you are done with the Angry Birds, five more games are waiting for you. We have found 5 more games to you busy, other than the Angry Birds. These games are, Stupid Zombies, Aiko Island, Sky Burger, Fruit Ninja and Cube Runner. 1. Stupid Zombies- This game is said to be most similar to the Angry Birds. You have to follow aim-and-shoot method in order to pass each level. There are more than 600 level, you need to pass, gunning down a series of bloody zombies. -
Now Google tablet in March this year, priced for $200
6 Jan 2012 | 12:27 amLondon- Google is going to roll out its own brand tablet PC by this March or April, reports say. The seven inch tablet will be pitched against 9.7 inch iPad and will be priced at $200. Amazon’s Kindle Fire is being sold in the same price range. Digitimes reported quoting sources from Google’s upstream supply chain believe that Google, instead of Apple, may actually be targeting Amazon’s 7-inch Kindle Fire as its major competitor. Google has recently made moves into selling music, films and books, so such a move would make sense. Though, Google officials in Taiwan have refused to… -
iPhone 4S set to face Samsung Galaxy S3
6 Jan 2012 | 12:17 amLondon- iPhone 4S is going to face tough competition from Samsung’s latest to be launched 3D handset Galaxy S3. According to the reports published in the Daily Mail, this handset may be launched in February this year and could display 3D films and games on its screen, and even plug into 3D televisions to ‘play’ 3D content such as photos. Korean news website ET News has said in its report that the much awaited smartphone will sport hi-tech features such as an AMOLED screen capable of 720p hi def. The phone will also have 2GB of RAM. The new handset will be launched at the Mobile… -
Lenovo Introduces Tablet Series for Various Mobility and Entertainment Needs
31 Dec 2011 | 4:17 amLenovo has introduced a series of tablets to suit various mobility and entertainment needs. These include IdeaPad tablet A1, IdeaPad tablet K1 and Think Pad tablet. The first two are aimed towards consumers while the third is designed for enterprise customers. All three run on dual core Nvidia Tegra 2 mobile processor and comes with expandable memory, scratch proof screen, 1 year guarantee and distinct and appealing features. These tablets will hit stores sometime later this month. Lenovo has stated that these new tablets will come with lower power consumption thereby offering longer battery…
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Listen Completely
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The Social Analyst Manifesto
24 Jan 2012 | 2:24 pm2012 seems to be the year of many things. Business are going to take social media engagement seriously, they’ll become more comfortable in the space, they’ll hire data analysts to measure all sort of stuff in new ways. They’ll slay the dragon known as social data.Lofty goals to be sure, but the market is clear: we need to make business decisions based on data. My employer, EMC, is betting the server farm on it. Not just in products and solutions, but in first-in-the-industry data science summits and data science certifications. It’s a serious business. My readers might… -
Have you hugged your Community Manager today?
23 Jan 2012 | 10:04 amThese days, most large companies and organizations host some sort of community for their employees to share innovative ideas, for customers to seek thought leadership or for prospects to dig deeply into your culture. These things aren’t new, they’ve been around since the days of IRC chat. Prodigy, Compuserve and AOL put the ideas into the mainstream for internet users. Today’s communities run the gamut in terms of content focus and technologies. Ning, Jive, Lithium, Sharepoint, Vision Critical, and LinkedIn groups are the names on the tip of my tongue for technologies that… -
DISCUSS: Are you a Facebook liker or lurker?
16 Jan 2012 | 4:42 pmHardly a week goes by when some enterprising colleague asks me how to identify, segment, market to, and effectively stalk (my words, not theirs) their company page’s Facebook followers. While I know that folks at RapLeaf and Social Intelligence play this game, there are legitimate reasons why Facebook makes it damn difficult for you and me to pull this info. I hope I need not explain any further than by pointing-out the umpteen visceral reactions Facebook users have had to each and every change made to the social networking site. But clearly, it is helpful to be able to know who’s… -
4 Ways to Enhance SEO with Social Listening
11 Jan 2012 | 3:37 pmWords. Funny things… words. We use them all the time. In fact I’ve used of 27 them so far in this post. But how do we use them? We use them to write, to speak, to think, to communicate. We use them as an index to our world. Everything can be categorized with words. This could be one reason search engines work so well I don’t mean to be flip, but think about words. Think about how words are used and where they are used to search and to interact. This “how” and “where” are the key differentiators between SEO and social. And guess what? They’re… -
5 Tips to Decipher Social Sentiment
9 Jan 2012 | 12:18 pmSentiment is a funny topic. Why is it so important and why do we rely on tools to tell us what it is and what it means? Why are we content to assign a positive or negative score to something, but resist the idea of understanding the ideas presented within the comments themselves? This has been an interest of mine long before social media monitoring came on the scene. The Knight Digital Media Center offers great perspective on the idea of distilling sentiment from user comments left on blogs or mainstream news sites. We’ve all seen them: those nasty, sometimes hateful reactions and…
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The B2B Guide to Social Media
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Social media gives IT more clout
26 Jan 2012 | 8:36 amThe rise of social media in today’s corporate environment has created a new set of challenges for the IT department. At the same time, with Facebook alone representing a billion plus community, social media is a huge commercial opportunity that cannot be ignored. According to Geoff Rees, Sales Director of Sunrise Software, IT professionals should embrace – and indeed own – social media as the ideal platform to increase customer engagement, protect the corporate brand and ultimately generate new revenue streams. By adopting a service management approach to social media, IT… -
Ten UK tech journos to follow on Twitter
24 Jan 2012 | 3:55 amThis list is subjective. It is not based on any quantifiable stats. If you haven’t made it, then unlucky. Try not to lose any sleep over that. I won’t be. @charlesarthur - Twitter SUPREMO and Guardian technology editor Charles Arthur, is le grand fromage when it comes to breaking tech stories. Note for PRO’s: Waste his time and he’ll out you faster than a twitched retweet. @yirrelli - Editor of top UK channel rag CRN, Sara Yirrell can be credited with pulling the magazine into the digital age. She not only engages her audience on Twitter but also publishes the most… -
Infographic of the Week: Geeks vs Nerds
23 Jan 2012 | 8:58 amSo not strictly B2B, but we loved it so much we decided to share it with you all anyway… Tweet -
B2B Blog of the Week: IdeaPaint
20 Jan 2012 | 3:08 amImagine a world where you could draw on anything. A world where you could scrawl all over your bedroom and your parents wouldn’t get narky. A world where you could graffiti on your school walls and not wind up with an ASBO. A world where you could doodle and scribble to your little heart’s content. ON A WALL. What an amazing world that would be. Enter IdeaPaint. These marvellous people have invented a paint that you can write all over and simply wipe away when you’re done, a bit like a giant white-board. Not only does it satisfy everyone’s dormant childhood impulses to draw… -
Infographic of the Week: Architects – How do you use Twitter?
