In 1903 Dr. Horatio Jackson set off on a journey from San Francisco to New York becoming the first person to cross the United States in a “horseless carriage.” At the time there were only 150 miles of paved roads in the entire country. In addition, there were no gas stations and virtually no road maps as we know them today. This was America's first transcontinental road trip, and like many road trips that would follow it included breakdowns and wrong turns.

Tags: Twitter, LinkedIn, marketing, social media, business, online, horatio jackson, strategy, social platforms, organization

In a world where people spend most of their day (including their spare time) using their cell phones and computers, companies have to use different techniques to reach their target market. It’s not about going door-to-door or making 50 calls a day anymore.

Cold calling is outdated. Social media websites have changed the landscape of sales and are becoming a quick replacement for connecting over the phone. Communication via email and social media channels like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter (which have millions of user available to connect with) make it easier to reach out to customers. Instead of making multiple calls in one day, it’s much more common for a company to send a message to a company they consider a prospect.

Tags: facebook, google, Twitter, sales, LinkedIn, marketing, social media, WebEx, customers, internet, pinterest, Google Hangouts, connecting, digital, Dropbox

Okay, so don’t forget about branding, but everyone always talks about social media in the context of branding. So today, we’re going to focus on social media’s role in building your bottom line by closing deals…

It’s very easy in life to embrace an “out with the old, in with the new!” attitude. After all, newer is most always perceived to be better. The problem with this attitude is that it supposes the correct course of action is one or the other; a classic “if not A, then B” scenario. While that’s a theorem that’s important for software developers, mathematicians and philosophers to know, it’s not necessarily a good rule for businesses to follow.

Tags: digital marketing, ROI, Twitter, sales, LinkedIn, direct mail marketing, social media

Stay better informed as a marketing professional with this monthly series highlighting the latest developments in all things marketing. Get caught up with the October Marketing News Snapshot.

Tags: marketing news, facebook, google, LinkedIn, mobile, SEO, marketing trends, B2C, social media

It’s an inevitable point in the life cycle of every great advancement or leap forward: that moment when the exceptional becomes the norm. It happened with phones, televisions, automobiles – things that were revolutionary concepts when they first arrived, but eventually nearly everyone had one, and suddenly owning such items isn’t viewed as remarkable, rather as necessary.

The same holds true for business skills, and that was the focus of a book I recently read by Jay Baer called “Youtility.” New technology has always demanded new skills, but as we’ve seen time and time again, as the technology becomes more prevalent and “the norm,” so too do the skills required to operate it, and that has an impact on how businesses should look for and asses new talent.

Tags: digital marketing, facebook, Twitter, sales, LinkedIn, marketing, human resources, customer service, social media, Retail

Stay better informed as a marketing professional with this monthly series highlighting the latest developments in all things marketing. Get caught up with the August Marketing News Snapshot.

Tags: marketing news, CMO, Twitter, IT, LinkedIn, advertising, email marketing, social media, August, CIO, video, Gmail

“Haha, made you look!” When my kids were little they would taunt me with that phrase. It was intended as a playful insult because they tricked me into looking at something that didn’t exist. With my marketing team, that phrase is code speak for marketing content and messaging that creates a favorable impression catching our target audiences’ attention. But in that situation, no tricks are involved; it’s all talent and by design!

In the world of social media marketing, the “Who's Viewed Your Profile?” module on LinkedIn is, in my opinion, a made you look requirement for serious networkers. This feature is no trick – it’s designed to help you understand who’s been looking at your profile recently and how many times you have shown up in search results. Here are four reasons why you should like this feature and why I want to make you look at it.

Tags: Twitter, LinkedIn, social media, networking, personal brand

There was breakdown in the assembly line and no one on Henry Ford’s staff could fix it. As the story goes, his production lines were down for hours; hours turned into days, and Ford was frustrated. In desperation he called an electrical engineer friend whom he trusted to come to his plant, diagnose and repair the problem. His friend promptly arrived and after about ten minutes the Ford lines were up and running. A most grateful Henry Ford thanked him and told his friend to invoice the Ford Company for the repairs. A few days later Henry Ford received an invoice from his friend in the amount of $10,000. Flabbergasted, Henry called his friend on the telephone and protested, “You only tinkered around for ten minutes! Ten-thousand dollars?!” His friend agreed that he would re-invoice the repairs. A few days later Henry Ford received a modified invoice:

Tinkering…..$10

Tags: branding, facebook, google, Twitter, sales, LinkedIn, Klout, blogging, marketing, marketing strategy, social media, social media strategy

We’ve spent a lot of time on this blog discussing the challenges and benefits of localizing your marketing strategy across both traditional and digital marketing channels, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a marketer that doesn’t see the value in the practice. But there’s one marketing channel where questions about localization remain and answers are hard to come by: social media.

When I was at the Integrated Marketing Week Conference in June, this was a continuing theme and topic of conversation, whether it came up in presentations, questions to speakers or simply conversations among attendees, so it’s clearly an issue of great consternation in the marketing community. That being said, let’s take a look at some possible strategies that can help businesses overcome the challenges of social media localization.

Tags: branding, facebook, Twitter, engagement, LinkedIn, messaging, marketing, social media, localized marketing, local marketing, customer segmentation, SMB, integrated marketing week conference, content, strategy

Stay better informed as a marketing professional with this monthly series highlighting the latest developments in all things marketing. Get caught up with the July Marketing News Snapshot.

Tags: digital marketing, marketing news, LinkedIn, July, multichannel marketing, social media, real-time marketing, local marketing automation