From the monthly archives:

April 2011

Early Bird For ESM Toledo Ends Wednesday!

by Jason Falls · April 29, 2011

Toledo, Northern Ohio, Southeastern Michigan and Northeastern Indiana are in for a real treat on May 18 as the Exploring Social Media Business Summit comes to the Hilton Toledo. We’ve got an all day strategy learning session planned that is sure to take business owners and marketing managers from wondering about social media to having a strategic approach to implementing it. The early bird deadline, saving you $50 off the full price, ends on Wednesday, May 4 (next week), so I wanted to remind everyone to register now and save!

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Steve Jobs and the Power of Storytelling

by Mark Ivey · April 28, 2011

Quick, think of a good story you’ve heard in the last few months, or even years – any story (short story, childhood bedtime story, a narrative joke, story in a presentation, etc). Now think of a couple of good statistics you’ve heard in the last few weeks.

Which one came easiest?

Nine times out of 10, it’s the story. Stories stick in your head, sometimes for years.

There’s a lot of attention around corporate content now. Relevant content. Compelling content. Engaging content … and tons of posts on techniques - how to spin the content, how to write powerful headlines and so on.

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32 comments

The Blogger’s Guide To PR’s Email Pitches

by Jason Falls · April 27, 2011

Public relations professionals responded en masse to last week’s post offering some guidelines for email pitching. My assertions that PR outreach via email is, indeed, a commercial communications and, thus, falls under the regulatory purview of the Federal Trade Commission and the CAN-SPAM Act was polarizing.

Many did not agree with my opinion that the CAN-SPAM Act also encompasses public relations communications, particularly when a PR person is reaching out to a media outlet or blogger to just establish that all-important relationship. Honestly, I do think there are a lot of gray areas here, but when it comes to following the letter of the law, can we really afford to play in an unclear pool?

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18 comments

Solve Problems for Your Customers with Content, Don’t Create New Ones

by Andrew Hanelly · April 26, 2011

We in marketing love us some big ideas.

Attention-getting, jaw-dropping, breathtaking ideas that captivate our audience and sway them into taking action. It’s how we get noticed. It’s how we win awards. It’s how we achieve ROI.

Or so we think.

On paper, the ideas we come up with are brilliant. The storyboard is compelling. The concept will change everything. The “personas” are delighted. The idea is a success.

On paper.

But our audience doesn’t live on paper – they live in the real world. And they aren’t personas, they are individual people.

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20 comments

Is Mobile Important In Your B2B Social Media Strategy?

by Jason Falls · April 25, 2011

Editor’s Note: Today’s offering is a guest post from my friend and author Eric Schwartzman. He is a long-time, well-respected public relations pro, entrepreneur and thinker and is the co-author of Social Marketing To The Business Customer with Paul Gillin.

Is mobile important to B2B social media marketers? Take this quick, down and dirty assessment to find out what opportunity, if any, the mobile web presents to your company.

You’ve heard that the marketing wars of tomorrow will be fought on the small screen. Smart phone usage and mobile search continue to grow, with analysts predicting nearly 3.5 billion mobile searches per month by next year.

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6 comments

Using MBTI® to Build Effective Social Media Teams

by Mark Smiciklas · April 22, 2011

As social media starts to weave itself into the fiber of corporate culture, companies are beginning to recognize the need to make organizational changes in order to evolve as social businesses. One area where this is gaining importance is Human Resources. The emergence of new social media roles and how they are integrated into the structure of an organization can have a huge impact on the success of social business initiatives.

As businesses begin to experiment with assembling social media teams some will leverage existing employees, using a corner of the desk approach to gradually embed learning and build capacity, while others will look to hire new staff. Either way, how do you know which employees are best suited for these new roles?

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22 comments

2011 Trending Topic: Social Media ROI

by Nichole Kelly · April 21, 2011

Did you get a larger social media budget for 2011? Are you being pressured to deliver ROI from your new budget? As the buzz around social media finally made it to executive’s ears their willingness to open the proverbial purse strings loosened, but it came at a price that many marketers were unprepared for … accountability.

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31 comments

Be Like Wolfgang: Use Personalized Video

by Stephanie Schwab · April 20, 2011

Last week my friend Pam Lewis checked in to the Las Vegas restaurant Spago on Foursquare. Pam is a wonderful blogger, a lover of all things fashion, and a busy mom of two who, like me, uses Foursquare to track her comings and goings for her own use but also to connect with friends and, yes, occasionally a little bit competitively.  On this particular checkin, she won ultimate bragging rights.

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