If you define influence by the size of your Klout score, you can stop reading this right now. If you believe influence is driven by the creation of a relationship between two parties, where one sees the other as truly knowledgeable about a particular product or service, then let’s talk about the science behind that influence. Establishing influence is a multi-step process that moves the influenced through four key stages. They move from awareness of the influencer, to knowing the influencer, to liking the influencer and finally finishing with preference for the influencer’s advice and…
Selected by chrisbrogan
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Most Topular Stories
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How To Leverage the Science of Relationships to Gain True Influence
Copyblogger18 Jun 2013 | 5:00 am -
Content Creation vs Content Promotion: Where is the Balance?
@ProBlogger18 Jun 2013 | 9:08 amA few days ago we published a post on ProBlogger titled ‘Forget about Marketing: Concentrate on Blogging‘, which led to some interesting discussion on Twitter and in the comments. I love the points author Nicholas Whitmore made in the post but I wanted to give a few thoughts, based on my own experience, on developing great content and promoting your blog. Nicholas wrote some great arguments for focusing your energy on writing great content as the central way of growing your blog. He writes: “When you write and publish awesome content on your blog, good things will come your… -
Google Cites First Amendment In Challenge To FISA Secrecy Order
ReadWrite18 Jun 2013 | 2:44 pmGoogle, eager to salvage its security-related reputation in the wake of disclosures about the NSA's PRISM surveillance program, has asked a secretive intelligence court to let it disclose more details regarding government requests for information about its users, reports the Washington Post. In a legal filing Tuesday, Google cited a First Amendment right to speak about the information it must legally provide to the government. The company is seeking to have the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court lift a gag order that prevents companies from discussing or describing… -
You Would Die If Superman Punched Your Face
Mashable18 Jun 2013 | 4:32 pmIf you watched Superman's life unfold on a white board yesterday, you're aware of his wide range of superhuman abilities. One swipe of his right fist is enough to send you into another dimension. But imagine if you were on the other end of that punch. SEE ALSO: The 10 Most Viral YouTube Videos of 2012 YouTube sensation Vsauce3 gives a scientific breakdown of how much damage Superman could incur on an average human. The video, which has already accrued more than 1.4 million views, uses physics to prove its findings. He even references Big Mac calories for good measure Image courtesy of… -
Entrepreneurial Tips – How to Maintain a Positive Attitude
Liz Strauss at Successful Blog18 Jun 2013 | 5:27 amBy Ronald Alexander As entrepreneurs, we put work just above everything else. Unfortunately, sometimes when we are working toward something, we forget to maintain a positive attitude, which can lead to additional stress and an unhappy all-around life. The 10 tips listed below will help you to stay positive while at the same time driving your business in the right direction. 1. Work with people that you like It’s easy to be unhappy in a business where you are surrounded by negative people all day. This is why it is vital that you hire and work with people who have a positive attitude and…
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Copyblogger
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How To Leverage the Science of Relationships to Gain True Influence
18 Jun 2013 | 5:00 amIf you define influence by the size of your Klout score, you can stop reading this right now. If you believe influence is driven by the creation of a relationship between two parties, where one sees the other as truly knowledgeable about a particular product or service, then let’s talk about the science behind that influence. Establishing influence is a multi-step process that moves the influenced through four key stages. They move from awareness of the influencer, to knowing the influencer, to liking the influencer and finally finishing with preference for the influencer’s advice and… -
How to Build a Massive Email List (Without Being Annoying)
17 Jun 2013 | 7:00 amFact: Email is still (by far) the most profitable online sales channel. That means an essential aspect of your audience is the segment that trusts you with their primary email address. So, it seems fair to say that enticing your prospective customers and clients onto an email list is crucial. Once you start building that list, you always want more. It’s like crack, really. Email subscriber count crack, to be exact. And like any addiction, you start considering desperate measures to get more. Things like annoying the majority of your site visitors in order to increase your daily sign-up… -
“Content” Isn’t a Buzzword, It’s the Future of Your Business
14 Jun 2013 | 5:00 amContent Marketing is a hot topic, no doubt. What you may not know, however, is that it’s been around for a long time, and that it’s finding itself in the midst of yet another “Golden Age” with the rise of the Internet. This is very good news if you’re a content creator. It’s even better news if you’re building authority online. But, are you actually getting the job done? Whether you have no idea what I’m talking about, or you do, and you’d like to take your content marketing skills much further online, we’ve got your back. We’ve… -
5 Writing Links That Will Help You Get Better … Stronger … Faster
13 Jun 2013 | 5:00 amThis week on The Lede … How a 40,000 Word PDF Earned a Massive Audience The Overwhelming Force of “Gradual” How to Write a Good Blog Post, Fast On Finding Real Pleasure in Our Work Twitter’s First Bona Fide Star Want to grab even more useful links, beyond those that make The Lede, plus additional obscure references to The Six Million Dollar Man, adjusted for inflation? You only have to follow @copyblogger on Twitter. // How a 40,000 Word Guide Earned 361,494 Site Visitors and 8421 Email Opt-ins Mr. Patel is a master of taking action on real data. Through this… -
What a Notorious 16th-Century Philosopher Can Teach You About Content Marketing Today
12 Jun 2013 | 5:00 amWhat does it take to get people to pay attention to your content? I think we’ve all read a great piece of writing and thought to ourselves, “Why isn’t this more popular?” (And hey, maybe you even feel that way about your own work!) I obviously can’t answer the entirety of that question in a single blog post, but I will tell you that there is a trait that many popular works of writing seem to share: they are controversial. It’s easy to see why controversy spawns from strife between two (or more) groups of thought. It leads to debate, debate leads to…
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@ProBlogger
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Content Creation vs Content Promotion: Where is the Balance?
18 Jun 2013 | 9:08 amA few days ago we published a post on ProBlogger titled ‘Forget about Marketing: Concentrate on Blogging‘, which led to some interesting discussion on Twitter and in the comments. I love the points author Nicholas Whitmore made in the post but I wanted to give a few thoughts, based on my own experience, on developing great content and promoting your blog. Nicholas wrote some great arguments for focusing your energy on writing great content as the central way of growing your blog. He writes: “When you write and publish awesome content on your blog, good things will come your… -
Don’t Be Lazy: 9 Ways to Blog Smarter and Harder
17 Jun 2013 | 8:37 amThis is a guest contribution from Eric Cummings who writes about art and philosophy for On Violence. I’ve been writing this post for three years. What can I say? I’m lazy. Or I should say, I used to be lazy. That’s not the case anymore. Four years ago, my brother and I started taking our writing career seriously. I now write. A lot. On my days off from work, I regularly put in over ten hour days, just writing, editing and re-writing. I’ve learned how to work, both smarter and harder. You can too. (Finally, an admission: though I wrote down an outline for this post three years… -
Forget about Marketing: Concentrate on Blogging
14 Jun 2013 | 8:24 amThis is a guest contribution by Nicholas Whitmore. The title: What on earth does it mean? Well, recently it seems like a lot of bloggers fancy themselves as marketers. You can’t read a post on a blog without seeing a load of other bloggers commenting at the bottom, with a link back to their own site. Of course other bloggers use black hat SEO tricks and other shady tactics in order to drive traffic to their blog. Each to their own you might say, but at the end of the day life can be much, much easier. If you publish blog content that’s truly awesome, everyone else will market your blog… -
Why Your Blog Posts Are Falling Short of Greatness and What To Do About It
13 Jun 2013 | 9:15 amThis is a guest contribution by Belinda Weaver, marketing copywriter behind The Copy Detective. You’ve finished your latest blog post and it’s pretty good isn’t it, isn’t it? Are you sure? Some bloggers think that coming up with ideas is the hardest part of blogging. Maybe you agree. Personally, I think it’s harder to turn an idea into blogging GOLD. I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Writing a really great blog post isn’t simply down to your writing. Sure, you need to use language that will appeal to your reader, and all your verbs need to be the right way up… -
How to Make Your Blogging Dreams Come True
12 Jun 2013 | 8:42 am“ONE DAY I’ll be a full time blogger!” ‘V’ – my wife – must have heard that statement 100 or more times in 2003-2004. Me posing for my first ever press photo in 2003. Out of shot all my neighbours were watching on and wondering why I was videoing a guy taking a photo of me while sitting in my front yard. It would usually be accompanied by a spread sheet and/or chart in which I showed her how the earnings from my blog had grown from $9 per month to $11 per month and me excitedly talking about how if things kept growing like that I’d be full…
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ReadWrite
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Google Cites First Amendment In Challenge To FISA Secrecy Order
18 Jun 2013 | 2:44 pmGoogle, eager to salvage its security-related reputation in the wake of disclosures about the NSA's PRISM surveillance program, has asked a secretive intelligence court to let it disclose more details regarding government requests for information about its users, reports the Washington Post. In a legal filing Tuesday, Google cited a First Amendment right to speak about the information it must legally provide to the government. The company is seeking to have the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court lift a gag order that prevents companies from discussing or describing… -
Google's Next Nexus Is Nowhere In Sight
