From the monthly archives:

February 2012

Shoutlet’s New Features Blend SMMS With Marketing Automation

by Jason Falls · February 29, 2012

The ever-growing world of social media management systems continues to blur the lines of categories of platforms. We’ve discussed before the consumer desire for all these tools to get their feature sets together and provide us with an all-in-one digital marketing place. But in the race to make big brands happy on Facebook, we’re left having to piece meal software together to do what we want.

Shoutlet took a nice step forward recently with the addition of something they call the “Switchboard” that integrates a bit of marketing automation with social media management. Instead of setting Tweets or Facebook posts and the like to fire at certain times or days, using Shoutlet you can now set them to send based on events or triggers.

Read More →
6 comments

What Are Women Saying Online?

by Jason Falls · February 28, 2012

My partner Aaron Marshall and I joked one day about doing some research for our upcoming industry reports product (first one launches very soon) around what women are talking about online in terms of purchasing items and calling the report, “That’s What She Said.” It got a good laugh, even though both of us then thought seriously about the project. Then I hopped on a call with Visible Technologies to chat about doing a webinar with them and I rolled out that topic as the idea.

They loved it.

Read More →
3 comments

3 Mission Critical Reasons to Convert Fans and Followers into Email Subscribers

by Nichole Kelly · February 28, 2012

It isn’t difficult to put together a strategy to convert fans and followers into something you actually own — email subscribers. But too many are putting the effort on the backburner in favor of figuring out a new popular social network. Converting fans and followers to email subscribers is just smart. The benefits exceed those found with preserving your investment in social activity. The benefits are also found in what you do with the email database on an on-going basis.

Here are three reasons you should start taking email acquisition seriously and make it one of your top goals for 2012.

Read More →
29 comments

A Content Marketing Milestone: Big Brand Shows Personality

by Jason Falls · February 27, 2012

Approximately 99.6 percent of the pitches I get from public relations folks are about social media campaigns their firm or client is launching. For whatever reason, they think we care. It’s not that we categorically do not, but that launching a campaign is not news. Finishing one and providing the metrics as a case study is normally pretty interesting, though.

Unfortunately, for competitive reasons, paranoia or simple ignorance, brands never want to share the back-end metrics on much. And alas, we’re left with few case studies that really help.

Read More →
17 comments

Businesses Love Affair With Mediocrity

by Eric Brown · February 24, 2012

I wonder sometimes why companies hire consultants. It seems that the first order would be to help them fix something in their business that is broken or seeking improvement. Folks that sit at the top of companies are smart, and I am pretty sure that most of the time they really do know what is broke and what needs fixed in their business, even when their actions indicate differently. The business is their baby. They do not need a consultant to tell them where the problems exist, although verification is always good. No, I think many times they seek the help of a consultant to make them feel better.

Read More →
9 comments

Social Media: Career Boost or Time Suck?

by Heather Rast · February 23, 2012

Much has been written about how social media can (and has) helped online-savvy young people find jobs with companies anxious to acquire employees with certain talents. There are presently 12.76 million unemployed in America, 2.05 million of those ages 20 to 24. Presumably, members of this generation matriculated alongside classmate Social Media. Have the young minds used the tools and trends available, coupled with accumulated “offline” skills, to edge out the competition on the job hunt? Or simply for less ambitious pursuits?

Read More →
18 comments

How Social Media Can Help College Students

by Jason Falls · February 22, 2012

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Candace Webb, a social media practitioner who explores how social media impacts college students at DegreeJungle.com.

Social media connects persons from every part of the world including underclassmen in today’s universities. It is an interest tool; when used effectively, college students can become leaders in their industries before finishing college. You can benefit by using social media to develop a digital portfolio, design your own influence, and reach decision-makers who are leaders in their industries.

Read More →
9 comments

Think Like a Startup, Act Like a Blogger

by Andrew Hanelly · February 22, 2012

The best startups focus unwaveringly around one thing: solving a real-world problem.

The best bloggers focus intensely on another thing: participating and publishing in social media.

Combine the two and your organization has a simple framework for success in the digital space.

Think like a startup: What problem are we truly trying to solve?

Startups launch fast, get feedback, and react quickly. When Yelp first launched, the platform’s focus was getting friends to email each other requests for their recommendation of a service. While that idea fell flat with their audience, the concept of social business reviews did catch on and the site became a huge success.

Read More →
8 comments

5 Marketing Rules You May Want To Break

by Ilana Rabinowitz · February 21, 2012

Rules tell you the way the average person does things most successfully.  If you apply them consistently you’ll have a better chance of success than if you don’t have a clue of what you’re doing, I’ll grant you that. But blindly following the rules will never take you beyond a mundane level of workmanship to art.  If Steve Jobs, Tony Hsieh, Howard Schultz, or Jeff Bezos were focused on rules you’d associate their businesses with the commodities that they sell.

Read More →
15 comments

← Previous Entries

Subscribe to SME via email!

Close (X)

Probably the best thing you will do all day.