From the monthly archives:

December 2011

Do Your Customers Know You Mine Them For Data?

by Ike Pigott · December 30, 2011

Many times, the best way to find out something about a group of people is to simply ask them. However, that isn’t always a surefire source for truth. The gap between what we do and what we say we do is wide enough to support entire industries.

For instance, the people who publicly tell you they back a particular candidate might vote for someone else behind the privacy curtain. We all like to be thought of as smart, progressive, dependable, creative, sexy, good listeners and caring. The temptation to bend the truth on a question is strong, even when we don’t know the questioner. We are just as prone to lie to the Gallup or Nielsen caller as we are to the woman across the street who can’t keep a secret.

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4 comments

Adopting Social Media Company-Wide

by Jason Falls · December 29, 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.

The concept of social business is quickly becoming a reality for companies. And a number of advantages come with adopting social media as a company. Your entire organization can share the responsibility of communicating on behalf of your company – beyond just marketing.

Customers, prospects and industry pros now expect to be able to connect with your brand. And if you’re not yet thinking about how to roll out social across all teams in 2012, there are a few things you can start thinking about, and planning, now to help you on this path.

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2 comments

Super Charge Your Social Media With HootSuite And Google Analytics

by Nichole Kelly · December 28, 2011

In March, HootSuite announced their release of Social Analytics which combines the power of HootSuite’s ow.ly statistics with Google Analytics, Facebook Insights and more. They already boast an easy-to-use interface for managing social media channels, and now HootSuite Pro users have an expanded social reporting dashboard that is providing best-in-class reporting options starting at $5.99 per month.

What HootSuite Pro Does Well

One-Click Report Creation

The social reporting dashboard allows users to set up a variety of automated reports including Ow.ly stats, Facebook Insights, and Google Analytics. They have made it fairly easy to create reports by providing templates and a system of widgets that allow you to quickly drag and drop reporting elements onto your dashboard.

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10 comments

Spredfast Integrates Social Business Index

by Jason Falls · December 27, 2011

Every business is looking for the right analytics to point to in hopes of determining success or failure in social media. Perhaps even more so, every business is trying to find that right combination of metrics that allows them to see how they’ve done and understand how to improve.

Spredfast, an SME client, announced last week they’ve added integration with the Social Business Index, a scorecard of sorts from the Dachis Group. On the surface, this might seem like pulling in Klout scores or other one-off measures that certainly enhances the tool, but isn’t earth-shattering. But if you look a little deeper, it’s a bit more important.

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2 comments

SOPA Is Not A Black Or White Issue

by Jason Falls · December 26, 2011

My friend Jeremy Dearringer asked me what I thought of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) this morning on Twitter. I haven’t given it a lot of thought, but have mulled it over a bit. Unlike most social media persons, I’m not one to quickly jump on a bandwagon without considering the issues at hand. While the opponents of the bill have done a good job of leading the lemmings off the cliff by saying, “This will shut down YouTube and Twitter!” or “This gives the government the right to force PayPal and ad networks to not do business with Facebook, meaning you won’t have Facebook anymore,” the reality of what the bill can do and what it will do are always different.

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14 comments

The Future of How Google+ Will Impact Search Rankings

by Jason Falls · December 26, 2011

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post written by Marcus Taylor, co-author of the book Get Noticed, and head of social media at SEOptimise.

Back in August, I ran several experiments to try and find out whether Google’s +1s had an impact on search engine rankings. The results suggested that in almost all cases Google +1s did have a positive impact on rankings. However, a lot has changed in the past four months, so I’d like to share where I think Google is going with the impact of Google+ on search rankings.

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14 comments

Regardless Of Your Belief, Merry Christmas

by Jason Falls · December 24, 2011

I’ve always been a little confused at the people who react negatively when someone says, “Merry Christmas.” Whether you’re Jewish, atheist, Kwanza-ist (or whatever those who believe in Kwanza are called) or even into Festivus for the rest of us, all the phrase means is that the person saying it want’s you to be happy. Sure, I’m all for respecting other’s beliefs and traditions. What you celebrate or recognize is your business. But that doesn’t mean that on Christmas Day or during the Christmas season, I can’t wish that you be merry.

And if I say “Merry Christmas” it doesn’t mean I’m trying to convert you, either.

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19 comments

Reinvent the Space You Play In

by Eric Brown · December 23, 2011

The best brands have you in their marketing net before you really know it. They draw you in, although sometimes we may not be completely clear as to how or why, but we are there because we want to be. It occurred to me this last weekend while doing some holiday shopping for my bride that we were deep into a particular brand’s netting.

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1 comment

7 Ways Marketing HAS Changed (And It’s Not Just The Tools)

by Ilana Rabinowitz · December 22, 2011

I keep hearing about how the rules of marketing haven’t changed —- we’re just using new tools.  I think that’s hogwash. Marketing has changed in profound ways.

First of all, it’s no small matter that the tools have changed.  When we started using the phone instead of the letter, or mobile phone instead of the land line, our lives changed in significant ways.  New communication tools have meant lost industries and jobs as well as new opportunities. The same is and will be true in marketing so we should not deny the major changes that face us.

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9 comments

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