18 Jun 2013 | 9:39 amIf you are waiting to get your hands on the latest and greatest of Google’s Nexus Android smartphones and tablets, the last month or so has been both exciting and disappointing. Google's Hugo Barra announces Google Edition Samsung Galaxy S4 Google announces new Nexus smartphones and tablets when it ships new versions of Android. With every sugary dessert iteration, avid Android fans get flagship devices running unadulterated Android (free of the skins and bloatware from manufacturers and carriers) to satiate their geeky desires. The only problem? Google hasn’t announced a… -
Pinterest Developers, After Years Of Waiting, Can Take Hope
18 Jun 2013 | 9:10 amThe developer community has a message for Pinterest: what’s taking so long? Ever since March 2012, the image-sharing network has promised developers an API. And it's in demand - according to ProgrammableWeb, the Pinterest API profile is the most frequently viewed page on the site, revealing the community’s anticipation for the feature. Whatever the reason, the lack of API access from Pinterest is not sitting well with the developer community. Promises But Little Progress An API, or application programming interface, is a group of requirements that permit one device to talk to… -
Microsoft's Most Wanted: A Convicted Child Molester Worked At Yammer
18 Jun 2013 | 8:05 amA few years ago, a fast-growing startup, adding staff at a breakneck pace, hired a facilities manager as a contractor without asking too many questions. That startup was Yammer, now part of Microsoft. And that contractor - Marcus Tillman - is now behind bars, facing the 40-year sentence he dodged in Georgia years ago. Federal investigators, acting on a tip from authorities in Georgia, went to Yammer's office in San Francisco last week seeking information about Tillman, known to his colleagues as "Stephen Warner." Marcus Tillman, a convicted child molester, worked at Yammer under a false name… -
Chromebook Sales Expanding Despite Tablet-Leaning Market
18 Jun 2013 | 6:16 amFinding a Chromebook from Google has never been particularly hard to do, since they've been available at Best Buy and Amazon for quite a while. But now Acer's $199 model Chromebooks have gotten even more prolific, now available on the shelves of 2,800 U.S. Wal-Mart stores. The expansion of Chromebook inventories doesn't stop there, according to Google's blog post yesterday. Starting this weekend, Staples will have Chromebooks from Acer, HP and Samsung in every one of its 1,500-plus U.S. stores. Expansion is coming to other markets as well, wrote David Shapiro, Director of Chromebook…
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Mashable
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You Would Die If Superman Punched Your Face
18 Jun 2013 | 4:32 pmIf you watched Superman's life unfold on a white board yesterday, you're aware of his wide range of superhuman abilities. One swipe of his right fist is enough to send you into another dimension. But imagine if you were on the other end of that punch. SEE ALSO: The 10 Most Viral YouTube Videos of 2012 YouTube sensation Vsauce3 gives a scientific breakdown of how much damage Superman could incur on an average human. The video, which has already accrued more than 1.4 million views, uses physics to prove its findings. He even references Big Mac calories for good measure Image courtesy of… -
9 Creative Ways to Leave a Tip
18 Jun 2013 | 3:30 pmIf you want to avoid being a terrible person, always tip your waiter or waitress. You could also make a lasting impression by leaving a tip with a little flare. You have your whole meal to decide on a way to present the money you'll leave, and the possibilities are endless SEE ALSO: Ermahgerd! The 12 Best Memes of 2012 You could see it as an opportunity to dazzle the waitstaff with your artistic ability, or just see it as a way to make them smile. At the very least it could get you on Reddit 1. Incorporate the tip into your art Image courtesy of Reddit, rkeyes47 Read more... 2. Or just make… -
Tom Wheeler Will Probably Be the Next FCC Chairman
18 Jun 2013 | 3:11 pmPresident Obama's choice for the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Tom Wheeler, will likely get the job, if Tuesday's confirmation hearing is any indication. How can we be so sure? Senate Commerce Committee Chair Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) told Wheeler he was "certain" he would get the job before the hearing even got to several of the major issues facing the FCC. Rockefeller's early nod of approval was particularly significant given the senator previously urged Obama to nominate FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel for the chairmanship. SEE ALSO: 20 Strange and… -
Facebook Now Has 1 Million Active Advertisers
18 Jun 2013 | 2:55 pmFacebook now has more than 1 million businesses actively advertising on the social network, the company announced Tuesday. The "vast majority" of those advertisers are small businesses, according to Dan Levy, Facebook's director of small business, who announced the milestone during an event at Facebook's office in New York. SEE ALSO: 20 Things Your Most Annoying Friends Do on Facebook "The feedback we hear from businesses from all over the world is, 'Just make it simpler,'" Levy said at one point during the event. Perhaps with that in mind, Facebook announced plans to slash the number of ad… -
Google Challenges Secret Court's Gag Orders
18 Jun 2013 | 2:42 pmIn its latest push against secrecy, Google has asked the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to ease its gag orders and allow the company to publish more data about the requests it receives from the court. On Tuesday, the company filed a motion (embedded below) before the court, arguing that it has a First Amendment right to publish the total number of requests the court sends it, and the number of users affected by those requests. Additionally, Google argues that it should be allowed to publish the total number of requests because that information is not classified. SEE ALSO: How…
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Liz Strauss at Successful Blog
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Entrepreneurial Tips – How to Maintain a Positive Attitude
18 Jun 2013 | 5:27 amBy Ronald Alexander As entrepreneurs, we put work just above everything else. Unfortunately, sometimes when we are working toward something, we forget to maintain a positive attitude, which can lead to additional stress and an unhappy all-around life. The 10 tips listed below will help you to stay positive while at the same time driving your business in the right direction. 1. Work with people that you like It’s easy to be unhappy in a business where you are surrounded by negative people all day. This is why it is vital that you hire and work with people who have a positive attitude and… -
How to Drive Traffic to Your Website For Free
17 Jun 2013 | 10:47 amBy Michelle Rebecca Starting a website is easy; driving traffic can be a little more difficult for many that are just getting started doing business online. There are many people out there that will offer plenty of ways to advertise a website, however many of these options can cost a pretty penny over time. In addition to the initial website costs, many businesses can be inundated with online marketing fees. Finding ways to drive traffic with grassroot techniques that are free is an excellent option for those on a tight budget. Search Engine Optimization Tips There are entire books and even… -
Make your yes count by saying no
16 Jun 2013 | 1:00 amSteve Jobs has a quote about focus being not the ability to say “yes,” but is instead the discernment and power to say “no” to everything else that takes you off your course. This is a slight shift in the interpretation of focus, but it makes a huge difference in the way leaders allocate their time and choices if they wish to accomplish their goals. “Learn to say ‘no.’ It will be of more use to you than to be able to read Latin.” ~ Charles H. Spurgeon Take a quick inventory of the time you spend each week doing something for someone else. While… -
Tips for Getting More Facebook Shares
14 Jun 2013 | 5:11 amBy Charles Mburugu Everyone would want to have their Facebook posts shared by as many people as possible. A share is somewhat like a vote of confidence, showing that someone values your content enough to share it with others. Therefore, getting many shares enhances your credibility and exposes your Facebook profile or page to a wider audience. Here are some guidelines which will help you increase your Facebook shares. 1. Post at the right time When you post on Facebook is as important as what you post. Therefore, you need to take time to study the Facebook habits of your audience. In most… -
Simple Sentiment Analysis for Small Business
13 Jun 2013 | 5:38 amStop reading this post right now if you’re rolling in cash, have a team of more than 10 people involved in your marketing efforts, or if your social media headquarters looks anything like this: OK, now that those lucky folks are gone, let’s talk reality for most of us. Are you relying solely on Google Alerts to find out what your customers are talking about? Maybe you took it one step further and set up a Hootsuite column to track Twitter mentions. What are you doing with that information as it accumulates? Welcome to the club. But we can all take it up several notches this week, by…
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Brian Solis
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Small Businesses Survey: Resilience Prevails, Steve Jobs Recognized as Idol
18 Jun 2013 | 1:32 pmDid you know that the 23 million small businesses in America account for 54% of all U.S. sales? Did you know that small businesses provide 55% of all jobs and 66% of all net new jobs since the 1970s? While big business has eliminated four million jobs since 1990, small businesses added eight million. Why the focus on small business today? It’s National Small Business Week in the United States and to commemorate the occasion, I partnered with Cox Business to discuss the importance of connected consumerism amidst the release of its inaugural small business survey (#SBWSurvey). Available… -
Disruptive Selection: Nature’s Way of Weeding Out the Average Business
13 Jun 2013 | 9:38 amDisruption! It’s everywhere. I live in Silicon Valley where many say that the terms disrupt and disruption have become buzzwords. Pundits believe that the word is losing its promise and impact through the acts and examples of entrepreneurs and businesses that misuse the word to describe intentions rather than associating it with a desired or natural effect. In some of the startup meetings I attend for example, digital disruption is actually a stated business objective. Instead of “killing it” or “crushing it” many businesses are aiming now to disrupt it! Kidding… -
Plugging into the Future of Humanity: Exploring the Human API
4 Jun 2013 | 11:02 amI had the opportunity to present at LeWeb in Paris, arguably Europe’s largest conference dedicated to the future of technology. The theme of the conference explored the Internet of Things, where devices and things connect to one another to perform certain tasks and/or track activities to improve what we already do or make possible what we’re trying to do. The Internet of Things is bigger than we may realize. We are experiencing a shift from a world of inanimate objects and reactive devices to a world where data, intelligence, and computing are distributed, ubiquitous, and networked. My… -
Content is King! Amazon Invests Millions In Original TV Shows…But Why?
