Why Business Is About to Boom for Social Media Agencies
Big changes in necessary skills and complexity have made outsourcing social media to agencies more attractive, says Jay Baer.
6 Skills You Need to Be a Social Media Professional
When Amber Naslund and I wrote The NOW Revolution in 2010, we created this graphic to describe the characteristics of the ideal community manager/social media practitioner. Since then, social media – and the skills needed to succeed in it – has changed substantially. Certainly, some of the characteristics we noted remain very much a requirement. […]
7 Ways to Take the Media World by Storm
Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from Joe Pulizzi’s new book Epic Content Marketing: How to Tell a Different Story, Break through the Clutter and Win More Customers by Marketing Less (McGraw-Hill, 2013). We also had the opportunity to interview Joe, and following this excerpt is the exclusive Q&A between Joe and Jay Baer. […]
The 2 Ingredient Recipe for the Social Media Magic Middle
Silos are for suckers. Your customers do not care about your org chart. To them, it’s irrelevant how your organization is structured, and the internal power plays and land grabs that unfold across your company are immaterial. Your customers, potential customers and fans only care about two things in social media: They want to be heard. […]
The New Skill Every Social Media Marketer Must Possess
In The NOW Revolution, Amber Naslund and I predicted that social media would become a skill rather than a job. As companies take more steps to “be” social, and incorporate social business initiatives alongside the more common and obvious social media marketing programs, employees from all divisions and departments will utilize “social” to be more […]
Convergence of Marketing and Journalism is a Recipe for Better Content
In this week’s Baer Facts, Kyle Lacy from ExactTarget and I talk about a recent blog post by social business smartie David Armano that illustrates an emerging marketing team structure that includes journalism/editorial guidance. This is an interesting and exciting development, as it wasn’t that long ago that marketing and journalism were like two beta […]
The 3 Rock Solid Questions To Guide 2013 Social Media Success
There is an almost infinite variety of minor circumstances that can occupy your attention and create frustration for social media and content marketing professionals. The pace of change is breathtaking, and the feedback loop is instantaneous. This creates a culture of disproportionate attention to detail. So much has been written about the mechanics of social […]
42 Percent of Consumers Complaining in Social Media Expect 60 Minute Response Time
In just a couple of weeks, I’ll be launching (along with Jason Falls, Mark Schaefer, Tom Webster, and our partners at Edison Research) the newest edition of The Social Habit. Landmark, legitimate research into how social media is used, and by whom. I’ve seen the raw data, and it’s a mind-blower. There’s still time to subscribe to […]
5 Keys to Effective Social Media and Content Insourcing
Last week, I wrote about Marcus Sheridan’s concept of “insourcing” and the need to expand your social media and content marketing beyond a centralized, command and control structure (typically led by marketing). At Convince & Convert, we get involved in these “insourcing” programs often, working with corporate clients to create social business structure that facilitates […]
Why Insourcing is the Next Social Media and Content Marketing Trend
Social media and content marketing are in the middle of an arms race. Channel and opportunity proliferation combined with surging boardroom interest have created a pervasive atmosphere of “more is better.” The veracity of that outlook is debatable, and I typically counsel corporate clients to do less, but to be notably good at whatever social […]
A Guru or the Gang: The 4 Ways to Staff Social Media in Agencies
I’m an agency guy. Convince & Convert is the fifth marketing services firm I’ve started or operated, and I work with many agencies every week to help them package, price, staff, and sell social and digital. In the past two years alone, I’ve helped more than 25 agencies build a social media practice. During these […]
The Hybrids are Coming: Evolution of the Prototype Marketer
Paul Roetzer (@paulroetzer) is founder and CEO of PR 20/20, a Cleveland-based inbound marketing agency, and author of The Marketing Agency Blueprint (Wiley). Digital marketing has revolutionized the industry, and the job market. Corporate marketing departments and marketing agencies struggle to recruit and retain qualified professionals for career paths that did not exist three years ago, while academic […]
4 Nearly Guaranteed 2012 Social Media Predictions
The team at Awareness (who offer social media management software I like a lot), recently published a terrific, free ebook of 2012 social media predictions. It includes prognostications from 34 social media practitioners, including some of my favorite social media writers such as: David Berkowitz (whose MediaPost Social Media Insider columns you should be reading) […]
Permission is the Enemy of Speed
This week I’ve been writing about speed and response expectations for business on the social Web. Ultimately, speed wins. The companies that engage customers on Twitter and Facebook within minutes are making a none-too-subtle statement about their embrace of the social telephone and the primacy of the customer. In comparison, slow response or no response […]
Is Technology Ruining Online Community
Online community and our lust for it is at its apex. Companies of every size and description are pondering ways to engage with customers, and interact with their fans. But the big miss in many cases is social media staffing. It’s difficult to recall the age of not-so-long-ago when we didn’t even have websites, much […]
The Fallacy of Round the Clock Social Media
Guest post by Chris Hall an interactive content specialist at Off Madison Ave who specializes in writing for humans, not robots. It’s 11PM and the world around you is getting ready for bed. As a mobile obsessive, you instinctually check your Facebook, Twitter and all the rest of your social media accounts while you brush […]