Social Media

Learned Lessons from SMB18

By Joseph Stucker | Published July 14th, 2010

There is a glut of information on the internet; your goal should be to know, find, and share the best, whether that means producing new content or redistributing existing, high quality content.

Your Workforce is Your Social Media Policy

By Josh Cole | Published July 1st, 2010

The democratization of knowledge is a real phenomenon — thanks to the internet. Your company should be playing on this field in a big way. You should be mining your entire workforce for content and promotion. Don’t close your employees off from social media, empower them to do social media right.

Iteration as Client Education

By Josh Cole | Published April 29th, 2010

When you iterate with your development, you are actually helping your clients evolve and go with the flow, following the way the web actually works. Trying to perfect things leaves would leave them exposed and static in a moving tide. But iteration itself is a chance for education in the mindset they’ll need to compete in the new web atmosphere.

2010: Marketing is not Marketing

By Brett Virmalo | Published March 3rd, 2010

In the age of transparency, marketing is not about crafting artificial or half-true brand stories for consumer audiences. Marketing is about uncovering, fostering, sharing, and engaging with employees and consumers around the true stories that make your brand unique. Let’s take a look at how a few of the departments in your organization are the real marketing departments.

Metrics for Success: How Elevated is Your Valley?

By Brad Schwarzenbach | Published December 15th, 2009

If you’re launching a web-based promo campaign, success won’t be found in the traffic peaks, rather, the valleys. Holding the audience is where real value is generated.

Social Media Outreach is More Than Saying “I’m Sorry”

By Josh Cole | Published November 11th, 2009

Qwest has a dedicated team at socialmedia.qwest.com — not at TalktoQwest.com where it should at least also be — whose mission, according to the CEO is “Listening to and understanding our customers so completely that we deliver a total customer experience that exceeds expectations.”
What does this crack team of social media experts do? They listen and understand.

Got Elevation?

By Brad Schwarzenbach | Published November 3rd, 2009

Successful web content doesn’t promote your brand or product. It promotes the themes and subjects that surround them. It prompts discussion or adds to it.

Brian Solis’s Conversation Confusion Prism

By Brad Schwarzenbach | Published September 29th, 2009

Let me start by saying something very important. We like Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas’s The Conversation Prism. It provides a very comprehensive view of the web content distribution world. It was developed to address a number of issues that new media agencies deal with on a daily basis. The corporate website is not the…

3 Steps to Feeding the Beast

By Brad Schwarzenbach | Published September 15th, 2009

Social media sites are growing. Content is being created, and consumed, at an incredible rate. Attention spans are short, and if the beast doesn’t like what’s on offer, it will move on. Only the best content will be remembered. How do you give it what it wants?

Don’t Yell at a Crowd

By Brad Schwarzenbach | Published September 8th, 2009

Allow me to smack you upside your head with some Tuesday afternoon obvious: There are a lot of conversations happening on the internet. It’s all about participation … maybe You probably don’t need to be told about the importance of participating in the social media space. Your PR or digital agency has likely pitched the…

Don’t Let This Odyssey Pass You By

By Andrew Davis | Published August 25th, 2009

The online discussion space is a consumer’s paradise and favors their influence over the producer’s. The only way to extract value from the endless conversation that is the internet is to openly and honestly interact with it.

Using Social Networks to Promote Your Content

By Brett Virmalo | Published August 19th, 2009

If you’ve approached building your LinkedIn and Twitter networks wisely, they’re great channels for narrowcast promotion. You have an audience with an expressed interest in you and your content. Feed it to them.

Viralheat — OK To Monitor, But Not To Measure

By Brad Schwarzenbach | Published August 14th, 2009

Last month, we reported that social media metrics site Viralheat is in the Experimentation Phase of their New Media Life Cycle. Now let’s take a closer look at what Viralheat actually provides. Here’s a demo from the site: When you’ve subscribed to Viralheat, you select a number of keywords to create “profiles” that you’d like…

Podcast: Traveling Near and Far

By Josh Cole | Published August 7th, 2009

This week on The Tipping Point podcast we strike out in a new direction and experiment with a new format. Traveling to Las Vegas with Andrew Davis, on vacation with Eric Sagalyn, and into the past with Jim Cosco. Featured: Zappos Headquarters; an interview with Eric Sagalyn on Twitter, WordPress, user experience, daddy blogging and more; and John Quincy Adams on Twitter (Readings by David Cutler from Eat Media and Jason Tarre)

5 Questions to Test Social Media Expertise

By Andrew Davis | Published August 4th, 2009

Ask these five questions as you consider working with any social media ‘expert’ — the answers will give you the necessary insight to judge any social media strategy.

Viralheat and the Search for the Holy Grail

By Andrew Davis | Published July 31st, 2009

For a comprehensive social media strategy, reporting back on the engagement can be as time consuming as creating the content. Viralheat attempts to create one interface for monitoring and quantifying your social media interactions.

Begetting the Love Child of Social Media and Custom Publishing

By Andrew Davis | Published July 28th, 2009

Today’s social media strategies are heavy on the social and light on the media. It’s mostly about getting on a site and getting followers. Or responding to every mention of your company. It’s only a fraction of the overall picture of what social media ought to be.

Hey Social Media Agencies — Alpo or Eukanuba? The Choice Is Yours.

By Jim Cosco | Published July 16th, 2009

Whether you’re a social media agency or not, your company should be producing content that reflects your goals and supports your claims. Period.

Social Media Experts Don’t Understand Social Media

By Brett Virmalo | Published July 8th, 2009

It seems like every time I meet with an agency, they bring along their social media experts. I’m not exactly sure what makes someone a social media expert. Perhaps it is someone who knows how to amass a lot of Facebook friends or how to put a lot of torque into their Twitter wrench. But…

Add Value on Twitter: The 4-1-1 Rule

By Brett Virmalo | Published July 1st, 2009

Today, we’re focusing neither on the value of Twitter nor what you can do with it. Instead, let’s take a look at how you should be using it for maxium efficiency.

As Twitter is in the escalation phase, you shouldn’t be spending a lot of time thinking about it or using it. You should only be spending 15% of your time marketing on all escalation-phase platforms combined.

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