31 May 2013 | 9:26 amMy friend Tim Stenovec (@TimSteno) just published a great story on Amazon’s move to create original programming a la Netflix for The Huffington Post. He was kind enough to include me in his article (thank you Tim). He sent along a few questions as I was boarding my flight from NY to LA. As Tim was on deadline, I needed to send a thoughtful response as soon as I’d have the opportunity to turn my phone back on. The quote in italics is what made the cut…but, I also wanted to share the additional thoughts I sent along for context. Amazon’s move is an interesting one indeed… -
Tune in with Twitter TV
30 May 2013 | 4:34 amHave you ever watched TV while using a laptop, smart phone, or tablet? Wait, why am I asking. Of course you have. That’s what we all do now right? So I guess the real question to ask is how often do you use Twitter vs. Facebook while watching TV? In many ways, Twitter is becoming a bona fide second screen experience while watching television. And in many ways, TV may also serve as the second screen to those engrossed in their Twitter streams. If you think about it, the idea that the TV becomes the second screen to digital experiences is rather provocative. Perhaps this is why Twitter is…
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MarketingProfs Daily Fix Blog
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What Are the Characteristics of a Good Lead?
18 Jun 2013 | 7:03 amAh, the never-ending question: What makes a good lead? Well, I hate to say it, but it depends upon your specific situation—what you sell, to whom you sell, how you sell, and at what price. But there are also a few universal characteristics that will help you determine when a lead is truly a “sales-ready” lead versus being just an inquiry, research, or a random click. When evaluating how good a lead actually is, start with knowing what a good lead is within your organization. What criteria or profile does the lead need to have for it to be valuable to you? What title, size, industry,… -
Make Your Social #FAILPROOF
17 Jun 2013 | 2:00 pmSocial media fails are an unfortunate byproduct of marketing—and life—on the web. But let’s be honest—they also provide for some major entertainment. So, we have a laugh at another brand’s expense. We sit back, roll our eyes, and pity the poor person who made such a thoughtless mistake. But if you think you or your brand are immune to social media fails, think again. No brand, no matter how small or large, or how big its marketing budget, is safe from social mishaps. You can either choose to learn from the mistakes of others or be destined to repeat them. The #FAIL: Being Shady The… -
Six Big Lessons Marketers Can Learn From Improvisation
17 Jun 2013 | 7:04 amAs in improvisation, all great marketing is storytelling. Few things will stretch your comfort zone (read: scare the pants off you!) like improvisation. Improvisation is a storyteller’s weight training. There is no safety net or edit button—you are creating scenes in real time on stage based on audience suggestions. It can be downright uncomfortable, and yet, as with regular training, the results are worth it. Here are six lessons improvisation can teach us about marketing. 1. Risk Taking In a world of Big Data and analytics, marketing is a heck of a lot of art. Improvisation involves… -
Young Adults Say Goodbye, Radio; Hello, Internet
14 Jun 2013 | 7:20 amAs overall Internet usage continues to grow, it’s continuing to eclipse other forms of media—and for young adults, the internet has emerged as the place where they spend the most amount of time compared to any other type of media. “Radio’s Future II: The 2010 American Youth Study” from Edison Research shows that American young adults, age 12-24, spend nearly three hours a day on the Internet, which eclipses time spent consuming other forms of media. According to survey results, TV came in at a close second, followed by listening to the radio, playing video games, talking on the… -
Will Your Customers Remember You?
13 Jun 2013 | 7:03 amIf your customers look back on the part of their lifetime when they used your products, will you be remembered? Your decision to base your operating plan on your customers’ priorities rather than on your own earns you the right to customers’ continued business. By tapping into customers’ lives, you open a world of possibilities. You fuel the prosperity engine of your company. To do so, however, you need to be able to answer the following. Do you know the moments in your customer’s life when they need…
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PR-Squared - Social Media Marketing and Public Relations
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How PR will help your customers to buy
5 Jun 2013 | 4:02 amWhat do a kid’s sandbox, critical state theory, automobile purchases, and marketing automation have in common? They’re all part of tomorrow’s webinar at SHIFT Communications on Critical Influence in Social Media. Learn from SHIFT a new way of thinking about how earned media and public relations are impacting consumers and businesses, learn how to measure the influence you have over your audience, and learn ways to build and strengthen that influence. Sign up now for free! -
7 secrets to a successful, enduring business
20 May 2013 | 5:29 amWhat makes an agency successful begins not with fancy corporate jargon or a client roster of well known brands, but with the people at it. Choosing who those people are and who they collectively can be is a daunting challenge overall, but impossible without knowing what you stand for. That’s why core values are so important. At SHIFT, our core values are part of employee reviews. They’re part of monthly team meetings, when team leaders recognize accomplishments by their team members aligned with each of the values. They’re part of our hiring process, and candidates are… -
Nibbling at the Apple
7 May 2013 | 4:22 amIt’s becoming fashionable to take a bite out of Apple. There was Jean-Louis Gassée’s scathing article in the Guardian. There was Jon Gruber (of Daring Fireball) damning Apple with faint praise: blaming the media for cherrypicking the news to weave a narrative about Apple’s slow demise. I expect the chorus to grow louder before it weakens. Blood in the water, and all that. Apple doesn’t do itself many favors. Its trenchant secrecy used to seem cool – and I daresay it would still be considered cool – if not for the fact that a) competitive technologies are legitimately “catching… -
Did you know 70% of Facebook users are mobile?
