Getting Serious About Social Media

My clients at ExactTarget yesterday published a terrific, free executive briefing called Letter to the C-Suite: Getting Serious About Social Media.
It includes a dozen letters written to C-level executives (in general) about what they need to do to take social media to the next level. Reading them through, I really wish we could have [...]

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6 Critical Services Agencies Must Provide to Stay Relevant in Social Media

Is there a future for agencies in a social media world?
Yesterday, I gave a presentation in Tempe, AZ to Agencyside, a conference of advertising and PR agency owners. I emphasized that to remain relevant, agencies must differentiate themselves by providing advanced social media services, not just the basics.

An Enormous Opportunity
The huge (and expanding) reach of [...]

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4 Reasons the Social Business Evolution Starts Now

Is today the day we start thinking about social media as part of an integrated program?
My friends at ExactTarget announced a moment ago that they have acquired CoTweet, the leader in enterprise Twitter management, and will be building a social products lab to add tie-ins for Facebook, YouTube, and other elements of the social communication [...]

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6 Required Competencies for Social Organizations

Now, marketing is the center of American business.
Why? because through social media, customers are praising and criticizing companies in public in a way that requires marketing to triage and respond.
Three years ago, if Kevin Smith would have been kicked off a Southwest flight for being too fat, he would have yelled at the gate agent, written [...]

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Social Media and Email – More Alike than Different

From a business objectives standpoint, isn’t uni-directional social media more similar to email than it is different?

Social network connectivity is becoming the post-modern email newsletter. A way for consumers to stay up-to-date with the brand, hear about special offers, and occasionally advocate to their friends. This puts significant pressure on email to be more [...]

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Trident Integrates Social Media with Print Ads

I promised you a couple weeks ago that in 2010 I would focus on social media integration and real business. Well, I’m starting a little early.
Trident has released a new gum called Trident layers, which appears to be some sort of neapolitan ice cream-type multi-flavor concoction. (Personally, I’m okay with my gum tasting like [...]

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5 Sure-Fire Ways to Operationalize Social Media

This post was written originally for Valeria Maltoni’s excellent new ebook about marketing in 2010. It includes terrific, thoughtful insights from Shannon Paul, Olivier Blanchard, Danny Brown, Amber Naslund, Jackie Huba, Gavin Heaton, Mark Earls, Rachel Happe, Jonathan MacDonald, and of course Valeria herself. Download it for free right here.

Change Is At Hand
Marketing has changed [...]

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A Pinch of Social Media Makes a Helluva Broth

Guest post by Scott Severson (@scottseverson), President of ARAnet, Inc. in Minneapolis. He is widely published on the subject of digital marketing, and has been a driving force in the development of Adfusion, an article-based advertising solution that utilizes a two-click model to drive qualified and motivated consumers to its clients’ Web destinations.
Do you have [...]

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Social Media is a Samaritan, not a Savior

The problem with a lot of traditional marketing is that the call to action is too heavy-handed. “Visit your Toyota dealer now” or “Call this toll-free number” or “McRib is back, but only for a limited time.”
Each of these forces the recipient of the message – the consumer – to make a yes/no decision. You [...]

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The Death of Sexy – Social Media, Integration and Real Business

Maybe we’ve gotten a little ahead of ourselves?
In our zeal for YouTube videos, and Facebook apps, and iphone wizardry, and augmented reality we’ve in many cases neglected the many ways we can socially enable the marketing we’ve been doing all along.
Sure it’s exciting to play with all the shiny new social media toys under [...]

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