19 Jan 2012 | 10:10 amvia Tweet
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Venpop
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How to Set Your Facebook Shop as the Landing Page for Fans
27 Jan 2012 | 1:22 pmYour Facebook landing page determines fans’ first impressions when they visit your page. One option is to have fans land on your Facebook shop so that they immediately see products that hopefully motivate them to engage with your brand. Here’s how to set your Facebook Shop Tab as the default landing page for fans in four easy steps: 1. Go to your Facebook Fan Page and click the “Edit Page” 2. On the left menu click “Manage Permissions” 3. Use the drop-down menu for “Default Landing Tab” and select “Shop” 4. Select “Save Changes” at the… -
What You Need to Know About Google+ Users [Infographic]
26 Jan 2012 | 1:32 pmIf you have a Google+ business page or if you’re considering getting one, it’s important to understand who is using the social networking site. Knowing who Google+ users are will help you to better use your page to market your brand. Or, if you don’t have a page, you can check out the user demographics of Google+ to see if your business should think about making one. Keep in mind that there are still plenty of perks from Google+ pages even if it won’t be reaching your company’s primary demographic. Your brand doesn’t have to update its page regularly… -
Brazil’s New Overtime Law Has Big Implications for Social Media
25 Jan 2012 | 2:07 pmBrazil recently passed a law stating that employees who address work-related e-mails outside of the office can ask for overtime pay. The law argues that e-mails from work are the same as direct orders to employees, therefore entitling them to overtime. As Forbes pointed out, this isn’t the first time the issue has been tackled. Volkswagen worked with labor representatives and agreed to only e-mail employees between half an hour before works starts and half an hour after it ends. T-Mobile has also made an effort to limit out-of-office communication. However, Brazil is the first… -
Win Free Facebook Ads!
23 Jan 2012 | 6:14 pmHere at Venpop we’re always looking for ways you can use social media to market your business, and Facebook’s Small Business Boost contest is the perfect opportunity! It’s an easy way to get $150 in free Facebook advertising with a chance to win $10,000 more. The the contest started January 17th, 2012 and ends April 1st, 2012, but you can sign up any time throughout its duration. The only requirements are that you are a small business in the United States and that you already have a Facebook page with at least 50 likes. Just for signing up, your business will get $50… -
4 Reasons Your Brand Wants Pinterest
23 Jan 2012 | 2:13 pmLike Tumblr, Pinterest is an up-and-coming social media site that is definitely catching the eye of many marketers. Not only is it growing in its number of users, they’re spending more and more time on the site. A comScore study found that the amount of time the average user spent on the site between May and October of last year increased by an impressive 512% to 72.1 minutes per month. An image-sharing social pin-up board, Pinterst is growing fast, and it has lots of marketing potential. Here’s how you can use it for your brand: 1) Promote products – While you can’t actually…
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Bright Bear Media
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Social Media and Elections
20 Jan 2012 | 11:40 amThe 2012 election cycle is well underway, and if you haven’t been assualted by robo-calls, television adds, or direct mailers, it is only a matter of time. Some candidates have begun basic social media campaigns as part of their strategic marketing efforts to build a stronger rapport with their followers. In the video below (courtesy CNBC), you [...] -
2011 Social Media Sharing Trends
14 Dec 2011 | 1:23 pmAs social media evolves, statistics reveal interesting new sharing trends. This infographic provided by TheNextWeb.Com provides some interesting analysis… AddThis, a sharing platform, and Clearspring, a social data aggregator, present the sharing trends of 2011. With over 1.2 Billion users analyzed, this may be one of the most comprehensive sets of data available about online sharing. -
5 Companies that are Rocking Social Media
6 Dec 2011 | 1:44 pmThis infographic was created by Voltier Digital, a content marketing agency based in Florida, specializing on the creation and promotion of impactful content marketing campaigns for businesses of all sizes. This is a reprinted post from Scott Monty @ http://www.scottmonty.com. Thank you, Scott for such great content… We all know the usual names of companies [...] -
Happy Halloween from Bright Bear Media!
31 Oct 2011 | 11:21 amHere’s an amazing behind the scenes look at how Google developed their Haloween 2011 doodle…. enjoy, and Happy Halloween from Bright Bear Media. -
Engage!
27 Oct 2011 | 12:20 pmDepending on the dictionary, there are approximately 15 definitions of the verb whether transitive or intransitive. For the purposes of strategic marketing, we going to focus on 4 specific definitions: To attract and hold the attention of; engross To draw into; involve To require the use of; occupy To involve oneself or become occupied; participate [...]
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Gamification Network » Gamification Network – The leading resource for Gamification
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Gamification @ Node Summit
18 Jan 2012 | 12:00 pmI’d like to remind everyone that Gamification.org will be at the Node Summit next week as a media sponsor. It’s the first ever conference focused entirely on Node.js, which is one of the coolest new technology platforms. It makes real-time applications possible that wouldn’t have been just a year or two ago. We’re big believers in Node.js and are using it with Gamify.com to do some really awesome stuff. I’m of course biased, but I think it’s going to be the most interesting conference this year in terms of seeing interesting new technologies and some… -
Node Summit – Media Sponsor
4 Jan 2012 | 7:11 pmWe’re excited to announce that Gamification.org is a media sponsor of the Node Summit, the first ever conference to focus exclusively on how Node.js is transforming the future of computing. Node.js is enabling the creation of real-time, high performance, scalable, networked applications – and will likely have a major impact on businesses and consumers in the coming years. We believe in the power of Node.js and are using it with Gamify.com. One of the cool perks of being a media sponsor is that we get to provide our community with a discount on attending! :) You can get 20% off if… -
Gamification Wiki v1.5
26 Sep 2011 | 12:30 pmToday we’re releasing a new version of the Gamification Wiki, v1.5. Since creation of the wiki in November of last year, our traffic has continued to grow in line with the growth in popularity of Gamification. Our small side project at Gamify has turned into the most visited resource for Gamification, thanks to everyone in the community! We decided it was long over due for us to improve the wiki, so we decided to begin by improving the infrastructure of the wiki to make it faster, easier for others to contribute to and to spread it to every corner of the Earth.. and beyond. With v1.5… -
Results of the Gamify SETI Contest
15 Aug 2011 | 5:09 pmWe’re excited to announce the results of the Gamify SETI Contest! The Winner is…. *drum roll* Roman Rackwitz , also known as Romrack or “Winner”. Congratulations Romrack! Honorable Mentions Joshroby Ohtravioso Stevenbrent sdwrage JeffZ jaeoncrux Jason Zagami maxs_pooper_scooper Alex Inbar Shani Thanks to everyone for participating! Please read this post from SETI with more detail on what they learned from the contest and their thinking behind selecting Romrack as the… -
The new Gamify.com
3 Aug 2011 | 11:00 amThe new Gamify.com is now up and accepting Alpha/Beta sign-ups, with the Alpha starting late in August! We’re creating something new, playful and fun. A new adventure that we hope you will join us in shaping. The old Gamify.com(Gamification Platform) has been moved to its new home, Gamify.it. We look forward to hopefully seeing you in the Alpha! -Nathan Lands CEO & Co-Founder
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crowdshifter
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The Big, Bold Benefits of Blogging for Business
