January 2011 - Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}

QR Codes Have the Beer Can Problem

There continues to be a steady buzz about QR codes, those bar code-looking thingys that can be scanned by a smart phone to link you to added content, a website […]

LinkedIn Just Turned You Into a Butterfly

Don’t you think these bizarre new media “visualizations” have gone too far? The picture above is not a map of Africa on Acid, it’s a new LinkedIn product called InMaps. […]

Improve your blog. Stop writing for an audience!

I’m a little freaked about this post. I’m afraid people will read only the blog headline and get out their pitchforks and torches. So please glance at least a few […]

How a Blog Went From Zero to AdAge 100 in Nine Months

The success of {grow} has been stranger than science fiction and a wonderful surprise. In less than nine months, it’s rocketed up the charts from being unranked to as high […]

The four keys to tweet success

A few months ago my friend Dr. Ben Hanna led an extensive statistical study to discover the optimal tweeting strategy by running matched tests of tweets over a period of […]

Your company’s single biggest mistake on Twitter

Let’s start this post with a little quiz. I’ve assembled a few Twitter avatars from my Twitter stream. Take a look at the line-up and think about which company you […]

Let’s not have a Quor-gasm

I don’t like Quora. As far as I can tell I stand alone in this sentiment. Every blogger this side of Silicon Valley has lined up behind Robert Scoble’s opinion that Quora […]

Is it OK to fake your tweets?

The other day a prominent Twitter celebrity was kind enough to re-tweet one of my blog posts. It was not Kim Kardashian. At least that time. Any way, because of his power […]

Five Hidden Secrets of Social Media Failure

2011 will be a year when many marketing professionals hit the social media re-set button. After climbing aboard the “engagement train” for fear of being left behind, many marketers will […]