Social Media

Why do you follow those you follow on Twitter? This really seems to be a no-brainer type question. We all follow who we want because that's who we want to follow, right? But I think there is a little bit more to who you follow if you want to get the most out of it. Just following everyone who follows you, or following high-profile celebrities may entertain, but what's it doing to challenge you and make you think? Twitter is so much about great conversation, engagement and seeing what's on the mind of thought leaders and influencers and having a strategy for who you follow will help you get the most out of it.

Twitter makes this pretty easy with its "who to follow" feature. I've used that feature a lot. There was always someone new that was there that would capture my interest. There would always be a new designer, a new small business expert or someone else interesting who would be on that list and I've always found someone new to follow that otherwise wouldn't have crossed my mind.    Read more »

Several months ago I came across about.me - a great app that consolidates all of your social media and other internet profiles in to one place. It’s not a blog, and it’s not another social media network or site, but instead is much more like a really, really cool virtual business card that gives you a place to connect all of the different places on which you live on the internet - and a business card that gives you analytics too.

You have complete control over what you want your about.me page to look like. You can choose your image, choose how much - or how little - you’d like to share, provide visitors with a way in which to contact you via email, a place for you to write your bio and links to your blog - the list goes on.    Read more »

Suffice it to say that if you enjoy the deals on Groupon or LivingSocial you are going to love Moolala! It’s really that simple. Moolala is a new daily deal website that adds a new, interesting and unique twist to the daily deal concept that’s already proved successful with other sites.

What it is

Moolala is very similar conceptually to the other big daily deal type sites like Groupon, and LivingSocial. They will send you a daily email where you’ll have the chance to get something great at a deeply discounted price. Nothing really new here. The kicker is the incentive they put in to share and promote the deal.    Read more »

I saw a tweet the other day that got me thinking. This person is a very successful ecommerce merchant and there were some issues mentioned that caused me to think that if I were still in sales I’d be pulling out all the stops trying to win that business and I wondered if their current rep knew about the situation. They’d dangled the carrot out there for someone to meet their need, and I would have loved such an obvious opportunity if I were still a sales person.

The wheels started turning as I thought about my old competitors, and customers and wondered if this person’s rep was aware of the fact that they were in a precarious position of potentially losing this customer. Was their rep really listening? Did they know? If I was still in the business, I’d immediately have gone to my resources to find out what was the latest information about them.    Read more »

I’m a subscriber to Groupon and as you may (or may not) know Groupon along with LivingSocial amongst others sends out a daily deal that consists of a huge discount on products or services available in the area. I always take a look at the deal to see what businesses are offering and today I had an idea.    Read more »

 So this weekend I'm taking a break and decided to get some time with my little girl and watch one of her favorite shows with her. I don't have a lot of patience for television, especially live television.  If I can't fast-forward through the absolutely ridiculous number of commercials, I really don't care much to watch it.  That even goes for football games of my beloved alma mater Florida State University. So as usual I focus my attention on my little girl and we're having a good talk about what's going on and getting some time together.     Read more »

 Here is something that I've seen recently that is just making the best use of the available tools.  I've been on Webinars with ThinkVitamin and Boagworld and one thing - amongst the many others - that I learned was how they handled their webcast.  

One of the things that really stood out to me was how they used Twitter hash-tags as chat streams for the live broadcast.  For one of the ThinkVitamin conferences I was on, it was a necessity as the chat in the platform they were using failed.      Read more »

I've been asking myself the same question after seeing the Old Spice Guy's viral videos on YouTube. It's been all the rage and everyone is talking about it. So what can be learned from the Old Spice campaign and how can you apply it to your business? Here are 4 ways that I'm learning from this campaign.

1.  We are starved for original, compelling content.  I think that one of the main reasons Old Spice Guy has been so successful is that it represents everything that is right about social media. They've done a great job of telling a compelling story and building the persona of the Old Spice Guy. They've attracted thousands and thousands of followers on Twitter. It's original, it's entertaining and it's attracting a ton of attention because it's well done, original and compelling.    Read more »

Want to get a great overview for business applications of social media?  Look no further than Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff.

For those who work with social media, this is an invaluable introduction to the topic and gives great coverage to what companies are doing to adapt to this new world. The fact of the matter is that regardless of the size of your company, dealing with social media is not a choice, but that's not a bad thing.  However, what is important is that managers, executives, and marketing departments need to get up to speed on the various aspects of social media.    Read more »

This year, it's my goal to read a book a week.  Long ago I learned that constantly adding to your value as a person through a commitment to life-long learning makes you not only more valuable in the marketplace, but also more valuable to your family, friends, and on your job.  There are a lot of things that war for your time, but few can be as rewarding as turning off the television, and digging in to a good book. 

So far, I'm behind - I'm not making good progress.  But there are legitimate reasons for that, and I plan to redouble my efforts and get back on track. I've finished a couple, and most recently I've picked up a couple that are going to take far longer than a week to read.  But that leads me to my next thought - what to read?  The most recent books I've ordered from Amazon are both very dense, heavy material that will take some time to work through. So with that, I'm planning on reading these at the same time that I'm reading something not quite so rich. 

So my bookshelf will continue to expand with a variety new titles, but I will also add a page here to chroincle my goal with my reading list and reviews.     Read more »