25 Jan 2012 | 7:20 pmA recent eMarketer article told an interesting tale on what marketers are planning for social activity in 2012. Not surprisingly, the majority of respondents marked Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn as the top 3 places where they are currently active. After all, these are easily the most talked-about social networks right now, and are poised to continue to be tremendously effective in connecting with customers for the foreseeable future. Blogs came in at #4 on the list. This shouldn’t be too much of a shock, since blogs are one of the oldest forms of ‘social’ on the list,… -
5 Ways to Promote Your Blog’s Email Feed
23 Jan 2012 | 7:00 amYour blog’s email feed can give you the best of both worlds: email marketing and social media. Let’s review the best ways to attract new subscribers. One of our SEO specialists was telling me how he gave up on Google Reader after its latest design “enhancement” and is now using email feeds. Interesting. There’s always been a rather large group of people who prefer email for business and never bothered with feed readers. Joining their ranks may be disaffected RSS subscribers. Personally, I don’t care much for reading blogs in my feeder, either: Google Reader… -
The Power of Connectivity on Twitter
23 Jan 2012 | 12:06 amI started my journey on Twitter in 2009 and I remember how intimidated I felt about sharing thoughts with total strangers. How would I be judged, What would I tweet about, Who would follow me, Who should I follow? All questions were answered one day at a time, while falling in-love with everything about Twitter! Twitter is about learning, educating and inspiring, plus for me, a channel to share my passion on positive life views, spread kindness and genuinely engage with likeminded people. The magic of Twitter is evident just in the fact that by reading each others 140 character tweets, we… -
Predicting the Future with Social Media
19 Jan 2012 | 12:01 amForget predictions from Nostradamus or the Mayan Calendar. Now, we have companies like Recorded Future analyzing semantics and sentiments to foretell the future. They do this by sorting through thousands of news publications, blogs, tweets, comments, trade journals, government web sites, financial databases, and more. Recorded Future sees ahead “By applying temporal analytics to what is written about the future, and by algorithmically crowd-sourcing the resulting temporal information, we can draw conclusions and gain insight.” Now even small businesses can tap into the trove of… -
Join me for Iowa Western Community College’s Business Conference: Defining Social Media
18 Jan 2012 | 2:23 pmPractical Social Media Training for your business. I am pleased to announce that I will be speaking and providing training for the Iowa Western Community College Business Conference: Defining Social Media starting in February. This conference aims to help business owners and professionals get the most out of Social Media so they can grow their business. A wide variety of topics will be covered, so if your not sure how to apply social media to your business or not experiencing results, this conference is for you. No matter if you are a beginner or have some experience with Social Media, I know…
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Virante Orange Juice » Social Media
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Getting Started with Your Google+ Business Page
24 Jan 2012 | 7:23 amI have a guest post on Neal Shaffer‘s Windmill Networking Blog, titled “The First 5 Things You Should Do with Your Google+ Business Page.” So you’ve followed the sage advice of savvy social media experts like Neal Schaffer, telling you why you need to have your business on Google+, and you’ve created a business page for your brand. Now what? Obviously (I hope it’s obvious!) the worst thing you could do is just let your page sit idle. So let’s set some priorities and get to work making your page effective. The recent announcement by Google that G+ is now heavily… -
Our Guides to Google+ for Business and Personal Use
23 Jan 2012 | 10:44 amBy popular request, here are all our “how to” guides for using Google+ effectively, whether for business or personal use, in one convenient listing. 1. How to Get Yourself Featured in New Google Search plus Your World Personalized Search 2. How to Show Your Google+ Profile Photo in Google Search Results 3. How to Add Administrators to Your Google+ Business Page 4. How to Verify Your Google+ Brand Page with Google 5. How to Use Google+ Ripples to Increase Your Social Capital 6. Complete Guide to Optimizing Your Google+ Brand Page (featured by Guy Kawasaki in his… -
How to Use the Google+ Post From Search Feature
18 Jan 2012 | 9:01 pmGoogle+ keeps rolling out the innovative (and often fun!) new features. Now you can start a conversation around any Google+ search stream. Here’s how it works on a breaking news item (about the Costa Concordia, a luxury liner that ran aground off Italy): Now at the top of any Google+ search for posts from Google+, you’ll see a “Join the discussion about [search term]” box (arrow). Notice also the Pause button (red rectangle), handy for breaking news because the search stream updates in real time. Click in the “Join the discussion” box and you get… -
Google+ Search Boost Extends Beyond Google “Search Plus Your World”
13 Jan 2012 | 4:52 pmThere’s a great deal of hooplah online right now about the new Google “Search plus Your World” implementation that adds personalized search (with Google+ content front-and-center) as the default view for most searcher’s SERPs. Almost all of the focus has (naturally) been on the heavy Google+ presence in the new personal search. But what many might be missing is that Google+ was already having a strong influence on the “pure” Google results…and it still is. Here’s an example that just happened to me today. This morning I put on Google+ a post… -
How Does Google “Search plus Your World” Affect Adwords Management?
11 Jan 2012 | 2:13 pmOn January 10, 2012, Google began to roll out its new “Search plus Your World,* which subdivides your search results into personalized results and non-personalized results. The personalized results side now shows a ramped-up “social search,” pulling in more material relevant to you as based on your social relationships (as defined by your Google+ profile). The non-personalized results are more like “Google pure,” although some social material, such as public Google+ posts, will still be pulled in. Two Sets of Search Results: What About the AdWords Ads? So now for…
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Marketing with authentic, engaging and persuasive web content
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Social Marketing Predictions for 2012
18 Jan 2012 | 10:37 amIt’s still January, so it’s not yet too late for me to talk about trends and predictions for 2012. Instead of making my own — and risk having egg on my face a year from now — I’ve gathered some noteworthy blog posts on this topic. These soothsayers seem to agree that: 1. Social marketing [...] -
Your 2012 Web Copy To-Do List
4 Jan 2012 | 3:31 pmI’m not a big fan of New Year’s resolutions, but I love the energy buzzing around us when we enter a new year. It motivates us to improve our businesses and the rest of our lives. It forces us to commit to doing better, pruning bad habits, and moving closer to our ideals. It fuels [...] -
The Best of Magnetic New Marketing in 2011
28 Dec 2011 | 9:40 amAt the beginning of 2011, I gave up a paid blogging gig to have more time, energy, and mental juice to write more often in this, my very own blog. Judging from the quality of readers, partners, and clients I attracted with the help of this blog, that “sacrifice” has paid off. In this post, [...] -
Top 3 Social Media Marketing Opportunities of 2011
21 Dec 2011 | 10:34 amSocial media platforms change fast, and with these changes come new opportunities for marketers to reach a wider audience. This year, 2011, we saw the rise of several social media “trends.” Three of them look like they’re going to be here to stay. If you haven’t been using these social media marketing opportunities, it may [...] -
Review: 31 Days to Build A Better Blog
14 Dec 2011 | 8:06 amWhenever a client or friend starts blogging, I always recommend 31 Days to Build A Better Blog, an ebook by Darren Rowse of Problogger (the blog and book) fame. Not only does Darren Rowse know what he’s talking about (he is, after all, the owner of one of the most successful blogs out there), but [...]
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Digital Tomorrow Today
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Is Backplane the next Facebook?