3 May 2013 | 5:56 am…at least some of the time. That’s the latest in our findings after reading through Facebook’s Q12013 SEC Filing. See what other surprises are on tap for marketers in our summary on the SHIFT Communications blog post. -
SHIFT Turns 10: Reflecting Back, Looking Forward
30 Apr 2013 | 5:55 amWhen we sat around a conference table and battled through the process of defining our values a few years ago, SHIFT changed as an organization – we now had criteria that helped us define what it meant to be a SHIFTer and helped guide us through decisions, whether it was about our people, clients or services. We had a roadmap in a way we never had one before – sure, the instinct had been there, but now it was tangible and the fact that those values have lived far beyond a poster on a wall, is something we all take tremendous pride in as an organization. Want to see what we did with those…
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Christopher S. Penn : Awaken Your Superhero
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What’s the best martial art? (a lesson for marketers)
18 Jun 2013 | 3:38 amI was recently asked what, in my opinion, the best martial art was. This is an incredibly common question, and it’s a question that often provokes vigorous, if sometimes juvenile, answers from the martial arts community. The real answer is that martial arts instruction varies so wildly that the style of martial art you practice really and truly does not matter. There are some general goals you might be trying to achieve such as fitness, self-protection, or peace of mind that might lend themselves better to one art or another, but for the most part, most martial arts are good enough for… -
The simplest way to fight imposter syndrome
17 Jun 2013 | 4:39 amIf you’re unfamiliar with the term, imposter syndrome is a general feeling of anxiety that is rooted in believing that you’re not what others believe you to be. If you suffer from imposter syndrome, you tend to believe that you’re not as qualified, as smart, or as talented as outsiders believe, and that you’re effectively an “imposter” or a “fake” who hasn’t been discovered. You tend to believe that anything good that’s happened to you is a result of luck and not your own talents. While not officially a recognized psychological… -
Why influencers matter: Big Data, recommendations, predictions
14 Jun 2013 | 4:00 amYou know what the most fundamental problem with predictive algorithms is currently? I’m talking about predictive things like Google’s Prediction API or Amazon’s Recommended or any of the other shopping-related predictive logic/Big Data packages available to us. The problem is that they are firmly rooted in past history, which means that innovative recommendations are an impossibility. Discovery is an impossibility right now. For example, in Facebook’s Graph Search, you can ask it for recommendations: When you do, it gives you what people who are your friends like:… -
Marketing Over Coffee: Google will penalize your bad mobile SEO
13 Jun 2013 | 5:09 amIn this week’s Marketing Over Coffee, we discuss Marketo, Salesforce, Malvertising, and tons of Google updates from SMX. Watch now: Subscribe now to the Marketing Over Coffee podcast! If you enjoyed this, please share it with your network! Want to read more like this from Christopher Penn? Subscribe now: Marketing White Belt Basics for Digital Marketers is now on Amazon & B&N I recommend & use: SEOMoz SEO software. I recommend: for small business incorporation. The post Marketing Over Coffee: Google will penalize your bad mobile SEO appeared first on Christopher S. Penn : Awaken Your… -
Why the Guild Wars 2 Economy Isn’t a Moneymaker
12 Jun 2013 | 3:58 amAfter having played Guild Wars 2 for 2 weeks, I’ve found a rather interesting comparison between its in-game economy and the World of Warcraft economy. In World of Warcraft, there’s a limit of 32,767 players who can participate in your faction’s Auction House, the in-game market. On some Warcraft realms, that number is significantly lower. Thus, the Warcraft Auction House often has areas of shortages in certain materials that are essential. There is significant scarcity, which creates opportunity for enormous profits, even as a low-level character, if you are willing to do…
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SheGeeks.net
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2013 Dodge Dart Review: A Luxury Car at an Affordable Price
11 Jun 2013 | 9:32 amRecently I was invited to test drive the new Dodge Dart for 7 days. I usually don’t review cars – and come from a Chevy family – but decided to take advantage of the opportunity to drive from NYC to my little big brothers’ graduation in Atlanta. Within weeks of receiving an invitation to test drive the car, it was delivered with compensation for my … Continue reading →The post 2013 Dodge Dart Review: A Luxury Car at an Affordable Price appeared first on SheGeeks. -
Samsung Galaxy S4 Review: All Hype or Next Best Thing?
7 Jun 2013 | 6:16 pmAt the unveiling of the Samsung Galaxy S4 in NYC, the first thing I wondered was whether Samsung products were becoming overhyped. The Galaxy S3 was a massive hit and set high expectations for “the next best thing”. Is the Galaxy S4 Samsung’s best phone yet or is just all hype? GALAXY S4 DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE Samsung calls the Galaxy S4 a “lifestyle companion”, which … Continue reading →The post Samsung Galaxy S4 Review: All Hype or Next Best Thing? appeared first on SheGeeks. -
LG Optimus G Pro Review: More Brains Than Beauty
5 Jun 2013 | 8:18 amAndroid may be dominated by Samsung and HTC, but LG is making some noise in the arena as well. LG’s Nexus 4 sold out in less than 30 minutes, though their Optimus G was a flop in comparison to competitors like the Galaxy Note 2. With the Optimus G Pro LG takes another swing at creating a “phablet”. The Optimus G Pro is quite the powerhouse, but … Continue reading →The post LG Optimus G Pro Review: More Brains Than Beauty appeared first on SheGeeks. -
Facebook Home Makes Facebook The Center Of Your Mobile Device
12 Apr 2013 | 4:51 pmGet ready for Facebook posts and Instagram pics to take over your mobile device with Facebook Home. Facebook Home goes beyond being a placeholder for your apps and puts Facebook at the heart of your mobile device. *Requires Facebook app and is only available for the following devices: HTC One X and X+, Samsung Galaxy S3 and Note 2. Cover Feed: The Center of Facebook … Continue reading →The post Facebook Home Makes Facebook The Center Of Your Mobile Device appeared first on SheGeeks. -
Download and Share Android Homescreens with Buzz Launcher
19 Mar 2013 | 9:06 amWhat’s the first thing you want to do when you get a new phone? Customize it, if it’s android! Yet, making your android phone look great requires an absurd amount of time, attention and skills. Ain’t nobody got time for that! Enter Buzz launcher, a new android launcher that makes it easy for anyone to download and share gorgeous homescreens from their android phone! Launchers are best known … Continue reading →The post Download and Share Android Homescreens with Buzz Launcher appeared first on SheGeeks.
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Church of the Customer Blog
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Word-of-mouth marketing: control is futile
4 Jun 2013 | 9:22 amEven today, marketers are still trying to control the conversation customers have about their brand. Give it up. With social media acting as a word-of-mouth jetstream, it's impossible to make sure people are on "brand message" when they talk about you to friends and family. We can only hope to create products and brands that people want to evangelize and then join in the conversation. I love this cartoon from my friend and "marketoonist" Tom Fishburne. Click here for his post on what happened when the Kentucky Department of Tourism tried to control the message about their brand. Tweet -
The best customer service is invisible
20 May 2013 | 2:47 pmI am huge fan of Nordstrom. They have famed customer service and that is one of the reasons why I shop there. But even I was surprised by this. Last week I was shopping at Nordstrom and bought merchadise at a few departments. The strip on my Nordstrom VISA card had apparently stopped working because each cashier had trouble swiping the card and had to resort to typing in the numbers into the register. I made an offhand comment to one of the cashieres that I would have to call in to the card customer service later and request a new card. Of course that became just one more thing on my to-do… -
#MonsterLoyalty book tour and other speaking events
7 May 2013 | 10:37 pmHi there! Here's my speaking schedule including book tour events. If you live in one these cities, I looking forward to seeing you!! May 8: Austin - book tour event (private) May 10: Orlando - book tour event (private) May 21: Chicago - WOMMA WOMM-U Conference. Use my discount code WUSpeak50 to get $50 off registration. Jun 2: Orlando - book tour event (private) Jun 12: Milan, Italy - private event Jun 20: Salt Lake City - book tour event (public) sponsored by SoulSalt. Get tickets here. Jun 27: Las Vegas - Confirmit Conference Jul 11: Chicago - book tour event… -
The winners of the Monster Loyalty pre-order giveaway are....
2 May 2013 | 4:24 pmThanks to all who participated in the Monster Loyalty pre-order giveaway by purchasing a book before launch. The winners are: 1st PRIZE: Joey Coleman, Chief Experience Composer at Design Symphony 5 copies of Monster Loyalty: How Lady Gaga Turns Followers into Fanatics 2 Lady Gaga art prints by rock and roll pop artist Kii Arens, signed and numbered 2nd PRIZE: Shep Hyken, New York Times and WSJ best selling author of The Amazement Revolution: Seven Customer Service Strategies to Create an Amazing Customer Experience 5 copies of Monster Loyalty: How Lady Gaga Turns Followers… -
Monster Loyalty is now available!
2 May 2013 | 8:52 amI am excited to announce that Monster Loyalty is now available! This is a book that I am extremely excited about because it argues that Lady Gaga didn’t become the success she is today based solely on her talent. She did so by engendering immense loyalty from her fans – not just through her music – but through the message she embodies and the community she has built around that message. In four short years, Lady Gaga has built an army of passionate fans that numbers in the tens of millions around the globe. My book explores how she did it, uncovering seven loyalty…
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Conversation Agent
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Visualize Your Story Automagically
11 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amUse your own script or find among an inventory of existing ones and create a storyboard with Amazon Storyteller. As described on the site: Amazon Storyteller is a new application from Amazon Studios that lets you turn a movie script into a storyboard. You choose the backgrounds, characters, and props to visually tell a story. A successful storyboard can tell the full story of a script, or capture its essence in short form, like a trailer. Either approach can be a great way to build an audience for your story and see how people respond to it. The tool is free to use for anyone on Amazon… -
Why so Many Companies Fail to Deliver on Customer Service
10 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amIt is disheartening to experience such a race to the bottom. This past week I made three separate inquiries about a recent booking to American Express Travel, the last one on Twitter because I was hoping against hope... No response. From a company where I have been a loyal customer since 2002. American Express refers to its cardholders as members. Is the yearly fee customers pay the only sign of that membership? Membership alone is not enough According to a new survey by J.D. Power and Associates#, membership -- in the example is a club associated with a sporting goods retailer -- is not the… -
What I'm Reading Now
9 Jun 2013 | 2:39 pmDisruptive technologies: Advances that will transform life, business, and the global economy -- McKinsey Global Institute, cuts through the noise and identifies 12 technologies that could drive truly massive economic transformations and disruptions in the coming years. The One Thing that Makes a Company Last Forever -- by Marina Krakovsky, Stanford Graduate School of Business. Staying competitive calls for ambidexterity. Instead of choosing between exploiting current opportunities and exploring new ones; you have to do both. The companies that last for decades, according to the author, are… -
Become a Master at Connecting
7 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amRecently, I had the opportunity to meet two incredibly talented and generous pros in person. They both work in the field of innovation for growth, and we discovered we have many more things in common than we thought, even though we have lived in distant parts of the world from each other. It's uncanny how that happens, isn't it? This idea that making connections is also (and I'd argue especially) about helping others get what they want is a good practice. Characteristics of good connectors Good people are fairly easy to spot, even though they are usually head down getting the work done. By… -
Tapping into Your Sense of Purpose
6 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amPurpose is a powerful motivator and ally. Tap into your sense of purpose and there is no limit for better. Valeria is an experienced listener. She is also frequent speaker at conferences and companies on a variety of topics. To book her for a speaking engagement click here.
