In celebration of National Small Business Week… For entrepreneurs, business owners, investors, and consultants, one of the most exciting prospects of social media, lies in the ability to dramatically amplify your visibility and value proposition among existing and potential stakeholders. Social Media finally places small, local and emerging businesses in the spotlight in ways that up until this point, were largely unattainable. New Media is rapidly shifting the landscape of how people find and share information and much of it…
Facebook Around the World
In March 2010, Facebook emerged as the top search term at Google, Bing, and Yahoo according to Experian Hitwise. Bing reported that 2.6% of all searches were dedicated to Facebook with Google at 1.17%. To say that Facebook is capturing the minds and search boxes of people in the U.S. and around the world would be a gross understatement. Facebook wasn’t only the top search term in America, again, according to Experian Hitwise, it was also the most visited website…
How Can I Help You Engage?
One of the most difficult tasks that I face when discussing Engage is the dance I perform between author and promoter. The balance is never clear, but intention is what I hope speaks volumes. Engage is a handbook for anyone working in new media. For executives, it will help you lead transformation. For champions, it provides you with the insight to win support. For business owners, it empowers you to compete for attention and customers and expand your footprint. The…
In Social Media, Consumers Offer Rewards to Deserving Brands
In social media, questions, and not answers, dominate the landscape for branded digital programs. Anyone who tells you otherwise, is misinformed. The answers that reveal strategy and direction are ours to discover, however it’s our responsibility to take the initiative to answer our own questions and accordingly, pave the roads for experimentation and experience. It is in these journeys where we learn everything and as such, become the experts we sought in our quest to seek direction and validation. As…
Report: Top 20 Brands on Twitter – April 2010
Twitter is a stream of incredible collective consciousness. Every day, people all over the world share their experiences through a truly personal lens, providing insight into the real-world experiences and observations that inspire conversations, define communities, and move markets – all in real time. Perhaps one of the most profound and largely untapped treasures in all of Social Media, Twitter indeed represents one of the world’s richest conversation mines. The openness of Twitter holds the information necessary to learn, adapt,…
I Tweet Therefore I Am
The fascination with Twitter has less to do with the number of users and everything to do with the ability to observe and study a notable online community of passionate short-form content creators and consumers. This is of course, not just any online community. Twitter is quickly becoming the lens into all that moves us as individuals and also as a global society. Twitter’s simplicity is part of its brilliance. The ability to interpret, analyze and in turn, predict behavior,…
The Business of B2B Social Media
Social Media is often misconstrued as a medium for business-to-consumer or B2C engagement and discounted as a viable communications network for those companies focused on business-to-business transactions. However, B2B, as in any other field impacted by online activity, is faced with a prime opportunity to not only cultivate communities in social networks and other social channels, but also amplify awareness, increase lead generation, reduce sales cycles, and perhaps most importantly, learn and adapt to market dynamics in real-time. Ignorance is…
7 Scientific Ways to Promote Sharing on Facebook
Leonardo Da Vinci once wrote, “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Kelly Johnson modernized that philosophy with an alternate twist, KISS, Keep it Simple, Stupid a.k.a. Keep it Short and Simple. In a social economy where attention is a precious commodity, the ability to strip a social object down to its essence to capture attention has less to do with compacting character counts and more to do with the art and science of packaging and presenting content so that it is…
Build Bridges Between Aspiration and Realization
Hugh MacLeod is not only a friend, but also someone whose work I admire, follow, and respect. When he asked me to contribute a post for his evocative “Remember Who You Are” series, I responded posthaste. Throughout life, we’re introduced to so many important lessons and proverbs and most of the time, we’ll listen, but not really hear and embrace their message and purpose. Every now and then however, we’re introduced to something so profound that it changes our outlook…
With Social Media Comes Great Opportunity
I believe that Social Media represents in two words and five syllables, nothing short of a revolution within any business or any industry for that matter. And, for individuals, it represents the democratization of media and equalization of influence. It presents an equal opportunity platform to broadcast and publish at will, earning audiences and prominence that directly align with the level of individual participation and investment in engagement. The socialization of media affects and empowers more than personal brands however….
