The moment that changed my life
It was a beautiful sunny spring day and I had just taken my nine-month-old son on a walk in his stroller. He was a chubby, healthy, happy baby and I loved to make him giggle and gurgle. He was just getting old enough where it felt safe to let him crawl around in the grass […]
An easy way to explain the social web. Really!
I’m often asked to explain the social web … in three minutes or less. Difficult!  But I’ve come up with a simple way to describe the importance of social media in my presentations that might be useful to you when you meet those people who want you to explain all this stuff like “Tweeter and […]
Wait a minute. It’s not about engagement after all!
I’ve been invited to be a presenter on an upcoming B2B Blogging webinar (announcement forthcoming!) so I’ve been studying many company blogs that I regard as best practices. As I moved from site to site, I noticed something surprising. There were very few comments. In fact, there were virtually none. It was kind of an […]
How to sell stuff on your B2B blog without being annoying
I’m hoping by now the “selling is bad” phase of the social media mantra is passe and we can all freely embrace our inner capitalist. Right?Earlier this week I wrote about a growing trend toward sponsored posts and outright selling on blogs. Frankly I think this defeats the community-building aspect of a blog. Why read […]
How to Use the Social Web to be a Star at Work
A few years ago, I was in a graduate leadership program at Carnegie Mellon University and took a class from a talented educator and author named Robert E. Kelly. Dr. Kelly had just written a book called “How to be a Star at Work.” (disclosure: I am receiving no affiliate income from this or any […]
How to use Twitter to crowd-source creativity
I have a “virtual” company. Well, it’s a real company, but I don’t have a building and employees and all that traditional stuff. I work with a posse of freelancers who might be spread out all over the country. So I have the best of both worlds. Great company, great people, but no worries about […]
It’s time to draw the line on social media disclosure
Perhaps by now you’re heard of the “Please Rob Me” site that highlights those on Twitter disclosing that they’re away from their homes. While the site is kind of funny, it draws attention to a serious point — disclosure of detailed personal information, including your precise physical location, will lead to crime. Notice I didn’t say […]
A Tweet Fit for a Queen
Today I’m privileged to feature a wonderful social web success story from my friend Imad Naffa. He recently told me about being re-tweeted by Queen Rania of Jordan and how he increased his business by 25 percent in six months through Twitter alone. I hope you enjoy learning from Imad as much as I have: […]
The NEW “Four P’s” of marketing
Place, product, price and promotion. We all learned these basic marketing principles in college and they still stand up today. But the social web is a true shift in the way we communicate and go to market. For the first time, mankind has access to real-time, free, instantaneous, two-way, global communication — and the good […]
Social media measurement: Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand tweets
In all of the posts I’ve read about social media measurement, very few address the possible role of qualitative research — measuring when you don’t have data — so let’s take a look at that today, shall we? This will not be boring, I promise. To make sure we’re all on a level playing field, let me quickly […]