From the monthly archives:

December 2012

The Misnomer of Traffic Source Reporting

by Jason Falls · December 31, 2012

Businesses that execute on the practice of measuring revenues, conversions and, yes, return on investment, especially as they relate to social media, primarily derive those measures using Google Analytics, or similar. And it makes sense. You either track online purchases and amend each purchase to include the traffic source (direct, organic search, paid search, Facebook.com, Twitter.com, etc.) or you do the same with conversions and backtrack the math to know what each conversion’s average value to your company is and you have fairly accurate reads on where revenue is coming from.

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7 comments

Content Marketing: The Beautiful Buzz and the Hellacious Hangover

by Barry Feldman · December 28, 2012

Traditional advertising diehards practically invented the two-martini lunch, but the old saps have been shunned from today’s meaningful marketing shindigs. To get their kicks, they mostly go to bonfire parties and burn their clients’ money.

Meanwhile, us new media maniacs are partying hard on content marketing.

The cork’s been yanked. Everyone’s tipping a glass.

And what a buzz. This gloriously intoxicating content marketing cocktail, this newly discovered recipe—two parts education, one part search, one part social—with an optional splash of advertising.

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9 comments

5 Ways to Uncover Scammy SEO Agencies

by Arsham Mirshah · December 27, 2012

Is your SEO company scamming you?

Are they using spammy tactics that could actually harm your website?

Can they actually produce results, or are they just stealing your money?

Don’t waste any more time wondering.. here’s a checklist of 5 ways to put your SEO firm to the test…

  1. They don’t charge enough
  2. They Have Publicly Posted Complaints
  3. They Don’t Share Case Studies or References
  4. They Don’t Measure Themselves
  5. They Don’t Share the Secret Sauce

#1) They Don’t Charge Enough

Plain and simple, you get what you pay for.

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26 comments

Tools, Process and Culture…Oh My!

by Malcolm De Leo · December 26, 2012

Everywhere I go and speak, I ask the same two questions before I start my presentation.  The first question I ask is, “How many of you trust social media as a data source to make business decision?  Please raise your hand if you do.”  You know how many people’s hands go up after I ask this question?  About 5-10% of the room.  And when I ask this question, the room is filled with at a minimum 100 people all the way to 500 people.  After asking this question, I follow it with a second one.  I ask, “Ok, so when you are thinking of buying a new electronic device or appliance or picking a restaurant to make a decision, how many of you go to the web first to collect information to make your decision?”  Now everyone’s hand goes up.  Well at least 98% of them…the other 2% are sleeping.

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8 comments

Amazing Things Will Happen if You Give to a Non-Profit Today

by Nichole Kelly · December 25, 2012

As many of us wind down for the holiday season it’s easy to focus on our time with our family, the wonderful gifts we’ve received and how annoying our mothers are. Family time is special and it should be celebrated. But it’s also a time when we are the most generous, so let’s use our generosity for some serious good. Today is not only Christmas, it is also #GivingTuesday. The Giving Tuesday movement was primarily created to provide a spotlight for giving around the Black Friday Shopping craze and it was certainly successful as reports show a 42% increase in online giving during that time. However, I think Giving Tuesday could be something much bigger and it’s time to think about putting more thought to our giving than just throwing $100 at a charity at the end of the year (though this is a great way to make up for not giving throughout 2012…hint…hint). What if we all gave $10 to a charity every Tuesday? What impact would that have? Well to start we would increase our total donations to $520 a year. Imagine how big of a difference that $420 could make. Imagine the difference a 420% increase in giving could make if it caught on and it wasn’t just you and I, but it was the entire readership of Social Media Explorer? Now that’s a movement that could have a huge impact.

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35 comments

The Wonder of The Holiday

by Jason Falls · December 24, 2012

On December 24, 1979, I feigned sleep to see if Santa really did exist. My bedroom looked out over the front porch of the apartment my mother and I lived in and there were no other ways in or out, sans jumping out a window. We had no chimney and while part of the magic of Santa is that there’s magic in the first place, I was convinced no fat ass could enter my house without first passing my bedroom window.

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0 comments

Working When You Want, Where You Want – A Dream Come True Or a Nightmare In Disguise?

by Nichole Kelly · December 21, 2012

I always enjoy a healthy debate and looking at issues from all sides. Today’s post is a counterpoint to an earlier post, “Be Prepared as Digital Natives Demand the 4 Hour Work Week Lifestyle“.  Special thanks to Amy Fowler of Boom Online Marketing for this guest post.

‘Remote working’ is a hot topic right now, and if you believed everything you heard, you’d be convinced that within five years, offices will have been resigned to history books,  and we’ll all be gallivanting around in some 21st Century hippie-come-techie lifestyle and working from wherever the hell we happen to be.

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16 comments

The Most Important Marketing Tool You Probably Aren’t Using

by Ilana Rabinowitz · December 20, 2012

Before social media taught us we had to sound human, we could talk to everyone in the same generic business-speak to everyone. Now, people have come to expect businesses to speak to them in a more personal way and to be more relevant.  Personas allow you to do that.

Personas will determine the content, tone and language that you use when communicating. To better understand how important this is, imagine yourself at a family holiday party.  You would not discuss the same topics or use the same kind of language with your grandmother who loves to garden, your college-age nephew who is fascinated with politics, or your sister, who’s an executive at a software company.

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9 comments

Learn Email Marketing From DJ Waldow

by Jason Falls · December 19, 2012

Probably the best part of writing The Rebel’s Guide To Email Marketing with DJ Waldow was getting to learn more about email marketing than I probably ever cared to know. Sure, I’d been advising clients on email marketing and devising content strategies that included email marketing for some time, but to sit down with DJ and carve out a whole book about the subject was an awesome infusion of knowledge and excitement. He knows his stuff!

It turns out, you have a chance to get that kind of infusion, too!

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