From the category archives:

Social Media

Responding to Guest Blogger Requests

March 9, 2010

It’s been a curious 24 hours. First, snow falling on daffodils and cherry blossoms (our first of the season, here in Seattle). Then, 2 people emailed me, having found my blogs, to inquire about contributing posts for this blog and my personal blog.
The requests, while flattering, caught me off guard. They made me realize I [...]

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Email Still Matters for Communication Purposes

March 8, 2010

I was amused to read in today’s tweet stream that email still matters, as Jeremiah notes here (screenshot above).
As a practical indicator of social media adoption, I’ve been looking for signs of how Twitter is used by people within my business networks, and in particular, by my clients. My non-scientific research suggests that email, phone [...]

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We’re in the “Customer Understanding” Business

February 8, 2010

Lately I’ve been struck by how we marketers may be losing our way, overlooking our core mission. Preoccupied with wrenching changes in how we launch products, retool the marketing mix, and engage influencers and stakeholders, it’s easy to overlook our core mission: understanding customers. How we apply what we understand about customers is what drives [...]

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Managing Biz Dev Contacts Online

February 3, 2010

Large enterprises have all sorts of choices when it comes to managing interactions with customers and prospects. The options available to solo practitioners and very small businesses, until recently, have been much more restricted, especially for people who want more than what Microsoft Outlook has to offer. Marketing firms like mine want a service that’s [...]

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What’s the ROI on Social?

January 19, 2010

During today’s presentation to the Seattle Social Media Club, Sean O’Driscoll, community builder and influencer marketing expert, revealed how he answers the inevitable questions about the ROI on social media and influencer marketing programs.
He held up a phone and rhetorically asked, “How do you measure the ROI on your telephones?” Translation: it’s the conversations [...]

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Motivating People to Drive Innovation or New Sources of Value Creation

January 12, 2010

Last night I heard Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind and the new book Drive, speak about the most powerful wellsprings of human motivation: the intrinsic motivators autonomy, mastery and purpose. If you haven’t read Drive, here is Daniel Pink’s TEDTalk on human motivation. An entertaining 18-minute summary of what behavioral scientists know [...]

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Social – Mainstream Marketing?

November 25, 2009

When you get a social networking invitation from your single-brew coffee maker, you know that social media is now mainstream.
Today’s email in-box featured this invitation from Tassimo, to follow their “taste master” on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook. I was happy to see how well they interact with customers via Facebook and [...]

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Conflict Looms: Your Organization’s Social Media Voice vs. The Power of Personal Brands

November 17, 2009

Social media experts like Shiv Singh recommend that you designate one or more people to serve as your organization’s social media voice.

The challenge with this recommendation is that such people are in short supply and high demand. If you’re lucky enough to employ people with authentic SIM voices, you’re vulnerable to poaching if you can’t motivate them to stay with your organization.

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Building a Great Community Online

November 13, 2009

One of the best examples of a thriving online community is I Love Typography. Almost 50,000 people subscribe to its RSS feeds. There are many voices: multiple authors and lots of people who care enough to respond. It feels vibrant and live. People share experiences and point to great examples of typography in use.

But what makes this such a vibrant community? What lessons can we take away from this example and apply elsewhere?

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Sparking “Sidebar” Conversations

November 3, 2009

Today I received one of the best-ever comments on a blog posting; however, the person who responded to my post took the time to track down my address and then sent me a very thoughtful message via email. Given the trouble he took to communicate in this manner, I surmise that he did not want [...]

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