27 Jan 2012 | 4:30 amMuch of 2012 will be about the niche social networks. Sites like Tumblr and Instagram are seeing substantial growth over the past 12 months and more. But one site is aiming (or proclaiming!) to be the next Facebook. It is called Backplane, backed by Lady Gaga & Eric Schmidt. The aim of Backplane is to deliver niche social networks for Superstars, starting with Gaga’s Little Monsters. The aim of Backplane will to be the platform for interest communities from Superstars to designers and niche interests. More likely to be the next Ning, rather than Facebook. Read a little bit more on… -
Test Driving the Renault Twizy, Electric Car for 2012
2 Jan 2012 | 12:14 pmWe had fortune to test drive the Renault Twizy at last year’s LeWeb in Paris. The Twizy is one of a fleet of electric ‘eco’ cars that Renault will be releasing this year. The Twizy looks like a cross between a Smart Car and a roller skate with room for one person and a small bag. A small storage function is behind the seat but as you can see in the video, we struggled to get my laptop bag in behind the seat even before we had pushed it back. The car is designed to be light which may not be as favourable in wet conditions. The lack of doors seen in the video is just… -
Six Great Examples of Brands Using Instagram
7 Dec 2011 | 4:13 pmInstagram, the social photo sharing app has seen amazing growth in 2011, achieving 14m registered users and 50 uploads a second over Thanksgiving. As consumers’ start to flock to the social sharing network we look at some examples of how brands are sharing their visual stories through Instagram. In the main this channel is very immature with major brands meerely dabbling with infrequnt postings and little diversion from publishing approved images. This immaturity is mirrored in the low volumes of followers and engagement metrics, however brands active now will be gaining learnings for… -
Why is Brazil such an important tech market?
7 Dec 2011 | 3:09 pmOne of the most significant mentions here at LeWeb today was Brazil. Company after company, big and small mentioned Brazil as their key growth area. Why is it such an important market? Brazil is topping the list of fastest growing Latin American countries for both internet consumption and engagement. ComScore reports that the ”The Internet population in Latin America has increased by 15 percent to 112.7 million visitors” According to the latest results from a study of the growth in the Internet audience in Latin America based on data from its comScore Media Metrix service. -
10 social media facts about Net-a-Porter
7 Dec 2011 | 3:21 amNet a Porter is one of the UK’s leading fashion websites offering luxury fashion brands with excellent customer service and web presence. Using BirdSong, we looked at their activity on Social Networks to see what learnings we can take from their work and potentially find new avenues to drive even greater success. Where does this data come from? This data comes from BirdSong, our social media analysis suite. We currently monitor over 1,000 hand checked Facebook an pages, analysing sectors for trends, learnings and gap potentials. For Twitter we can identify Twitter performance vs a set…
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Kommein
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6 Ways to Show Appreciation to Your Community Manager on Community Manager Appreciation Day
23 Jan 2012 | 7:01 amDid you know Community Manager Appreciation Day falls on the fourth Monday in January, and that we’re celebrating our third annual day of appreciation? CMAD was founded in 2010 by Jeremiah Owyang as a way to say “thanks” to the people who enrich our online experiences by making sure our favorite online communities are positive, productive places of discussion. I was thinking about Community Management Appreciation Day yesterday and wondering how to best thank my favorite CM’s. Most of us only know community managers as an online presence only, and might think… -
Top 5 Pros and Cons of Being a Web Based Worker
20 Jan 2012 | 7:36 amI consider myself very fortunate in that I work from home for a company in California. As you can imagine, working remotely has many perks which I list here from time to time. However, over the past couple of weeks I developed the Web Worker Blues as I dealt with spotty Internet connections at home and sporadic hotel and conference WiFi as I traveled. As I waited for the cable repairman to come by and fix my connection yesterday, I listed some pros and cons of being a web based worker. 1. Connectivity Pro: You can work anywhere Being web based means I can work from home or the local coffee… -
5 Ways to Use Pinterest as a Community Building Tool
10 Jan 2012 | 9:45 amEveryone is talking about Pinterest, the social “pinning” site used to share, well, anything. It’s a little early to say, but judging by the buzz (and the amount of people posting about Pinterest on their blogs), it has a good chance of becoming the top social site for 2012 and perhaps the next big thing. Pinterest is different from your Facebook, Twitter or Google plus because it’s not about posting a sentence or paragraph in hopes of starting a conversation. Instead, folks post images of things that interest them and that’s what gets the conversation started. -
Three Words for 2012: Focus, Heath, Celebrate
2 Jan 2012 | 6:24 amEvery year Chris Brogan posts his three words to live by for the upcoming new year, and every year for the past three or four years I, and many others, have followed his lead. (And for the second year, the BlogWorld team is doing the same, so stay tuned for that.) I don’t take my three words lightly. I find they give me a plan and I need to hold myself accountable for stuff. Last year, my three words were “passion,” “focus,” and “delegate” and though I think I still need a little help with word #3, I’ve done pretty good staying true to those… -
Self Serving Reflections: Looking Back at 2011 and Onward to 2012
29 Dec 2011 | 7:32 amIt’s hard to reflect on 2011 without seeming self serving. The truth is, I’m almost sad to see this year end. It’s been an amazing ride, and I achieved goals I worked for my entire career. So while I’d like to give a fond look back, and discuss what’s coming up, I’ll also do my best to keep the self serving part in check. The Year That Was 2011 2011 was my first full year with BlogWorld & New Media Expo. In addition to being part of an incredible team of people, I also played a major role in shaping the educational content for two conferences. I…
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Sharing How To Use Social Media to Get More Business
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Social Media Business
10 Jan 2012 | 6:25 amAre you wondering how you can get lot’s of business using social media? It is so simple; don’t think as a social media marketing instead consider it as a social media business. Here is how you can get lots of business using social media. In a business there are following six core sets of disciplines you need to follow for a successful operation: Research Product Development Marketing Sales Production & Delivery Customer Services Can you recall any business doing really well without all of the above components? I seriously doubt it. I think if any business wants to flourish in the… -
How to Write Blog Posts Easily Like Kristi Hines
8 Dec 2011 | 10:10 amIn this video I interview blogging queen Kristi Hines from Kikolani.com Kristi is an online marketing consultant, freelance writer, professional blogger and social media enthusiast who now offers services for businesses and bloggers. By the end of this short video you will learn how to write blog posts with ease like Kristi Hines. Don’t forget to add your thoughts or ask questions in the comments below. Below are the few important points you will learn from this video: How can you write blog posts easily and regularly How to find and capture blog post ideas What is the most important thing… -
Clarity of Communication is = Success
5 Dec 2011 | 7:00 amAre you struggling to sell your products, services or get a job? Have you ever thought about the clarity of your communication, whether are you passing the clear message to your customers or employer instead relying them to understand your feelings? There is a huge difference between knowing something and passing that knowledge well to others. To me clarity of communication is the key to success. By including following three very important points in all your communications can dramatically change the results. Clear Goal Have you ever started driving a car without having an end destination in… -
Twitter Basics for Small Businesses
28 Nov 2011 | 7:08 amThis is a second video in the series of Twitter Tips for Small Businesses In this video I interview Nicky Kriel from Nicklykriel.com. Nicky is a Twitter experts and she helps businesses to use social media especially Twitter to get more business. In this short video Nicky explained the Twitter basics really well. You will find the answer’s of the following questions in this video What is Twitter in simple words What are the important things you should consider when creating a Twitter user name. Why you should avoid long twitter user name Why it is so important to complete all the profile… -
Why Keywords are the Foundation of Search Engine Optimisation
7 Nov 2011 | 7:00 amThis is the 2nd video in the series of Search Engine Optimisation Tips. In this video I interview Jeff Quipp, Jeff is the founder and CEO of Searchenginepeople.com SEP is the Canada’s largest search engine optimization and social media marketing agency. In our last video Jeff mentioned that “keywords” are the foundation of search engine optimisation strategy. Therefore, I asked Jeff to explain this point in details. Jeff explained the importance of selecting right keyword in details, whether it’s organic or paid search. After watching this short video feel free to ask any question you…
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The @Steveology Blog
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Robert Scoble On The Keys To Successful Startup Funding in 2012
3 Jan 2012 | 6:52 amYou know that old “What are the two greatest lies” joke? For startups looking looking for early money I’d update it to: What are the two greatest Angel and VC lies? “The check is in the mail,” and “We are early stage investors.” The reality of funding for startups these days is very different then the old days, like last year. “Early Stage” now means after you are generating revenue. Without social proof, user adoption, and a meaty viral coefficient and the supporting evidence of traction you won’t get a nickel. Robert Scoble (@Scobleizer) is a tech icon, a… -
How Can You Use Twitter To Beat The Competition?
