From the monthly archives:

November 2011

Ask For Referrals

by Eric Brown · November 30, 2011

Word of Mouth Marketing gets a lot of attention, but how many small businesses are actually deploying a successful Word of Mouth Marketing strategy?

Certain businesses and their products are a natural. They are cool and worthy of talking about. Think Apple. They just make products that people love to talk about, and they even get folks who don’t like their product to talk about them. But what about the other 99% of the products that fall closer to mediocrity? They are solid offerings, but they just aren’t sexy … or at least we don’t think so.

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18 comments

Crafting Holiday Emails

by Jason Falls · November 29, 2011

Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest entry from Molly Niendorf, content and social media manager for Emma, Social Media Explorer’s email marketing provider.

Oh, it’s almost December? You don’t say.

If you’re anything like me, this time of year is a whirlwind of deadlines and needs and responsibilities, and it can all feel a bit, well, un-festive. There’s nothing worse than thinking, Oh, shoot, I’ve got to send holiday emails to my customers on top of everything else I have to do? When framed as just another in a long list of tasks, crafting holiday emails can feel downright frightful.

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7 comments

The Good And Bad Of Social Media In A Democracy

by Jason Falls · November 28, 2011

The International Visitor Leadership Program, an off-shoot of something run by the U.S. State Department, brought a group of journalists and bloggers from China to the U.S. recently. I met with them in Louisville on Friday to discuss new media journalism in the U.S. The hour-and-a-half long meeting gave them an opportunity to ask me questions about how bloggers and journalists in the U.S. deal with a variety of issues, including ethics in journalism, credibility in new and online media outlets, how Americans can be critical of their government but do so within the confines of our laws and the like.

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16 comments

Black Friday? Try Blank Friday

by Ike Pigott · November 25, 2011

No doubt you’re either in the Black Friday shopping scrums, or smugly congratulating yourself for dodging the melee. (Or maybe, like me, you’re watching the kids while a significant other is tossing elbows in an attempt to get one of the five loss-leader gadgets meant to lure shoppers…)

From an online marketing perspective, however, I’m more interested in Blank Friday.

That’s the day Facebook made a big shift that changed our search volume:

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6 comments

We Don’t Give Thanks Enough

by Jason Falls · November 24, 2011

Honestly, I get really tired of Thanksgiving before it ever happens. Starting roughly last Friday for most people, but as far back as Halloween for others, you starting seeing the “I’m thankful for …” posts on Facebook and the occasional Tweet. It builds to a crescendo on or about Wednesday of this week and certainly becomes all you see online Thanksgiving morning. By the time the actual day happens, I’m bored with the meme and want something better from a content consumption perspective.

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6 comments

7 Steps for Overcoming Writer’s Block (And Writing A Brilliant Blog )

by Mark Ivey · November 23, 2011

Don’t you hate writer’s block? You know you have brilliant ideas, but there’s that damn blank screen staring at you when you sit down to blog. Nothing happens. The brain’s in idle. Frustration begins to creep in. (Remember Jack Nicholson in The Shining?)

Many people struggle with writing. But I believe anyone can write and blog with the right approach. It’s not brain surgery, but it does take some work.

First, get over the idea that you have to write a blockbuster blog every time. We find in our training that many corporate bloggers are by nature analytical and perfectionists, which creates a lot of extra agony. It’s great to hit a home run, but mostly this is about hitting lots of singles and doubles.

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19 comments

Making Your Digital Marketing More Accessible

by Jason Falls · November 22, 2011

There are two million people in the U.S. who are blind or visually impaired. That number is sure to grow in coming years as Baby Boomers, and their eyes, age. That’s a lot of people. Ever wondered how they “see” your website? What about how they navigate and use social media channels? Unless you are visually impaired, you’ve probably not thought about it.

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3 comments

Evolving Social Media Marketing to Social Business

by Jason Falls · November 21, 2011

Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest post from Jordan Viator Slabaugh, Director of Social Media at Spredfast, a social media management solution provider and SME client.

Businesses small and large have worked to wrap their heads around using social media to aid in marketing efforts for years now. What began as interactive and “new media” tactics quickly transformed into true social capabilities companies can pull out of their arsenal of marketing plans, tools and tactics. And until recently, most planning and execution of social media lived in Marketing and Communications departments.

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24 comments

Welcome To The New Social Media Explorer!

by Jason Falls · November 21, 2011

We’re excited today to unveil the new Social Media Explorer. Take a look around and see some of the changes to the site and design. And let us know what you think.

Primarily, Aaron Marshall and I wanted to reposition the website to more accurately reflect Social Media Explorer as not just a blog, but an education and information products company. You can see in our new navigation bar up top that we more clearly call out what we do and how we can help customers. There’s even a New Here page that walks people through some questions so we can help get them closer to how we can help them.

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23 comments

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