What Facebook and Email Stole from Google’s Playbook

A long time ago, you could get Web pages ranked in search engines solely based on how many times a keyword was present on the page. This of course resulted in the laughably loathsome practice of keyword stuffing, where Web pages were purposefully written with “discount Easter baskets for sale” 30 times in a row. […]

Finally! A Blog Post Scoreboard

Knowing which of your blog posts are most successful, and in what way, is invaluable in the never-ending process of honing your blog’s content approach and community orientation. Bloggers have always been challenged by on one hand having both a surplus of potential success metrics, and a scarcity of data aggregation tools. The new PostRank […]

33 Hot Social Media and Digital Marketing Tips (and 8 Killer Quotes)

Just finished up the MarketingProfs Digital Marketing Mixer in Chicago. Another great event filled with excellent content and smart attendees. I was a Mixologist for the event, along with Stephanie Miller from Return Path, Michael Brito from Intel, and Beth Harte from MarketingProfs. Our job was to attend conference sessions, take notes, and then wrap […]

Is Social Media Monitoring Ready for Prime-Time?

Microsoft announced recently that they are launching their own social media listening software tool (currently in closed beta), called Looking Glass, which will according to Microsoft “make social media actionable for business.” Pricing for LookingGlass has not been established. Impacts of Big Boys on Social Media Monitoring Microsoft’s entrance into the social media monitoring software […]

11 Steps Toward Social Media and Email Convergence

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Email and social media are a lot more similar than they are different. Both are used to drive brand affinity and brand preference. Both are best when rooted in 1:1, relevant communication, rather than one-to-many, megaphone-style shouting. Based on these similarities, I believe the people responsible for social media in your company, should also be […]

Make Dough From What You Know – A Review of Crush It!

Are you living, or just earning a living? So asks wine critic, social media star and business consultant Gary Vaynerchuk in his new book, Crush It! (for more ideas from Gary, see this live interview on Twitter I conducted with him last week). The premise of Crush It! is that technology has disrupted the historical […]

Agencies Don’t Turn Your Back on Digital Marketing

Ah yes. Digital marketing. Once a great champion. Now a broken-down has-been, struggling to remain relevant in a changing world. Like Joe Namath, but with a keyboard. So goes the story in many agencies today. In their zeal to jump aboard the social media express, agencies are neglecting to shore up the other corners of […]

Gary Vaynerchuk – The Twitter 20 Interview About Wine, Social Media, and Crushing It

Gary Vaynerchuk wants to take over the world, one person at a time. From a youth spent watching professional wrestling and selling baseball cards, he’s converted his enthusiasm and savvy into a phenomenon. Using a daily Web video show (Wine Library TV) to communicate directly to consumers, Gary geometrically increased the size of his family’s wine […]

Brand Community Managers Take Heed of “Managing Online Forums”

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Patrick O’Keefe knows more about online forums than you do. In fact, he may know more about forums and message boards than anyone out there, as evidenced by his extremely useful book “Managing Online Forums“ The level of detail in this book is startling, with a glossary, and an entire section of templates that you […]

Social Media Makes Everything Marketing

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It’s truly fantastic that so many companies are starting to monitor the social media conversations around their brands and their industry at large. But what’s not fantastic is the reflexive apoplexy when some of those conversations inexorably are less than complementary. I have seen corporate marketers (and even PR firm folks who should know better) […]