26 Dec 2011 | 3:00 pmLot’s of people will say Twitter is good for your business, but can you take it a step further? How can you use Twitter to stay ahead and beat the competition? Mark Schaefer is a noted blogger and author who consults with business to help answer these kinds of questions. Mark recently released his new book The Tao Of Twitter. His book has been getting a boatload of 5 star reviews by readers on Amazon. You can buy The Tao Of Twitter here. Here is what he had to say on this question. Watch The Video Here New here? Get more useful social media news and insight by subscribing for free to… -
Is Wikipedia Too Hard For PR?
12 Dec 2011 | 1:31 pmMarketers should all think about innovation the same way R&D does and the same way Silicon Valley thinks about it. Accepting failure, demonstrating patience, tolerance for risk and unrivaled persistence. Wikipedia is like a wonderful piece of furniture that comes with a big piece of paper “some assembly required.” You know, the one. It comes with instructions 20 pages long that are written in some strange form of English. To many, Wikipedia is a hostile place. Your Wikis were rejected, the community accused you of things you don’t understand, you don’t appreciate what they’re… -
Is Twitter For Every Business?
10 Dec 2011 | 4:23 pmSometimes when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So, is Twitter the right place for you business or organization? Mark Schaefer has used Twitter effectively to build his business and grow a very successful blog. If there is such a thing as a Twitter expert, Mark is it. It’s not hard for anyone to apply his strategy for their personal or business success, but it takes a focused approach. In this video he shares insights on Twitter for business that you can start using today. Mark recently released his new book The Tao Of Twitter. His book has been getting a boatload of 5… -
How Do You Create Compelling Content?
16 Nov 2011 | 7:16 amCompelling content is like porn. It is difficult to define, but the reader knows it when she see’s it. However, we can make a few educated guesses as to what kind of content might rise to that level. Tap Your Own Data Website analytics is a great place to start for that. What search terms found your website, and what pages did the visitors view when they got there? How and in what order did they consume solution subject matter or product information? What can you deduce about the problems they have and the solutions they are seeking? Knowing those answers can provide a big clue to the…
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Ricardo Bueno
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The One Second Website
25 Jan 2012 | 9:00 amTweetPin it In about one second, your website visitors are going to decide whether they like you or not. Like it or not, people do judge a book by it’s cover. This is especially the case when people come to your website. They’re asking themselves: Does this site look trustworthy? Is the information here up-to-date and reliable? Who’s the person behind this website (the author)? Does he/she look reliable? (If I have a question) can I easily contact someone? Is there a phone number/email/address somewhere? If they don’t like the color, they’re gone. Can’t… -
12 Warning Signs It’s Time To Invest In A Professional Website Design
24 Jan 2012 | 9:00 amTweetPin itHow do you know when it’s time to call in the pros and hire someone to design a professional looking custom website for you? Most people just purchase a website template from somewhere like StudioPress, and while there’s nothing wrong with that, there comes a point where sooner or later, you outgrow your website and it’s time to step up your game. There’s something to be said about building your own website. For one, it feels damn good. You get that sense of accomplishment for having done it on your own. But how do you know when you’ve outgrown your… -
20 Innovative Real Estate Website Footer Designs
23 Jan 2012 | 7:00 amTweetPin itWebsite footers have evolved from a simple place where you host your copyright information to a section where you can host an extended set of navigation items, links, sources of contact information and more. Basically, it’s a place where you can create an extended navigation menu for all of the links and things that you couldn’t put in your site’s header. Great web design takes careful consideration of navigation and usability from the site’s header all the way to a complementary footer. Things You Can Place in the Footer of Your Website: Quick… -
Weekly Marketing News, Technology & Resources (N. 01) – Website Makeover Edition
21 Jan 2012 | 9:00 amTweetPin itWe’re gonna try something new around here… Once a week (on Saturday’s), I’m going to share what I think are some of the best articles I’ve read from around the web. I won’t just share a link, I’ll expand on the title and give you some input on why I think it’s useful. Basically, I’m curating some of the best content from around the web so you don’t have to go searching for it – you can just get it here. But here’s the thing… I’d like your feedback on whether or not you think it’s useful (just… -
How To Shoot Higher Quality Real Estate Videos (and Why It Matters for Your Business)
20 Jan 2012 | 9:00 amTweetPin itYou know they say that shoppers who view video at onlineshoes.com are 45% more likely to purchase something (source: Internet Retailer). Press Releases that include video have a 500% increase in views (source: Eloqua). And lastly, you are 53% more likely to appear on Page 1 of Google if you have video on your website (source: Forrester Research). Video is important because it captures a certain element that the written word simply can’t. You get to hear the nuances in someone’s voice and see their facial expressions. Done right, video converts very well. It makes it…
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Jeffbullas's Blog
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5 Powerful Steps to Building a 6-Figure Blog
26 Jan 2012 | 5:58 amTweet Long ago, when the marketing agency I was consulting with first began building websites for clients, blogging was still in its infancy (we’re talking zygote stage), and few people were using the Web in the way we do today. Weblogs were definitely in my peripheral vision, and I am proud to have been one of Twitter and Blogger co-founder Evan Williams’ first groupies. But “following” Evan was a fascination, not a concerted effort to improve my marketing savvy, and it took me a while to fully wrap my brain around the genius of what he was doing. Talk about being a… -
5 Content Marketing Ideas Worth Stealing
24 Jan 2012 | 4:33 pmTweet Marketing in the past often consisted of one off campaigns that didn’t build a relationship with your customer or prospect. It was about the “deal” …closing the sale. It was sometimes called “Hit and Run” marketing. Content Marketing is about creating compelling, contagious content and sharing it freely on social networks and blogs. It is about building a relationship with your prospects and customers that builds credibility and trust that turns propsects into buyers and customers into high value repeat buyers. The initial goal is to obtain the… -
The Best of JeffBullas.com – The Top 10 Social Media Posts from 2011
22 Jan 2012 | 3:26 pmTweet It has been a big year in social media and the relentless evolution of social publishing networks that are transforming how we communicate, market and do business. The hesitancy to implement social media marketing is dissipating as many CEO’s and senior management have started to embrace the power of the social networks. Some of the highlights included Google+ launched and reaches a user base of over 50 million by the end of 2011 Twitter continuing to grow despite minimal changes and still no sustainable business model emerging (simplicity is still its number one feature)… -
Is Social Media a Waste of Time? [Infographic]
19 Jan 2012 | 2:52 pmTweet It was in 2005 that I noticed a trend that intrigued me and it was that teenagers were becoming obsessed with a social networking site called MySpace. I didn’t create an account as it seemed a waste of time and I had more important things to do. In 2008 I was invited by a friend to join Facebook and on signing in I was impressed by its clever programming and functionality that allowed you to connect with old friends and colleagues from college at the click of a button. Over the next 12 months I observed that certain people became engrossed in Facebook and seemed to spend most of… -
Why Social Media will Disappear
