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Convince and Convert Blog: Digital Marketing for Advertising Agencies and PR Firms

Social Media Strategy Blog Social Media Consulting


11 Whys I’m a Social Media AddictYesterday
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Connectivity

Social media brings me closer to people with whom I ordinarily would seldom interact. Family, friends, colleagues. As my co-author Amber Naslund put it once “with social media, my relationships aren’t bound by geography or circumstance.” Exactly.
11 whys i m a social media addict 11 Whys Im a Social Media Addict

Humanity

People always slam Twitter for people talking about “what they had for lunch” but the blending of the personal and professional is very attractive to me. I want to know what music you listen to, what you think is funny, why your cat is insane. When was the rule written that business had to be all-business? Life is so boring under those conditions.

Spontaneity

I love that I can interac



Do You Have the Guts to Expect Social Media FailureSeptember 1
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The fastest way to get your company to be on the social media sidelines is to get your company involved in social media. There’s a huge gap between the perception of social media as an instant, free, can’t miss marketing opportunity and the reality of social media as a long-term, time-intensive customer loyalty and brand advocacy opportunity.

This has happened before online. Swept up in a frenzy created by mainstream and business media, companies rush to adopt the hot new thing, to ensure that the competition doesn’t have some sort of secret weapon. Proposals are written. Resources deployed. Stuff gets built. And then……………………………..

THUD.

The graveyard of digital marketing is littered with the bones and business cards of those that dove in head-first with high expectations, no strategy, and no plan for testing and optimization of results.

Is Social Conversation a Myth?August 31
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Mitch Joel, whose blog and work I greatly admire, wrote a very interesting blog post recently that bemoaned the lack of conversation in social media. As coined by Joseph Jaffesocial conversation Is Social Conversation a Myth? (another good guy who was incidentally the very first guest on my series of live Twitter interviews), businesses have been trying to Join the Conversation for a while now. Yet, Mitch doesn’t see it happening in social media. He writes:

Social Listening and Analysis for the DIY InclinedAugust 26
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If you are conducting any level of online reputation management or campaign tracking using social media data sources, you have to get beyond the obvious. The point of tracking software isn’t to determine how many tweets were sent mentioning a company, it’s to figure out what those tweets say, and what the business ramifications are. Too often, standard charts and graphs included in software are just that, standard. They provide numbers, not insights.

If you’re an agency that’s providing social media listening or analysis services for clients, this is even more critical of a distinction. The ability to click “print” is not the exclusive domain of the agency professional. The more you serve up to your clients rote numerical recitations without context and recommendations, the more you’re opening yourself up to being replaced by your clients’ own printers, ink and paper.

You need to be creating custom charts and graphs and ideas that speak directly to the operational realities of each client. The disheartening truth is that the

Is Starbucks the Most Dangerous Competitor to Facebook?August 25
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Today’s post is a collaboration with Clinton Bonner, community connectivity expert, futurist, and blogger at Everything to Everything.

Starbucks is not only offering free Wi-Fi in all stores come this fall, but also unveiling their Starbucks Digital Network that all in-store web and mobile users will have the opportunity to enjoy (it’s a partnership with Yahoo!). Why would Starbucks need their own digital network? What impact could Starbucks’ brand of wireless connectivity have on consumer behavior? Plenty.