Rynda Laurel, who coordinated a talk between Brian Solis and Russell Brand as the keynote to this year’s SXSW Interactive festival, recently addressed Brand’s decision to cancel his appearance, sharing her thoughts on his recent struggle to achieve sobriety in his life.
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…
ROI: How to Measure Return on Investment in Social Media
What follows is the entire version of my recent post on Mashable, “The Maturation of Social Media ROI“ Over the years, Social Media experts attempted to redefine ROI for a new era of influence. While some introduced alternative philosophies for measuring the nuances tied to social media, others wondered aloud whether ROI simply wasn’t necessary as the tools and methodologies for analyzing yields didn’t yet exist. And furthermore, by focusing on justification and metrics, we were distracted from the primary…
The 10 Stages of Social Media Integration in Business
What follows is the unabridged version of my post on Mashable, “The 10 Stages of Social Media Business Integration.“ An overnight success ten plus years in the making, Social Media is as transformative as it is evolutionary. With every day that passes, we are presented with increasing reports that showcase the impact of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogs within small and large businesses alike. As a result, we can now visualize the state of adoption, understanding, and implementation in different…
The Future of Interactive Marketing
Source: Shutterstock Forrester recently released a new report tracking the future of US interactive marketing through 2014. Authored by Shar VanBoskirk, with Christine Spivey Overby, Niki Scevak, and Angie Polanco, Forrester predicts that interactive marketing is poised to grow at a 16% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). Even though interactive marketing will approach $55 billion by 2014, the report also observes that not all industries will keep pace with this growth. Retail and financial services are expected to dominate the…
Our Journey Defines Our Future in Social Media
Source: ShutterStock What follows is my opening address to the Social Media World Forum… As we look ahead to 2010 in the world of social media, we should first stop to appreciate how far we’ve come in this journey to new found relevance and presence. Social media served as a great equalizer. The technology and the corresponding networks that freely connected us, democratized the ability to publish and share content, weave more meaningful relationships, as well reset the ecosystem for…
In the Statusphere, A.D.D. Creates Opportunities for Collaboration and Education
Source It’s been an incredible week for stats, demographics, and authority trends related to Social Media this week. The Social Web is our Industrial Revolution and our Renaissance period. It is at the very least completely transforming how we communicate with each other and how we also discover and share content. Twitter, Facebook News Feeds, FriendFeed and other micro communities that define the Statusphere, are captivating and distracting our focus. But, while many argue that it’s decreasing productivity, I say…
Humanizing Social Networks: Revealing the People Powering Social Media
Compete: Top 25 Social Networks Social Networks are among the most powerful examples of socialized media. They create a dynamic ecosystem that incubates and nurtures relationships between people and the content they create and share. As these communities permeate and reshape our lifestyle and how we communicate with one another, we’re involuntarily forcing advertisers and marketers to rapidly evolve how they vie for our attention. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Yelp, and other online communities transformed the regimen and practice of marketing…
Are Blogs Losing Their Authority To The Statusphere?
What follows is the unedited Director’s Cut of my latest post on TechCrunch, “Are Blogs Losing Their Authority To The Statusphere?” My definition of Statusphere. Source Depending on which numbers you source or believe, all reports agree that the blogosphere continues to expand globally. As the leading blog directory and search engine, Technorati maintains a coveted Authority Index which is considered amongst bloggers as the benchmark for measuring their rank and selling their position within the blogosphere. Authority is defined…
Social Networks Now More Popular than Email; Facebook Surpasses MySpace
You heard that right…no matter how much time we sink into our inbox trying to keep up with all that barrage of never-ending mail, a new report sent over by Nielsen (thanks Sandra Parrelli) claims that Social networks and blogs are now the fourth most popular online activity today. The report, “Global Faces and Networked Places,” features data captured from December 2007 through December 2008 and reveals some very interesting statistics worth noting. Here’s are the highlights: Two-thirds of the…
