YOUTILITY

Why Smart Marketing Is About Help, Not Hype

The difference between helping and selling is just two letters. But those two letters are critically important to your company’s success.

You’re not competing for attention only against other, similar products. You’re competing for attention against everything. To win in this hyper-competitive environment, you must ask “How can we help?”

If you sell something, you make a customer today, but if you genuinely help someone, you create a customer for life. This is Youtility.

Includes interviews with dozens of companies practicing Youtility, and provides 6 blueprints for building Youtility in your company.

Available for pre-order soon (get up to 7 exclusive bonuses) at http://YoutilityBook.com
mobile 1,650  |  Add Yours

7 Surprising Statistics About Twitter in America

Ah Twitter, we thought we knew you. A comprehensive survey (1,753 respondents) released today by Edison Research, paints a fascinating picture of Twitter and its role in America’s social media ecosystem. The full 49-page study is full of interesting graphs and data morsels, but these are the 7 findings that I didn’t anticipate: 1. Twitter [...]

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Social Media Marketing 519  |  Add Yours

The Science of Inequality – Finding Your Influential Customers

Does social media breed inequality? Because our behaviors on the social Web leave a noticeable fingerprint, smart companies can modify the way they engage and interact with us, based on our social graph, purchase history, etc. Would the VP of Customer Satisfaction of Southwest Airlines have called Kevin Smith at home (after he was kicked [...]

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Integrated Marketing and Media 305  |  Add Yours

Information as Theater – The Power of Humanized Description

I am typing this on a US Airways flight from St. Louis to Phoenix, coming back from SocialFresh. I’ll probably fly 150 segments this year, which is a lot, but nowhere near Chris Brogan territory. Today, I’ve fortunately been upgraded to first class, which happens infrequently because I travel enough to make it exhausting, but [...]

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social crm 564  |  Add Yours

Is Social Media Too Big For Its Britches?

Maybe what we need is a little deconstruction. At Monday’s Social Fresh conference in St. Louis, I was delighted to join Sarah Evans, Jason Falls, Amber Naslund, and Zena Weist on the closing panel discussion. During the session, an audience question got me fired up (no surprise, as the Social Fresh attendees were a very [...]

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Social Media Staffing and Operations 678  |  Add Yours

Nobody Said Social Media Was Easy

Social media isn’t inexpensive, it’s different expensive. In the QA portion of recent speeches, I’ve frequently been asked “this is great, but doesn’t it seem like it will take a lot of time?” Yes. It. Will. Succeeding on the social Web requires daily participation. Whether it’s brand reputation management, PR and influencer outreach, customer service [...]

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Blogging and Content Creation 245  |  Add Yours

Does Your Blog Have a Long Tail

Most smart bloggers try to focus on a few, key search terms in their blog content. But the reality is, your blog is probably a lot more broad than you think. Last week, I co-published a white paper with Chris Baggott, the CEO of Compendium Blogware (I’m on their advisory board). The free “Blogging’s Long [...]

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Blogging and Content Creation 379  |  Add Yours

Why Content Marketing Matters To Me And Should To You

Last week, Joe Pulizzi and his merry band of content strategists at Junta42 released new metrics, ranking the top content marketing blogs in the world. And guess what? The very blog that you’re reading came out #1. Thank you to everyone who reads Convince & Convert. Your feedback, comments, and support are what keep me [...]

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Integrated Marketing and Media 471  |  Add Yours

The Key to Social Media Success is Just 2 Letters

I’m sitting in a restaurant in Cincinnati recently, surrounded by televisions with the sound turned down. The bartender approaches, and asks if I’d like to hear the TV. I say “sure” expecting him to saunter over to a monitor, and turn up the volume. Instead, he reaches under the bar, and pulls out a Soundog [...]

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crowd sourcing 180  |  Add Yours

The Best Advice Has No Shelf Life

Who Influenced You? All of us have influences. People who have educated, inspired, engaged, supported us. Or maybe just kicked us in the ass when we needed it. Tell me in the comments who influenced you and why, and you could win a copy of the uber-classic book “How to Win Friends and Influence People.“ [...]

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Blogging and Content Creation 235  |  Add Yours

The Truth About the iPad

Are you old enough to remember when the TV remote control was invented? I sure am. Before that fabulous, glorious day, one of my jobs at home was to jump up and twist the channel knob at the whim of my parents, like some sort of orthopedic carpal-tunnel experiment gone astray. But progress sometimes comes [...]

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