All Blog Posts - Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}

Why Facebook is more important than your house

Why is it easier to change your home than change your social network? A surprising answer!

Get ready. Social scoring will change your life.

Social scoring is a new trend to identify social media influencers. Could it catch on with brands?

How to become a Google whore

I have always struggled to balance the time needed for SEO with the organic attention I might get through the social web. Through the encouragement of others, I’ve decided to pay […]

Why Chris Brogan is invincible

I am fascinated with uber-blogger Chris Brogan as a cultural icon of the social media revolution. Whether it’s trying new business models or pioneering sponsored posts, he is our canary […]

Is the Internet destroying your culture … or creating it?

“Mass culture is dead. Every one of us is creating our own version of culture.” This quote from futurist Faith Popcorn sums up a lot of things I have been experiencing […]

Ten reasons to blog – even if nobody reads it

Building an engaged community through a business blog can be extremely difficult — sometimes impossible. Look at companies like General Electric who do an amazing job with their blog and yet […]

Secrets from the trenches: How to become a Blog Whisperer

I just 700 blog posts on {grow} and I thought this would be a good time to pause and share some of my lessons learned for all you budding Blog Whisperers out […]

To succeed in social media, set aside your marketing plan

Forget your marketing PLAN? Have I gone MAD?? Every good social media plan STARTS with a solid marketing strategy but social media efforts are sub-optimized if a company is too wedded to long-term […]

Bringing down the Twitter snobs

It seems that Mitch Joel and I are becoming the Social Media Odd Couple. I like Mitch. He’s smart. It’s just that I think he is so frequently wrong. Like […]

Bill Piper has no clue what he’s doing in social media

I have this new habit. When I’m alone on a long car trip I will put out a tweet asking people to call me and keep me company. It has […]

Today’s lesson: Yes, I do have limits.

I had a personal milestone last week — a different kind of {grow} experience — and it wasn’t a very good one. The story starts with an 8-year-old boy. Over the past […]

What is Social Media’s Next Big Thing?

One possible answer: The Enterprise. No, no. Not the Star Trek kind of Enterprise (although that would be pretty cool). I mean using social media technologies internally, within the […]

Can you make money from your Twitter stream? Mack Collier just did it.

Very quietly, a significant milestone occurred last Sunday night. Blogger and consultant Mack Collier monetized a Twitter conversation. That’s right. Mack made money from other people’s tweets on a free […]

Twitter success stories: Explaining the ROI of Twitter

Measurement and ROI are constant themes in the social media world. How do you PROVE the value of Twitter? Like most questions in business, the answer is, “it depends,” but […]

Is social media creating a generation of cowards?

I’ve been asked about my perspective on Malcom Gladwell’s article, “Small change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted.” My take on it may surprise you … and provide uncomfortable reading if you […]