Everything We Really Need to Know About Social Media We Learned in Kindergarten

We live in a culture virtually enveloped by digital media, 24/7. For adults and children alike, social media has become central to our very identities -- both in how we interact with our close friends and family, and in the many ways we present ourselves to, and engage with, our broader worlds. As I prepare to speak at asymposium about the influence of social media on our children's development, I have been acutely aware of my own behavior...

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8 Social-Media Sins That Are Sure to Get You Unfriended and Unfollowed

According to a recent social-media engagement study, Americans now spend more time on social media than any other Internet activity, including email. Social media isn’t going anywhere and businesses, small and large, are now recognizing their online presence is an essential part of their marketing strategy. Eight out of 10 small to medium-sized businesses now use social media to drive growth for their business, and three out of five say they’ve...

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Power of Visual Content Marketing and Brand Storytelling in a Nutshell

Are you tapping into the power of visual content marketing to tell your brand story? Visual marketing empowers brands and the people within them to share their business and personal stories and lives real-time. No longer is it required to have a full time, dedicated design team on staff to serve up a good healthy dose of visual content marketing for your audiences and clients to devour! Now even small marketing teams can easily take photos with...

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Why you should take a social media sabbatical

One of my clients told me that social media sabbaticals are the new treks through Nepal. Taking a social media sabbatical is trendy, takes some courage, and for most westerners, it’s outside the realm of possibility. But (thankfully for me), it doesn’t require as much physical fitness as a hiking the Himalayas. I’ve spent the last two months on a break from social. No tweets, no instas—nothing. I went an extra step and stopped sending newsletters...

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How to Use the Mention Feature on LinkedIn

“What’s the Mention feature on LinkedIn?” You may have never heard of it before, but using the Mention feature on LinkedIn is a great additional touch-point you can use with an influencer or decision maker. This is how it works. Let’s say, Susan has written a great article you want to share. You can hit the share button on the article and write in the text box “This is a great article on sales management by —and they when you start to type...

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Getting More People to Like Your Facebook Page is 99% Worthless

Someday, I will have the opportunity to prove to a client or prospect beyond any reasonable doubt that this is true. In the meantime, I will continue to write about it in hopes that the facts will win out. To prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, I would have to take a page that has zero fans and send massive engagement and traffic with a small budget. Then, we’d need to look at the statistics to show that a page that starts off with zero likes...

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How to Build an Effective Executive Social Media Presence

Cultivating an active, engaged and effective executive social media presence takes time and attention, which is why many senior executives are late to the social media game. However, as is the case with most endeavors, it’s easy to make time for activities that provide value. Here are some ways to get started that will deliver immediate value for the nascent social denizen, encouraging further engagement and interaction and laying the foundation...

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Scaling Social Globally: Best Practices for Engaging With an International Audience

This week I moderated another Social Media Today webinar as part of their Best Thinker webinar series, this time on the topic of: Scaling Social Globally: Best Practices for Engaging with an International Audience. This webinar was sponsored by Act-On Software and featured Mike Stenberg (@stenmic), Global Vice President of Digital Marketing for Siemens, and Andrew Ashton (@AndrewLAshton) Social Media Analyst at Yum!...

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How to generate leads with a focused social media campaign

Landing pages make all the difference If you’re like most real estate agents, chances are you have at least started to build a presence online. More and more agents understand the need to have a website or blog — it is your virtual storefront. More than half of homebuyers start their home search online. It’s clearly important to have a website (storefront) for customers to enter and browse (figuratively speaking). Your website or blog helps...

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Analysis Finds Content About Tech Trends Draws Attention to Ads About Anything

Technology has improved our lives in many ways, and we now rely on it for everything from work to entertainment, education and productivity. It’s no surprise, then, that technology is a very closely-followed industry, and advertisers have found many ways to capitalize on that society-wide interest. But, what exactly can advertisers do to make the most of this hungry audience? Sure, they can advertise on a tech news site or with retailers...

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How to Tap the Power of Social Media to Forge Customer Loyalty

As social media has becomes increasingly mainstream, the focus on utilizing such networks as Twitter and Facebook for marketing has virtually exploded. There is no doubt that social media sites offer tremendous opportunity in terms of marketing, but focusing a social media strategy solely on marketing can actually be somewhat limiting. It is possible to do much more with social media, including drive customer loyalty. Savvy marketers...

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6 Strategies to Add to Your Social Media Marketing Plan for 2015

Did you know the average person spends 4 years looking down at their cell phone over a lifetime? To be honest, I’m somewhat surprised it’s not even more (but I suspect this number to increase). As I glanced around my family room on Christmas evening I noticed every one of my family members scrolling through their social feeds, excluding my nephew; he’s 6 months old, but oddly always gravitates towards the iPhone (although it’s typically just an...

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