In June 2008, I presented at a conference in Southern California where I debuted The Essential Guide to Social Media. While it seems like a lifetime ago, I remember this event distinctly because a couple of the questions at the end of conference addressed luxury brands specifically. And, they’re questions that many ask or have yet to ask today. What role do luxury brands take on the social web and what is the corresponding voice and personality associated with the…
21 Rules of Engagement in Social Media
What follows is a modified excerpt from Engage!, the complete guide for businesses to build, cultivate, and measure success in the new Web. Chapter 17 Social Media is reinventing marketing, communications, and the dissemination of information. For many businesses and organizations, social networks represent hallowed grounds, bringing together customers, prospects and the people who influence their decisions in a shared, balanced, and interactive medium. While businesses now have access to these rich channels, the true promise of social media however,…
Top 10 Ways to Become a Real Social Media Expert
The headline is shared mostly in jest, but this topic is one worthy of serious attention. The question at hand is whether or not the general advice shared in popular blogs and books when designed to be snappy, shareable, and consumable, help or hinder the ability to learn critical and important lessons in social media. I recently read a post by Alan Maites that used an article that I wrote for AdAge as the nexus for an industry-wide quest to…
Q&A: Is One-Way Communication an Oxymoron?
Every now and then, I’m asked to answer questions for other blogs and media outlets – more so lately due in part to the recent release of Engage! The conversations that always trigger new insights, ideas, or perspectives and sometimes, I believe that the discussion is worth sharing with you, here. This is one such discussion hosted by my friend in Belgium, Jean-Paul De Clerck. #Engage! 1) A thought: Social networks are merely a technological extension of our human nature…
We Are The Champions
An important reminder that you are on the right path… Social Media marketing is not new nor is it widely established or even understood. However in 2010, it will completely transform the way businesses attract customers and the way consumers find the businesses and services that matter to them. And like that, an overnight landmark, which really is over a decade in the making, will challenge business owners, more so than today, as they now compete for the future, right…
How Businesses Learn the Value and Impact of New Media: Uh-Oh vs. Aha Moments
In celebration of National Small Business Week… This year, Social Media marketing will gain significant support in resources and investment across businesses of all shapes and sizes. So what’s new? Now, a line is being drawn between edglings and underlings. Where we choose to stand affects the presence of our brand and value in new markets and our ability to capture attention where and how it is focused – both online and in the real world,. On one side of…
Social Media in Small Business is Anything But Small
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…
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,…
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….