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HubSpot's Inbound Marketing Blog
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59% Say Running a Small Business Is Harder Today Than 5 Years Ago [INFOGRAPHIC]
18 Jun 2013 | 1:00 pmSmall businesses don't exactly have it easy. And with new marketing technologies emerging at a rapid pace in recent years, it's no wonder 59% of small business owners say it's harder to run a small business now than it was just five years ago. But "harder" may not necessarily be a bad thing, considering 72% of small business owners also expect their 2013 revenue to outperform their 2012 revenue. This all according to some new survey data from Constant Contact, brought to our attention by AllFacebook. The survey asked 917 small business owners to explain what it's like running their small… -
How to Turn One Idea Into a Bottomless Backlog of Blog Posts
18 Jun 2013 | 9:30 amThis situation sound familiar? You have an idea, then lose it, then come back to it again. You write it down quickly, check some email, get derailed, jump into a meeting, grab a coffee, then settle back in … only to hate what you thought of in the first place. You have no problem writing a post once you have an idea, but coming up with the idea in the first place can be the hardest part. It’s too easy to spend minute after minute staring at a blank screen, the cursor blinking back at you, taunting your idea paralysis. It's a shame you can't crumple your computer screen and fire it… -
How charity: water Has Reinvented the World of Charitable Giving
18 Jun 2013 | 5:00 amThe IRS lists that there are over 1.1 million nonprofit organizations in the United States -- so nonprofit marketers, like the rest of us, have their work cut out for them. Getting people to care deeply enough about an issue is extremely challenging, particularly given the number of emails, invitations, and requests most people get on a daily basis. So, how does a nonprofit stick out from the pack? One nonprofit chose to focus on radical transparency, giving donors the security and comfort of knowing that every dollar they donated would directly benefit their mission. This is the story of how… -
What You Need to Know This Morning: June 18, 2013
18 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amHappy Tuesday, marketers. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden tells The Guardian that Google and Facebook have been "misleading" users about their role in sharing data with the government. He also says, "The U.S. government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me. Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped." Doesn't that make you feel a whole lot better? Mission Impossible: Selling Cars to Millennials Cheapskate Millennials won’t buy cars, but love to look at them, eMarketer reports. The data: In 2001, people aged 18 to 34 bought 24% of all new cars in the… -
9 Insider Tips for Native Advertising That Actually Works
17 Jun 2013 | 11:00 amNative advertising is all the rage in publishing right now. The Atlantic and Forbes are doing it, as are the Washington Post and The New York Times. Federated Media, the big ad broker, is pushing native advertising. BuzzFeed, the fast-growing news and gossip site, is building a network to sell native advertising. Advertisers believe native advertising is more effective than old-fashioned display ads. A recent study by IPG Media Lab and Sharethrough found that consumers look at native ads 53% more often than they look at traditional display ads. Research firm eMarketer reports that…
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MarketingProfs How-To Articles
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Seven Types of Social Media Fans and How to Engage With Them [Infographic]
18 Jun 2013 | 7:00 amNot all the fans on your social media networks interact the same way with your business. You need to draw out some and cool off others.To highlight the most common types of fans and how to engage with them, ReachLocal created this infographic. Read the full article at MarketingProfs -
Is Your Content in Great Shape? Give It a Workout
18 Jun 2013 | 7:00 amAs summer approaches, some of us will hit the gym in hopes of being swimsuit-ready. The more we exercise, the easier it becomes. That's because we're building up our endurance and creating a habit. Content marketing is the same way. When we stretch our creative muscles and get into the ... Read the full article at MarketingProfs -
B2B Suppliers Unprepared for Generation Y Buyer Preferences
18 Jun 2013 | 6:00 amB2B buyers under the age of 35 are 131% more likely to make corporate purchases online than those over 35, but suppliers’ websites aren’t fully capable of handling their evolving demands, according to a recent report. Read the full article at MarketingProfs -
Twignorance: Are Twitter Holdouts Missing Out? An Interview With Jason Falls
17 Jun 2013 | 7:00 amRecently, a client told me he wanted to share his content with a larger audience and reach out to prospects, but added, "I don't have time for Twitter. It's trivial. I want to get into serious social media." I gave Jason Falls a call to help me out. Read the full article at MarketingProfs -
Days and Times With Highest Online Ad Click-Through Rates
17 Jun 2013 | 6:00 amOnline advertisement click-through rates (CTRs) are highest on Fridays, and the peak time for clicks occurs between 11 AM and 2 PM every day, according to a recent report from online ad network Infolinks. Read the full article at MarketingProfs
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Adrants
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FANTA Gets Its Own Coke Happiness Factory
18 Jun 2013 | 10:35 amIs it just us or is this German Fanta commercial a whole lot like the Coke Happiness Factory commercials? Of course, Fanta being a division of Coke, we guess we can't much blame Jung Von Matt for giving us an homage. Alex & Steffen did the 2D and 3D work in the video. The video gives us an epic, period piece battle in which a castle full of characters attempts to quell a giant, pillaging robot who, as it turns out, is just a cooler at a family picnic. Leave it to the hot princess to finally vanquish the mechanical foe. -
Red Trousers the New Trend at Cannes
18 Jun 2013 | 10:27 amSapient Nitro is out with its second Cannes-themed inforgraphic, each of which highlights a decade of advertising memes and themes. What we have today, is a look at the sixties and, well, the fact that lots of guys now where red pants. Oh and the fact that Paula Green was a rockstar creative in the 1960's. -
Public Self-Gratification Not What It Seems In 'Awkward Shake' Ad
18 Jun 2013 | 10:10 amIn yet another idiotic use of the jack off meme, a video entitled Awkward Shakes treats us to several awkward moment of guys polishing their knob in situations where polishing the knob would normally be taboo. Except, of course, they're not polishing their knobs? All their doing is shaking their protein shake. Where have we seen this before? Aside from everywhere, who can forget the famed Shake Weight? Hmm. maybe this is like a fart. No matter how many time you hear one, it's still funny. -
How Do Cannes and SXSW Compare and Contrast?
18 Jun 2013 | 8:08 amWritten in March following SXSW in Austin While we knew this was the case for several years now, SXSW Interactive has become a huge event generating conversation the world over. This year's event generated 1.1 million tweets in 5 five days across 200 countries and 19 languages. Social media monitoring company Synthesio created an infographic summarizing global social media conversation about the Austin, Texas event. Without surprise, the U.S generated the most (71%) conversation followed by the UK (4.6%) and Canada (4.4%). Some say SXSW is the new Cannes. In some respects, it is. As the… -
Adrants is Back. Does Anyone Care? #CannesLions
18 Jun 2013 | 6:52 amSo yesterday -- actually Sunday night -- some witty soul (and I use that phrase ever so graciously) decided it would be fun to hack Adrants on the eve of Cannes Lions making it impossible for us to share with you all the event's goodness. Well. we're back. But does it really matter? Does anyone really care? When we have AdWeek's Tim Nudd and Gabriel Beltrone killing it in Cannes, an entire army of reporters from Ad Age, stellar tweets from Ogilvy, a One Question video series from Advertising Week, live coverage from Campaign and PR Week and the #canneslions Twitter hashtag which -- if you…
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Being Peter Kim
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MIT Sloan Management Review and Social Business By Design
5 Jun 2013 | 10:05 amWe are well into the mainstreaming of social business. In this interview with Robert Berkman of MIT Sloan Management Review, my Social Business By Design co-author Dion Hinchcliffe discusses how "companies are at a stage of disillusionment with social business, but building social media literacy, integrating initiatives, and connecting social tools to how work gets done will help ensure success." More: MIT Sloan Management Review: How Companies Can Move Past a Trough of Disillusionment in Social Business Tweet
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PR-Squared - Social Media Marketing and Public Relations
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How PR will help your customers to buy
5 Jun 2013 | 4:02 amWhat do a kid’s sandbox, critical state theory, automobile purchases, and marketing automation have in common? They’re all part of tomorrow’s webinar at SHIFT Communications on Critical Influence in Social Media. Learn from SHIFT a new way of thinking about how earned media and public relations are impacting consumers and businesses, learn how to measure the influence you have over your audience, and learn ways to build and strengthen that influence. Sign up now for free! -
7 secrets to a successful, enduring business
20 May 2013 | 5:29 amWhat makes an agency successful begins not with fancy corporate jargon or a client roster of well known brands, but with the people at it. Choosing who those people are and who they collectively can be is a daunting challenge overall, but impossible without knowing what you stand for. That’s why core values are so important. At SHIFT, our core values are part of employee reviews. They’re part of monthly team meetings, when team leaders recognize accomplishments by their team members aligned with each of the values. They’re part of our hiring process, and candidates are… -
Nibbling at the Apple
7 May 2013 | 4:22 amIt’s becoming fashionable to take a bite out of Apple. There was Jean-Louis Gassée’s scathing article in the Guardian. There was Jon Gruber (of Daring Fireball) damning Apple with faint praise: blaming the media for cherrypicking the news to weave a narrative about Apple’s slow demise. I expect the chorus to grow louder before it weakens. Blood in the water, and all that. Apple doesn’t do itself many favors. Its trenchant secrecy used to seem cool – and I daresay it would still be considered cool – if not for the fact that a) competitive technologies are legitimately “catching… -
Did you know 70% of Facebook users are mobile?