18 Jan 2012 | 5:28 pmTweet In the 1960’s the “Madmen of Madison” Avenue were challenged as the age of television forever changed the advertising and marketing landscape. The arrival of color television in 1961 was rapidly becoming an integral part of the family home and engaged millions of people with captivating television shows, news as it happened and movies. The advertising agencies had to reinvent themselves as the new technology became widespread and by 1979 over 300 million televisions were occupying the corners of peoples living rooms. 50 years ago the choices of media were simple compared…
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SMP Updates
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More on offer at the Cloud Computing World Forum 2012
27 Jan 2012 | 8:12 amMore on offer at the Cloud Computing World Forum 2012The Cloud Computing World Forum will be returning to a larger venue for 2012, making room for extra theatres, further seminars and more attendees to meet, learn and network with fellow industr... -
WEFLive
27 Jan 2012 | 3:33 amWEFLive.com from KPMG is monitoring Twitter and Tweets from Annual World Economic Forum 2012 held in Davos, Switzerland. The extent and nature of comments from non-delegates since debates began. The site also identifies tweets and tweeters by thei... -
Social Media Widens the Discussion at Davos, says KPMG
27 Jan 2012 | 1:13 amSocial Media Widens the Discussion at Davos, says KPMGTORONTO/PRNewswire/ -- The spread of social media at the Annual World Economic Forum 2012, in particular the use of Twitter, has extended the dialogue beyond the meeting rooms and corridor... -
Rhapsody Acquires Napster International
26 Jan 2012 | 12:54 amRhapsody Acquires Napster InternationalAmerica's number-one premium subscription music service is off to a strong start in Europe, by acquiring Napster businesses in Germany and the UKSEATTLE/PRNewswire/ -- Rhapsody announced its Europea... -
SHAZAM Launches Adaptive Payment's Pentagon Mobile Payment Application
25 Jan 2012 | 2:51 pmSHAZAM Launches Adaptive Payment's Pentagon Mobile Payment ApplicationDiscount rate of 1% for PIN debit transactions for all merchants that use Pentagon offeredDES MOINES, Iowa and FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla/PRNewswire/ -- The SHAZAM network to...
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Shiraz@ShirazDatta.Com
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India's Republic Day - Finnair Style
27 Jan 2012 | 3:47 amSimply loved the "Bollywood Style" surprise that the passenger of FinnAir bound from Helsinki to New Delhi experienced on 26th Jan, 12 - A Bollywood jig by a foreign crew, all dressed in dazzling salwar kameez and traditional Indian attires .....and one of the first comments at Youtube - " If only all communities were so thoughtful of the others, this world would be a better place"..Great Stuff...I am flying next time Finnair for Sure.....:) -
Transactions and Complex Selling: Strong Catalysts of Cloud Computing Growth
26 Jan 2012 | 10:44 pmEnterprise software vendors need to challenge themselves to deliver significantly more value if the potential for cloud computing is going to be achieved . Instead of just going for the low-end, easily customized processes within analytics, CRM, supply chain management, ERP, pricing or service, vendors need to take on the more challenging, complex hard-to-solve problems enterprises have. As I am completing more research on personas, I’m finding what CIOs really look for in SaaS apps. Flexibility and ease of workflow support, intuitive user interface design without sacrificing… -
India–A Republic
25 Jan 2012 | 8:02 am26th January 1950 is one of the most important days in Indian history as it was on this day the constitution of India came into force and India became a truly sovereign state. As we celebrate our Republic Day would like to share some interesting fact about India The famous board game, called Chess, was invented in India. In India's 100,000 years of history, it has never invaded any other country. India is the 7th largest country in the world, the largest democracy and one of the oldest civilizations. India was one of the richest countries in the world before the British invasion in 17th… -
The load or the “Over”load of Emails….
23 Jan 2012 | 11:16 pmThe picture tells us much more than the words, and one such picture is below. This show a battle that we take every morning when we switch into the world of information through the button known as the INBOX. Booommmmmm……We are loaded or rather overloaded with very important or termed as very important mails that make us feel ineffective to manage ourselves. And somehow this inability to effectively manage communication means lost information, and reduced responsiveness. For some its a negative outcomes for both individuals and corporate productivity. Email is one of the most successful… -
Roundup of Cloud Computing Forecasts and Market Estimates, 2012
22 Jan 2012 | 1:31 pmThe latest round of cloud computing forecasts released by Cisco, Deloitte, IDC, Forrester, Gartner, The 451 Group and others show how rapidly cloud computing’s adoption in enterprises is happening. The better forecasts quantify just how and where adoption is and isn’t occurring and why. Overall, this year’s forecasts have taken into account enterprise constraints more realistically than prior years, yielding a more reasonable set of market estimates. There still is much hype surrounding cloud computing forecasts as can be seen from some of the huge growth rates and…
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Windmill Networking Blog [Full]
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Expand Your Business Quickly Through These StumbleUpon Marketing Strategies (with Infographic)
27 Jan 2012 | 6:20 amFor those of you who still don’t “get” StumbleUpon, let me put it to you simply: On multiple occasions I have become a new customer for different companies simply because I stumbled into them on SU and liked what I saw. So, if you haven’t heard of StumbleUpon, you could be missing out on one of the best and easiest opportunities to grow and promote your business online. As a primer, SU is what is called a “discovery engine”, a site that allows people to discover websites based on their personal tastes. It comes in a variety of formats from apps to browser toolbars to… -
4 Signs It’s Time to Outsource Social Media
26 Jan 2012 | 6:20 amAlthough social media enthusiasts would be quick to encourage you to outsource social media as soon as possible, that type of investment doesn’t always fit within your organization’s budget. Like most marketing activities, timing the outsourcing of your social efforts just right will improve your results. Any of the following opportunities are perfect times to explore this outsourcing for your company. You’re just getting started with a social program. If your company has barely established a social presence or is just beginning to consider participating with your clients on Facebook,… -
Social Capital Byte: Institutionalizing Parity in B2B Relationships
25 Jan 2012 | 6:20 amMine existing gold in the hills and strengthen PR value propositions for your partners and clients Many businesses working to become “social” devote resources in virtual isolation, trying to build their presence and figure out how to garner illusive followers, fans and “positive sentiment” conversations. Presumably the marketing strategy (if it’s actually been explored at the front end) is to augment profile and enhance reputation (“social capital“), with an objective to increase sales of products or services. Or in the case of not-for-profits, raise… -
The First 5 Things You Should Do With Your Google+ Business Page
24 Jan 2012 | 6:20 amSo you’ve followed the sage advice of savvy social media experts like Neal Schaffer, telling you why you need to have your business on Google+, and you’ve created a business page for your brand. Now what? Obviously (I hope it’s obvious!) the worst thing you could do is just let your page sit idle. So let’s set some priorities and get to work making your page effective. The recent announcement by Google that G+ is now heavily integrated into Google search makes it all the more important that you optimize your page and start your involvement on Google+. G+ is still… -
10 Best Social Media Conferences to Attend in 2012
23 Jan 2012 | 6:18 amIn the many public engagements that I’ve been invited to present at as a social media speaker, people often ask me to recommend which social media conferences and events they should go to, both for networking and educational purposes. I’ve observed that lately, more and more companies are staging and/or sponsoring social media events, and I attribute this phenomenal growth to the maturity of social media and it’s acceptance by major businesses as well as adoption by industry after industry. With that in mind, I’m glad to share with you what I believe are the best…
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Elliott's Thoughts
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Become an astronaut. It’s your only chance.
