Socialympics: How Social Media and Blogging Has Boosted Sports Media

Sports have been played, enjoyed by spectators and covered by the media since well before the advent of smartphones and social media. But it’s no question that the development of social platforms has changed how we play, enjoy and cover sports. Twitter is the new sports ticker. Facebook is the new hub for fans. Who […]

The Rise of the T-Shaped Agency Model

Daniel Lemin is Strategy & Analytics Lead at Convince & Convert. He also runs the consulting firm Social Studio where he provides analytics, PR and integrated digital marketing strategy to his clients. Agency owners, take note: your traditional team structure – the one that divides your agency into “digital”, “account management” and “creative,” among others – […]

Social Business Is About Actions Not Words

Social Business Southwest airlines

Update: Southwest wrote about this blog post in their in-flight magazine a couple months later. Cool! I cried a little on a plane last week. It wasn’t due to a delay, an uncomfortable seat, or peanut salt getting in my eye. It was because I saw a shining example of “social business” at work in […]

Social Media Lessons From the Offline Real World

An interesting report released from Pew Internet Research about the use of location-based services among adults found that only 28% of American adult cell phone owners use services such as maps or recommendations based on their location. In addition, 4% of all American adults use check-in apps such as Foursquare and Gowalla. Conversely, in the social […]

Secrets of Social Media You Learned in High School

Guest post by Bill Murtha, President and CEO of Roberts Communications, a leading independent advertising agency with offices in New York and Minnesota. Everything you know about social media you probably learned in high school. In full disclosure, a lot of our social media strategy flows out of the work we do with Jay Baer. […]

3 Key Roles to Make Your Social Team Scalable

3 Key Roles to Make Your Social Team Scalable

One of the continuous discussions and questions surfacing in the social media chatterbox is that of “who owns social media?” Is it marketing? Public relations (PR)? Customer service? The answer is . . . yes. For the long-term, anyway. You’re not likely at the point yet where you have social media wired into everything. Right […]

The 5 Critical Social Media Skills You Need to Disperse

5 critical social media skills you need to disperse

Your customers, prospects, and the people looking for you online don’t care about your company structure. If they find you on Twitter, or leave a comment on your blog, they’re looking for a response from anyone who can help, regardless of what department that person represents or what someone’s official job title is. Everybody in […]

Cops and Robbers: Social Media Invades Law Enforcement

Social Media and Law Enforcement

Social media isn’t just about human to human and human to company connections. Law enforcement is tapping into social media at almost every level, using it to map, monitor, and manage crime fighting activities. 81% of police departments are already using social media. Does this make you feel more or less confident about social media’s […]

What Rex Ryan Taught Me About Social Media

You might think he’s overrated, a blowhard, or a fatso but New York Jets coach Rex Ryan understands human psychology. Unlike most NFL teams, the Jets do not control players’ media access. Any player is free to speak with any reporter at any time. Ryan has just one rule that governs the interactions between players […]

Maybe You’re Just Not Ready for Social Media

My Mom is a legendary high school English teacher. I took three classes she taught, including one where we studied Oedipus Rex and the difference between seeing and perceiving, which has widespread business and social media implications. Sometimes our brands write checks our operations simply can’t cash. I was in New York last week to […]

It’s More About the Social Than It Is About the Media

Sure, the gadgets and gizmos and the apps and androids of social media make it more convenient for us to interact with one another, and with brands. But it’s not really about the bits and bytes and data and Dick Costolo, is it? It envelopes us, but technology is only the third most important “ly” […]

When Will the Social Media Losers Emerge?

social media losers

Today, social media is like a soccer league for seven year-olds: everyone gets a trophy. The vast majority of press coverage and conversations around social media centers around the fact that businesses are DOING social media, not necessarily doing it EFFECTIVELY. Do you know why every article or blog post with even a scintilla of […]

Destroying the 7 Myths of B2B Social Media

B2B social media is one of the most nettlesome of all social media marketing topics. There are plenty of half-truths and misunderstandings about what, where, why, and how B2B social media works (or doesn’t). I tried to dispel the most common B2B social media myths in this Webinar for Genius.com and Focus. Destroying the 7 […]

5 Step Process for Social Media Success

social media success process

Social media makes big companies feel small again, and gives small companies a natural advantage because they are closer to their customers. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, you have interesting stories to tell. Finding and sharing them is the first step toward social media success. What is your process for harvesting stories within […]

11 Whys I’m a Social Media Addict

Connectivity Social media brings me closer to people with whom I ordinarily would seldom interact. Family, friends, colleagues. As my co-author Amber Naslund put it once “with social media, my relationships aren’t bound by geography or circumstance.” Exactly. Humanity People always slam Twitter for people talking about “what they had for lunch” but the blending […]

Are You Treating Your Fans Like Cattle

Email ain’t dead yet. When they wake up, 59% of consumers check their email account before anything else online, according to new research from ExactTarget (disclosure: client), in a sweeping survey of 400+ Americans. (play with the data in the super cool interactive tool below) This correlates well with a similar, but far less statistically […]