3 May 2013 | 5:56 am…at least some of the time. That’s the latest in our findings after reading through Facebook’s Q12013 SEC Filing. See what other surprises are on tap for marketers in our summary on the SHIFT Communications blog post. -
SHIFT Turns 10: Reflecting Back, Looking Forward
30 Apr 2013 | 5:55 amWhen we sat around a conference table and battled through the process of defining our values a few years ago, SHIFT changed as an organization – we now had criteria that helped us define what it meant to be a SHIFTer and helped guide us through decisions, whether it was about our people, clients or services. We had a roadmap in a way we never had one before – sure, the instinct had been there, but now it was tangible and the fact that those values have lived far beyond a poster on a wall, is something we all take tremendous pride in as an organization. Want to see what we did with those…
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Six Pixels of Separation - Marketing and Communications Insights - By Mitch Joel at Twist Image
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Does Retail Understand The Untethered Consumer?
16 Jun 2013 | 4:52 amEpisode #362 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to. While many companies were still lamenting a basic website back in the nineties, Gary Schwartz was already imagining how content, voice and mobility would change how we connect to one another... and the brands that serve us. For over a decade, Gary has been a leader in the mobile industry. He is CEO of Impact Mobile (offices in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, etc...), is Chair of the Mobile Entertainment Forum and Chair Emeritus of the Mobile Committee for the Internet Advertising… -
Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #156
14 Jun 2013 | 8:15 pmIs there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see? My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, Solve For Interesting, the author of Complete Web Monitoring, Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks and Lean Analytics), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist's Manifesto) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must… -
Spend 20 Minutes With A Genius
14 Jun 2013 | 5:48 pmYou're going to read, look at, listen to and watch a lot of content over the weekend. Most of it is going to suck. It's going to be boring. It's going to kill time rather than inspire you to find the time. What if I could give you something to watch for twenty minutes that will inspire you? Nobody does it better than Seth Godin. Don't believe me? Watch this talk on creativity with a theme called "backwards" that was recorded last month in NYC... 2013/05 Seth Godin | Backwards from CreativeMornings on Vimeo. See, I told you :) (and yes, quite candidly, I'm also psyching myself up for… -
Summer Reading 2013
14 Jun 2013 | 5:35 pmThere have been a slew of new business books that have come on to the market lately. Summer should be here... some time soon, right? If you're looking for something to read, here are some new releases that will grab your attention and enrapture your mind (in alphabetical order): Choose Yourself - Be Happy, Make Millions, Live The Dream by James Altucher. About the book: "The world is changing. Markets have crashed. Jobs have disappeared. Industries have been disrupted and are being remade before our eyes. Everything we aspired to for 'security,' everything we thought was 'safe,' no… -
The New Convergence
14 Jun 2013 | 8:13 amThis is not about media convergence. It's about something bigger. Things change. Things change so fast that sometimes, it's hard to see it. We tend to think about our businesses and our lives in terms of keeping up with change. This creates a metal imagery of a mouse running on a wheel, doesn't it? At some point you're just chasing your own tail. Instead of worrying about how much the world is changing, why not focus on the things that have changed? A new paradigm. In both of my business books (Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete), the case it laid out for just how much technology,…
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Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect
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The confrontation waiting to happen
18 Jun 2013 | 2:00 amIt's not between you and your boss, your critics, your editor, your competition, your spouse or some other outsider. The essential confrontation, of course, is with yourself. You are your own biggest critic. And your own biggest competitor. Now that it's easier than ever to pick yourself, the question is, "why haven't you?" And now that it's easier to ignore the competition and become a category of one, the question is the same. Our instinct is to externalize the forces that are holding us back, but in fact, that's not the problem, is it? -
The thermostat and the frying pan
17 Jun 2013 | 2:45 amIf you want to cool your house to 68 degrees fahrenheit quickly, setting the thermostat to 62 degrees isn't going to get it temperate any faster than if you set it to 68. It blows full cold until it hits the number, then it stops. (For those down under where it is winter, the opposite is also true--extreme thermostat settings won't warm you up any faster). Frying pans don't work that way. Turning the temperature on the burner all the way up will certainly heat up that pan faster. Ah, an analogy! There is significant pressure on marketers to get it done fast. And so the inclination to spend a… -
"I get it"
16 Jun 2013 | 2:28 amNo need to read the whole book, I can just glance over the Cliffs Notes... I get it. I don't need to hear your whole pitch, just show me the summary slide... got it. No, I already heard about your vacation... remember, I saw the Instagram feed. Him, why would I go out with him? I read his match.com profile. You're probably smart enough to 'get it' merely by reading the 140 character summary of just about anything. But of course, that doesn't mean you understand it, or that it changed you. All it means is that you were quickly able to sort it into an appropriate category, to make a decision… -
Angry is a habit
15 Jun 2013 | 2:13 amIt's easy to imagine habits like a scotch after dinner, biting your nails or saying, "you know" after every sentence. An event or a time of day triggers us, and we go with the habit. It's easier than exploring new territory--it's merely a thoughtless response to an incoming trigger. But emotions can become habits as well. Distrustful is a habit. Lonely is a habit. Generous is a habit. When that stranger doesn't do what you expect, is your response to assume that she's out to get you, trying to make an extra buck, looking for a shortcut? Or do you default to the habit of giving that new person… -
Ping me when it's broken
14 Jun 2013 | 2:50 amHere's how a storekeeper makes sure the store is working: She sits at the register and watches. If the line is twenty people long and folks start walking out, she hires another cashier. If too many people pick up a new product and then put it back on the shelf, she asks for new packaging, or drops it from the inventory. If there's a line outside in the morning, she opens earlier. Alas, the same feedback cycle doesn't happen automatically online. You have to build it into your website--if you don't, the silence may confuse you. If you have no idea if people are walking away in frustration, you…
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John Battelle's Search Blog
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Excellent Content Marketing: Dear NSA…
12 Jun 2013 | 8:55 amThe post Excellent Content Marketing: Dear NSA… appeared first on John Battelle's Search Blog.This short Slideshare deck, an extremely clever satire of the now infamous NSA slide deck, should be Slideshare’s marketing calling card. It’s a promotional gift to the service, timely, clever, and leveraging the product perfectly. If this ever happens to you, use it in your marketing! Echoes of the Tide and Oreo executions that are getting such plaudits recently. Love it. Dear NSA, let me take care of your slides. from Emiland The post Excellent Content Marketing: Dear… -
The Book Lives On
9 Jun 2013 | 11:49 amThe post The Book Lives On appeared first on John Battelle's Search Blog.Faithful readers will recall that about three months ago, I announced my return to FM as CEO. I also mentioned that the projects I’d been working on – notably OpenCo and The Book, would have to be retooled given my new commitment to the company I started back in 2005 (when I last wrote a book). In the post, I wrote: I love the book I’m working on, and I don’t plan to abandon it (I’m bringing on a co-author). And I love the conferences I do, and I’ll still be doing them (though I’ll be hiring… -
Mary’s Annual Internet Trends
2 Jun 2013 | 6:21 pmThe post Mary’s Annual Internet Trends appeared first on John Battelle's Search Blog.Waaay back in the late 1990s, I started a conference called the Internet Summit. My co-producers were Bill Gurley, who remains one of the giants in venture over at Benchmark, and Mary Meeker, who was at that point the best analyst in the Internet space, at Morgan Stanley. The Internet Summit had its last event in July of 2001, and the space was taken over by Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, who went on to launch All Things Digital, which has thrived to this day. I went on to launch the Web 2 Summit… -
A Berkeley Commencement Speech, Some Years Ago…
25 May 2013 | 9:44 pmThe post A Berkeley Commencement Speech, Some Years Ago… appeared first on John Battelle's Search Blog.Last week LinkedIn asked me to post a commencement speech, if I had given one, as part of a series they were doing. Turns out, I’ve given two, but the one they wanted was at Berkeley, my alma mater. If you want to read the one I gave at my high school, I’d be happy to post it (I think it’s better), but since I already have the Berkeley one at the ready, here it is. I want it to be on my own site as well, just for the record. —– Back in 2005, as Web… -
The Full First Day of CM Summit, In One Place
25 May 2013 | 11:10 amThe post The Full First Day of CM Summit, In One Place appeared first on John Battelle's Search Blog.Thanks to our sponsor Google, we got the full first day of last week’s CM Summit, featuring Fred Wilson fresh from the Tumblr deal, Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann, and about 20 speakers in between for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy! The post The Full First Day of CM Summit, In One Place appeared first on John Battelle's Search Blog.