24 Jan 2012 | 5:54 pm -
NFC breeding a new class of “tangible” applications
18 Jan 2012 | 3:04 pmThe past couple of weeks we’ve released a variety of scenarios on how NFC can be used. Today I wanted to show some examples beyond mobile payments where you can see NFC in action. Instead of just looking at a small screen and pressing buttons, NFC is breeding a new class of “tangible” mobile games that let you have fun — naturally — in the real world with physical objects, just as you would when playing traditional family and party games. Previously I posted on how NFC mobile gaming makes simple real-life games interactive explaining how restaurants… -
How to use NFC and 2dbarcodes for Events
21 Dec 2011 | 1:54 pmEarlier I posted on the possibilities of NFC and today we’ve got the first of five examples of how NFC can be used in a real-life campaign. One of the great ways to leverage NFC and 2D barcode technology is to pair them together and provide your customers with a frictionless mobile experience. Today we are going to cover tradeshows, but check back for other great scenarios and suggestions for reaching your customers. Tradeshows have a number of bottlenecks that can be alleviated through paperless processing. Implementing a digital experience can streamline your attendees experience through… -
NFC Beyond Mobile Payments
19 Dec 2011 | 2:24 pmWith the recent release of NFC on the Tag platform I’ve received a variety of different people asking what NFC can be used for. They usually understand the connection for NFC and mobile payments but when it comes to NFC services, marketing, and gadgets it can get a little foggy. Here are some examples how NFC can be implemented beyond mobile payments Social Networking Social Networking and NFC are like peanut butter and jelly. FourSquare, Facebook, Twitter and LInkedin will more than likely embrace NFC to allow you to find friends in close proximity or even find new people who share your… -
Mobile Trends for 2012
15 Dec 2011 | 12:22 pmWith the New Year just around the corner, I though it fitting to put together some of my thoughts on what’s next for mobile. Gamification of the mundane: One of the biggest mistakes that mobile marketers currently make is the quest to invent instead of innovate. Inventing a mobile experience that tries to create new behaviors can have a big impact, but the likelihood of success is very low. On the other hand there are many mundane activities that people do every single day that can use some innovation to spice up our lives. For example, take Chromaroma. It leverages existing habitual…
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Angie Glotzbach
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Twitter Resources that Can Make You More Effective
21 Jan 2012 | 10:22 amSharing a quick list of Twitter resources that have helped me to have a better tweeting experience. Hootesuite is a great social media management tool that allows you to monitor your Facebook biz page, personal page, LinkedIn, YouTube and more. This tool makes it easy to schedule tweets with its date and time feature. Hootesuite also has a handy dandy link shortener with analytics to quickly see which links have been clicked. You can also save your keywords and recover them with a click of a button. LocalTweeps also known as the zip code level Twitter directory. Use this to find and… -
Twitter Terms
7 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amIf you’re new to Twitter, some of the terms and lingo can be downright confusing to understand. So here’s a list to help get you started. Tweet – a tweet is a public message you’ve posted that your followers see. You have a whoppin 140 characters to do this. # or Hashtag- used to designate a topic, category or interest. For instance, let’s say you’re a frustrated Minnesota Vikes fan who’s interested in tracking the convos. You can see all of the related tweets about #Vikes by typing this in the search bar. The # or hashtag allows you to follow that stream… -
Online Reputation Management and Social Media Reminders
19 Dec 2011 | 12:00 pmWith more and more of the purchasing decisions being driven by social media, thought I’d post a refresher on social media and online reputation management. Be Aware It’s important to know what people are saying about you and your business online, the good and the bad. Good posts can drive traffic to your site. Bad posts can keep them away. At a minimum, set up alerts in Google for you, your business, and industry. Engage It’s also important to engage with the bad posts too. Genuinely listen, empathize, and diffuse the situation by taking the high road and moving the… -
LinkedIn Network and Connections
2 Dec 2011 | 10:00 amBefore you build your LinkedIn network, decide if you’ll be a LION or not, a LinkedIn Open Networker. An open networker accepts all connection requests to expand their network to huge numbers; they initiate a lot of connection requests and accept requests from almost everyone. One downside to this approach is that you don’t know your connections very well. Another approach is to connect with only with those people you know and trust, which means fewer connections, but it’s a great way to strengthen your network by really interacting with others to get to know them better. -
How’s Your LinkedIn Profile?
