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Forget Branding! What’s Social Media’s Role in Direct Marketing and Sales?

Nov 08, 2013

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.

Why Social Media Skills Are Not Optional

Oct 23, 2013

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.

3 Tips for Building a Social Media Lifelong Learning Environment

Sep 11, 2013

International Literacy Day was Sept. 8, but we’ve decided to celebrate and promote it all month long with a series of blog posts based on marketing and business books we’ve recently read. Today’s featured title is John C. Maxwell’s "Leadership Gold."

Has rational ignorance impacted your organization’s social media activity yet? Rational ignorance is the decision not to become more informed about something because the perceived cost of the additional intelligence — in terms of both effort and expense — is more than the expected return on the knowledge gained. It’s not a condition you’re excited to encounter if you’re trying to create a lifelong learning environment.

August 2013 Monthly Marketing News Snapshot

Aug 29, 2013

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.

4 Reasons to Know Who’s Looking at You

Aug 22, 2013

“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.

Is it Time to Hire a Social Media Marketing Expert?

Aug 06, 2013

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

How to Localize Social Media Marketing

Jul 23, 2013

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.

Personal Clout vs. Company Clout: Our People Are Our Most Important Source of Influence

Jun 11, 2013

Somewhere in America, a business leader is standing in front of an audience prepared to use the phrase, “Our most important asset is our people.” Do you think they really mean it? What about other key assets, for example:

1. Real estate
2. Rights to natural resources like oil and gas
3. Cash reserves
4. Patents
5. The corporate brand

May 2013 Monthly Marketing News Snapshot

May 29, 2013

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

Marketing Organizational Leadership – Alan See, Part One

Mar 18, 2013

Leadership Toolset #10: Social Media & Content Marketing
The concept of social media – a reach of millions, limitless targeted messaging, free to all – is a marketer’s dream. Yet many business-savvy professionals just don’t see its value and, if they do, still don’t know how exactly to squeeze that value out of it. But whether understood or not, social media is changing the business landscape, and failure to adapt could have implications that stretch beyond the marketing department. Adaptation requires knowledge of the technology and the willingness to reach out across department lines to build true organizational success.

We invited Alan See, the third most-followed CMO on Twitter according to Social Media Marketing Magazine, to share insight he’s picked up from 25 years of experience helping businesses develop profitable marketing strategies that drive sales and growth. He has served in senior roles at MindLeaders, AT&T, Seapine Software, AberdeenGroup, Teradata, SAS Institute, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, and NCR Corporation in addition to facilitating courses on marketing and management theory as an associate faculty member for University of Phoenix. He has recently started a new business, Alan See CMO Temps, LLC. Alan’s perspective on the subject of social media marketing is as comprehensive as any you’ll find, and he held nothing back in sharing that perspective with us.

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