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Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing
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Why Bing May Become Your Search Engine of Choice
18 Jun 2013 | 7:35 amIt’s been a big week at Facebook. Hashtags rolled out to most users causing quite a stir in the marketing world. (It’s yet to be seen how much utility they actually bring to the everyday user.) And, Graph Search finally got turned on for my account. Graph Search is the long-awaited jump by Facebook into the world of search engines powered by Microsoft’s Bing. The official announcement came several months ago but roll out has been slow. The first thing I noted was that I had to relearn a bit of navigation as things aren’t where they were and don’t always do what… -
What If How You Sold Was as Important as What You Sold?
17 Jun 2013 | 7:03 amSo, for starters, the title to this post poses a bit of a trick question because significant research suggests it is in fact a fact. photo credit: dragonanswers via photopin cc Buyers have become so adept at doing initial purchase research that they no longer need or have the patience for a sales presentation on the benefits of your widget. Ironically, this applies doubly for B2B, big ticket items where you might think a little face time would be a good thing. A CEB study of more than 1,400 B2B customers across industries revealed that 57% of a typical purchase decision is made before a… -
Weekend Favs June Fifteen
15 Jun 2013 | 5:42 amMy weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week. I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from Flickr or one that I took out there on the road. This is how they roll at Oddly Correct Coffee in Kansas City Good stuff I found this week: theSkimm – daily newsletter that simplifies the headlines for the educated professional who knows enough to know she needs more. Webinar tools – Nice list of tools to… -
How to Work on Purpose and Why You Must
14 Jun 2013 | 9:53 amMarketing podcast with Tom Asacker A few months ago I started a series of posts I’m calling Recover You. The series is focused on practices and habits that I believe lead to a healthier mind, body and spirit, a healthier business and ultimately a healthier economy. This is the final post in the series. You can catch the entire Recover You series here. photo credit: JeremyMP via photopin cc I have spent a great deal of time over the last decade or two trying to understand and sort out the role of purpose as it relates to work. And you know what? – it’s a lot easier to consider in… -
The 10-Step Road Map To Promoting Webinars
13 Jun 2013 | 9:18 amThursday is guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing and today’s guest is Samuel Faith – Enjoy! When it comes to content marketing, nothing is better than a good webinar. You can educate, inform, engage and convert your target market – all at once. Independent reports from inbound marketing experts indicate that webinars can significantly boost your expert status, build meaningful and engaging relationships with your customers, and turn your audience into high converting prospects. But creating webinars is just one part of the equation. Promoting them is equally important…
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The Tom Peters Weblog
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Time to Revamp Leadership Training?!Start With a Quick Self-Assessment Test
30 May 2013 | 10:26 amLeaders should develop a vision for their enterprise, or the part thereof for which they are responsible. Fine. Leaders should get people excited about their work. Fine. Leaders should be masterful problem solvers. Fine. Leaders should have the highest integrity. Fine. Yes, all fine. But, I contend, that's not close to being enough. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that those items, collectively miss the boat. In fact, they're not even at the right dock. What do leaders ... DO? First and foremost they assemble and then develop a topflight team of people. Here's the way I like to put it, which… -
Best of the Cool FriendsMarti Barletta
22 May 2013 | 6:50 amOne of Tom's favorite topics is the Women's Market, so who better than Marti Barletta to be included in the best of the Cool Friends? Her first book was Marketing to Women, and we talked to her about it in 2004. Her second book was PrimeTime Women, a label she gave to women aged 50 to 70, who needed a better descriptor than "Mature Market." That 2007 interview begins with a discussion of marketers' problem getting their ads onto the screens that people are actually looking at. That discussion continues to this day. -
"1/47"
13 May 2013 | 7:10 amI frequently say, "I've only learned one thing 'for sure' in the 47 years since I started doing 'this stuff.'" (The 1966 staring point goes back to my U.S. Navy Seabee days in Vietnam.) The term "for sure" is meaningful; as a scientist by disposition, I don't believe as a matter of course in "for sures." So this exception is a big deal—to me. And that one for-sure thing is ... WTTMSW. Or, to clarify ... Whoever Tries The Most Stuff Wins. In Search of Excellence was constructed around "eight basics." And the first was "A Bias for Action." As we said then, and it's become more true over… -
Piggy Sue!
8 May 2013 | 4:57 amThe two great folks who are doing sustainable farming at our place have become parents. Well, not really. But their productive porker mom, Piggy Sue, just produced (about 72 hours ago) a litter of 15. Some of the newcomers below ... -
Jabil, Saint Pete Beach
2 May 2013 | 1:25 pmEarlier today Tom was in St Petersburg Beach, Florida, speaking to Jabil. Their website states they have "Global Expertise in Intelligent Supply Chain Design." Jabil, St Petersburg, FL Jabil, Long Version
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Brian Solis
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Small Businesses Survey: Resilience Prevails, Steve Jobs Recognized as Idol
18 Jun 2013 | 1:32 pmDid you know that the 23 million small businesses in America account for 54% of all U.S. sales? Did you know that small businesses provide 55% of all jobs and 66% of all net new jobs since the 1970s? While big business has eliminated four million jobs since 1990, small businesses added eight million. Why the focus on small business today? It’s National Small Business Week in the United States and to commemorate the occasion, I partnered with Cox Business to discuss the importance of connected consumerism amidst the release of its inaugural small business survey (#SBWSurvey). Available… -
Disruptive Selection: Nature’s Way of Weeding Out the Average Business
13 Jun 2013 | 9:38 amDisruption! It’s everywhere. I live in Silicon Valley where many say that the terms disrupt and disruption have become buzzwords. Pundits believe that the word is losing its promise and impact through the acts and examples of entrepreneurs and businesses that misuse the word to describe intentions rather than associating it with a desired or natural effect. In some of the startup meetings I attend for example, digital disruption is actually a stated business objective. Instead of “killing it” or “crushing it” many businesses are aiming now to disrupt it! Kidding… -
Plugging into the Future of Humanity: Exploring the Human API
4 Jun 2013 | 11:02 amI had the opportunity to present at LeWeb in Paris, arguably Europe’s largest conference dedicated to the future of technology. The theme of the conference explored the Internet of Things, where devices and things connect to one another to perform certain tasks and/or track activities to improve what we already do or make possible what we’re trying to do. The Internet of Things is bigger than we may realize. We are experiencing a shift from a world of inanimate objects and reactive devices to a world where data, intelligence, and computing are distributed, ubiquitous, and networked. My… -
Content is King! Amazon Invests Millions In Original TV Shows…But Why?