17 Nov 2011 | 9:32 amIs it a snoozer? It’s really important to avoid having your profile look and sound like your resume, blah blah blahing about previous roles and responsibilities. Yes, these do lend credibility, but think of it this way.When you first meet a prospect, do you hammer them with the details of your previous positions, employers, roles and responsibilities? Probably not. Or do you say who you help and the problems you solve, the value of your product or service? So with that in mind, keep your LinkedIn profile client-focused (the ”what’s in it for me” perspective) and…
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Dave Made That by Dave Delaney
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On SOPA and PIPA
19 Jan 2012 | 9:00 amA few weeks ago I had a great meeting with Congressman Jim Cooper and a group of smart people about SOPA. Kudos to Mr. Cooper and his team for meeting with us and proposing the round table. I truly appreciate having been included in the discussion. The round table consisted of myself and friends who are like-minded when it comes to being troubled by the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), but it also included a few people who support SOPA. The conversation was naturally heated, but good things came from it. I had follow-up conversations with members of the round table, both people I consider… -
The Startup Slingshot
17 Jan 2012 | 5:00 amI had the great pleasure of recently being a guest on The Startup Slingshot. Each week host William Griggs interviews entrepreneurs and neat people (I’m not sure how I got on the show) about business and startups. The discussion covers topics like working for Griffin; BarCamp and PodCamp Nashville; Geek Breakfast; Nashcocktail; how coffee can get you a job; Content Rules; and about trying new things, and not being afraid of making a fool out of yourself. Enjoy the show. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl8CNDnZp7c Read the show notes and more at Startup Slingshot. -
Happy birthday Commodore 64
6 Jan 2012 | 5:00 am30 years ago this week, Commodore 64 was announced at CES. CES is the Consumer Electronics Show, the largest trade show of its kind. My first computer was a TRS 80, but it was the C64 that changed my life. My friends loved coming over to play games like Tony Hawk’s Skate or Die!, but it was connecting to bulletin board systems (BBS) that excited me. Bulletin Board Systems I convinced my Mum to let me use our household’s telephone through the night and early morning as my first BBS. I would lay in my bed in the dark, the glow of the inactive red C64 disk light would be the only… -
Top 15 blog posts from 2011
31 Dec 2011 | 5:00 amI want to take this time to thank you for subscribing and reading this blog. A special shout out to those of you who have taken the time to leave a comment in the last 12 months. It’s the comments that remind bloggers that someone is actually reading their stuff. It’s easy (and appreciated) to retweet, like and +1 posts, but it takes that extra step to actually leave some written words. So thanks. I have some fun ideas for where I want to take this blog in the coming months, I hope you’ll stay subscribed (RSS or EMAIL) and join me as I explore new topics that I think… -
Who's in your inbox?
30 Dec 2011 | 8:00 amWho’s in your inbox, specifically your Gmail inbox? I wrote back in July that we must be diligent with keeping up with who we’ve given access to our Facebook and Twitter accounts, but what about your email and contacts? I’m writing this partly as a reminder, but also because I could not find the answer. I ended up posting the question on Google Plus, where Rob Blatt quickly provided the answer. Thanks Rob! How do you see which sites you’ve given permission to access your Google account? How do you revoke access? The answer is a single link. Be sure you’re…
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Timothy Carter - Social Media Consultant
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Social Media Tweet Recap for 1-12-12
13 Jan 2012 | 9:39 amSocial Media News via Twitter from Thursday January 12, 2012 Facebook May Account For 5% Of Online Ad Spending This Year bit.ly/ybYfmk — Timothy Carter (@TimothyCarter) January 13, 2012 The Top 10 Brands on Facebook and What You Can Learn from them to Grow your Fans (Plus Infographic) bit.ly/x4D3Lj — Timothy Carter (@TimothyCarter) January 12, 2012 Will Facebook Top 1 Billion Users In August? bit.ly/xBXQtj — Timothy Carter (@TimothyCarter) January 12, 2012 You May Have Some Klout… But Do You Have Kred? bit.ly/yPFmpO — Timothy Carter (@TimothyCarter) January 12, 2012… -
Google, LinkedIn, Twitter And Facebook – Meet Your Virtual Friends
12 Jan 2012 | 10:45 amEach of the social network sites – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter & Google all have a “personality” if you will. Take a look at this social media infographic below from LinkingR on how you can befriend your virtual friends Google, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook to maximize your effectiveness of building your personal brand in each social circle: Got thoughts? Copyright © 2012 Timothy Carter - Social Media Consultant. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of… -
Social Media Tweet Recap 1-11-12
12 Jan 2012 | 9:27 amSocial Media News via Twitter from Wednesday January 11, 2012 Rest in Peace, Social Media ROI Doubts: 2006-2012 rww.to/xUDUag — Timothy Carter (@TimothyCarter) January 12, 2012 Google Plus Brings Social Media to the Heart of Search | Social … bit.ly/yEGjXW — Timothy Carter (@TimothyCarter) January 11, 2012 Social media success Rx: “Be a little crazy” – Postcards bit.ly/yYUlIg — Timothy Carter (@TimothyCarter) January 11, 2012 Twitter Calls Google’s Search plus Your World a ‘Bad Day for the Internet’ bit.ly/yjNx4p — Timothy Carter… -
What Do You Consider Important To Be “Influential” On Twitter Poll
11 Jan 2012 | 1:36 pmAnyone involved in the world of social media understands that Twitter has immense value and influence can be developed through the correct use of Twitter. Can anyone become influential on Twitter? Sure! But how do you measure that influence? Is it through a 3rd party like Klout or Kred or PeerIndex? Is it the number of Twitter followers? What is it? I’d really like to hear your opinion on what you think are the most important facets to building influence and being influential on Twitter. So what DO you think? What is the most important piece that make a person influential on Twitter and… -
How Social Media Changed In 2011
11 Jan 2012 | 12:45 pmThe social media changes in 2011 were swift and continually evolving month after month for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and the new entry, Google+. With all the changes, Bluepost Digital created a great social media infographic of all the changes in 2011 with this timeline. Copyright © 2012 Timothy Carter - Social Media Consultant. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@socialnetworkinglifestyle.com so we can take legal…
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Social Media DDS
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A Little Something to Make You Smile…
24 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amPin it Tweet -
Crazy Butcher…A Tale of Two Stories
16 Jan 2012 | 7:00 amPin it When I was a little girl, my Grandpa seemed bigger than life to my siblings and myself. He was almost a hero to us. He was handsome and smart and well liked. He had a voice that was big, deep and strong…a voice that commanded attention. We had a wonderful Sunday afternoon ritual at our house. Grandpa would come over for dinner. So, after church, the family would stay neat and clean in our Sunday best and Mom would make roast beef with potatoes and green beans. And we would wait for Grandpa. When Grandpa arrived, he would be all dressed up in a starched white shirt with… -
Another Auld Lang Syne
1 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amPin it I can’t explain it…but maybe I don’t have to. From all that I have been reading… from all that I have been hearing… I am not the only one who senses it. That almost palpable energy that the very word 2012 seems to carry with it. Maybe it’s because many of us are so done with 2011. Maybe we have learned the lessons that we were supposed to learn from 2011. Maybe we have grown stronger because of 2011. Or maybe, just maybe, it is because 2011 has outstayed it’s welcome. Am I right? Can you feel it too? Can you feel the energy whenever you talk… -
I Gave Myself a Facelift
29 Dec 2011 | 6:00 amPin it I’ve never been a New Year’s resolution kind of gal…the wisdom of age has taught me that making resolutions typically sets oneself up for failure. And with the economy and job market being what it is, the last thing that we need is to set ourselves up for failure…right? I thought so. So what can we do to create that “boots on the ground mentality“ that we need as we approach 2012? What can we do to create and foster self-inspiration and self-motivation? A lot! I’ve started my journey toward the New Year early. And, here’s how. LISTEN: I have… -
Occupy Your Actions
16 Dec 2011 | 7:00 amPin it We have been inundated with suggestions to occupy lately…whether it is Wall Street or Philadelphia or Chicago...we are encouraged to occupy to show solidarity. I’m going to encourage another