31 May 2013 | 9:26 amMy friend Tim Stenovec (@TimSteno) just published a great story on Amazon’s move to create original programming a la Netflix for The Huffington Post. He was kind enough to include me in his article (thank you Tim). He sent along a few questions as I was boarding my flight from NY to LA. As Tim was on deadline, I needed to send a thoughtful response as soon as I’d have the opportunity to turn my phone back on. The quote in italics is what made the cut…but, I also wanted to share the additional thoughts I sent along for context. Amazon’s move is an interesting one indeed… -
Tune in with Twitter TV
30 May 2013 | 4:34 amHave you ever watched TV while using a laptop, smart phone, or tablet? Wait, why am I asking. Of course you have. That’s what we all do now right? So I guess the real question to ask is how often do you use Twitter vs. Facebook while watching TV? In many ways, Twitter is becoming a bona fide second screen experience while watching television. And in many ways, TV may also serve as the second screen to those engrossed in their Twitter streams. If you think about it, the idea that the TV becomes the second screen to digital experiences is rather provocative. Perhaps this is why Twitter is…
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Conversation Agent
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Visualize Your Story Automagically
11 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amUse your own script or find among an inventory of existing ones and create a storyboard with Amazon Storyteller. As described on the site: Amazon Storyteller is a new application from Amazon Studios that lets you turn a movie script into a storyboard. You choose the backgrounds, characters, and props to visually tell a story. A successful storyboard can tell the full story of a script, or capture its essence in short form, like a trailer. Either approach can be a great way to build an audience for your story and see how people respond to it. The tool is free to use for anyone on Amazon… -
Why so Many Companies Fail to Deliver on Customer Service
10 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amIt is disheartening to experience such a race to the bottom. This past week I made three separate inquiries about a recent booking to American Express Travel, the last one on Twitter because I was hoping against hope... No response. From a company where I have been a loyal customer since 2002. American Express refers to its cardholders as members. Is the yearly fee customers pay the only sign of that membership? Membership alone is not enough According to a new survey by J.D. Power and Associates#, membership -- in the example is a club associated with a sporting goods retailer -- is not the… -
What I'm Reading Now
9 Jun 2013 | 2:39 pmDisruptive technologies: Advances that will transform life, business, and the global economy -- McKinsey Global Institute, cuts through the noise and identifies 12 technologies that could drive truly massive economic transformations and disruptions in the coming years. The One Thing that Makes a Company Last Forever -- by Marina Krakovsky, Stanford Graduate School of Business. Staying competitive calls for ambidexterity. Instead of choosing between exploiting current opportunities and exploring new ones; you have to do both. The companies that last for decades, according to the author, are… -
Become a Master at Connecting
7 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amRecently, I had the opportunity to meet two incredibly talented and generous pros in person. They both work in the field of innovation for growth, and we discovered we have many more things in common than we thought, even though we have lived in distant parts of the world from each other. It's uncanny how that happens, isn't it? This idea that making connections is also (and I'd argue especially) about helping others get what they want is a good practice. Characteristics of good connectors Good people are fairly easy to spot, even though they are usually head down getting the work done. By… -
Tapping into Your Sense of Purpose
6 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amPurpose is a powerful motivator and ally. Tap into your sense of purpose and there is no limit for better. Valeria is an experienced listener. She is also frequent speaker at conferences and companies on a variety of topics. To book her for a speaking engagement click here.
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Neuromarketing
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German & Japanese Brainfluence
18 Jun 2013 | 6:50 amThe global reach of Brainfluence is getting a boost. Japanese rights have been sold by Wiley, joining the Korean and Simplified Chinese versions in the Asian marketplace. Publication dates for the Japanese and Chinese versions aren’t yet known (at least by me) – if any Neuromarketing readers spots one of these in the wild, please [...] -
Image Influence: Placing Pictures for Maximum Impact
11 Jun 2013 | 5:14 amThere’s an idea from cognitive psychology called cognitive fluency that has been making the rounds in the business world lately. The idea is simple enough: as human beings, we prefer that which is easy for us to understand and process. -
Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff
27 May 2013 | 10:34 amBook Review: Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal by Oren Klaff Oren Klaff is an investment banker and deal-maker who, by his own account, has spent more than ten thousand hours developing a “neurofinance” approach to presentations and deal-making. Klaff uses a variety of brain-based techniques to control the [...] -
Brilliant Billboard Traps 230,000 Real Bugs
14 May 2013 | 5:32 amHow do you promote a new outdoor insect spray, Orphea, on a billboard in Milan? This clever effort turned the portion of the corresponding to the “spray” from a pictured can into a giant piece of fly paper. Over a period of days, the sticky trap captured hundreds of thousands of real insects. Watch the [...] -
Neuromarketing Meets Conversion Optimization: Free Webinar
9 May 2013 | 6:20 amNext week, conversion optimization expert Chris Goward and I will be doing a joint webinar: Neuromarketing Meets Conversion Optimization: Brainy Profit Boosters. I was excited to set this up with Chris, who’s the author of You Should Test That. Testing is critical. In nearly every speech I give, I include a quote from ad legend [...]
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Brian Solis
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Small Businesses Survey: Resilience Prevails, Steve Jobs Recognized as Idol
18 Jun 2013 | 1:32 pmDid you know that the 23 million small businesses in America account for 54% of all U.S. sales? Did you know that small businesses provide 55% of all jobs and 66% of all net new jobs since the 1970s? While big business has eliminated four million jobs since 1990, small businesses added eight million. Why the focus on small business today? It’s National Small Business Week in the United States and to commemorate the occasion, I partnered with Cox Business to discuss the importance of connected consumerism amidst the release of its inaugural small business survey (#SBWSurvey). Available… -
Disruptive Selection: Nature’s Way of Weeding Out the Average Business
13 Jun 2013 | 9:38 amDisruption! It’s everywhere. I live in Silicon Valley where many say that the terms disrupt and disruption have become buzzwords. Pundits believe that the word is losing its promise and impact through the acts and examples of entrepreneurs and businesses that misuse the word to describe intentions rather than associating it with a desired or natural effect. In some of the startup meetings I attend for example, digital disruption is actually a stated business objective. Instead of “killing it” or “crushing it” many businesses are aiming now to disrupt it! Kidding… -
Plugging into the Future of Humanity: Exploring the Human API
4 Jun 2013 | 11:02 amI had the opportunity to present at LeWeb in Paris, arguably Europe’s largest conference dedicated to the future of technology. The theme of the conference explored the Internet of Things, where devices and things connect to one another to perform certain tasks and/or track activities to improve what we already do or make possible what we’re trying to do. The Internet of Things is bigger than we may realize. We are experiencing a shift from a world of inanimate objects and reactive devices to a world where data, intelligence, and computing are distributed, ubiquitous, and networked. My… -
Content is King! Amazon Invests Millions In Original TV Shows…But Why?
31 May 2013 | 9:26 amMy friend Tim Stenovec (@TimSteno) just published a great story on Amazon’s move to create original programming a la Netflix for The Huffington Post. He was kind enough to include me in his article (thank you Tim). He sent along a few questions as I was boarding my flight from NY to LA. As Tim was on deadline, I needed to send a thoughtful response as soon as I’d have the opportunity to turn my phone back on. The quote in italics is what made the cut…but, I also wanted to share the additional thoughts I sent along for context. Amazon’s move is an interesting one indeed… -
Tune in with Twitter TV
30 May 2013 | 4:34 amHave you ever watched TV while using a laptop, smart phone, or tablet? Wait, why am I asking. Of course you have. That’s what we all do now right? So I guess the real question to ask is how often do you use Twitter vs. Facebook while watching TV? In many ways, Twitter is becoming a bona fide second screen experience while watching television. And in many ways, TV may also serve as the second screen to those engrossed in their Twitter streams. If you think about it, the idea that the TV becomes the second screen to digital experiences is rather provocative. Perhaps this is why Twitter is…
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Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing
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Why Bing May Become Your Search Engine of Choice
18 Jun 2013 | 7:35 amIt’s been a big week at Facebook. Hashtags rolled out to most users causing quite a stir in the marketing world. (It’s yet to be seen how much utility they actually bring to the everyday user.) And, Graph Search finally got turned on for my account. Graph Search is the long-awaited jump by Facebook into the world of search engines powered by Microsoft’s Bing. The official announcement came several months ago but roll out has been slow. The first thing I noted was that I had to relearn a bit of navigation as things aren’t where they were and don’t always do what… -
What If How You Sold Was as Important as What You Sold?
17 Jun 2013 | 7:03 amSo, for starters, the title to this post poses a bit of a trick question because significant research suggests it is in fact a fact. photo credit: dragonanswers via photopin cc Buyers have become so adept at doing initial purchase research that they no longer need or have the patience for a sales presentation on the benefits of your widget. Ironically, this applies doubly for B2B, big ticket items where you might think a little face time would be a good thing. A CEB study of more than 1,400 B2B customers across industries revealed that 57% of a typical purchase decision is made before a… -
Weekend Favs June Fifteen
15 Jun 2013 | 5:42 amMy weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week. I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from Flickr or one that I took out there on the road. This is how they roll at Oddly Correct Coffee in Kansas City Good stuff I found this week: theSkimm – daily newsletter that simplifies the headlines for the educated professional who knows enough to know she needs more. Webinar tools – Nice list of tools to… -
How to Work on Purpose and Why You Must
14 Jun 2013 | 9:53 amMarketing podcast with Tom Asacker A few months ago I started a series of posts I’m calling Recover You. The series is focused on practices and habits that I believe lead to a healthier mind, body and spirit, a healthier business and ultimately a healthier economy. This is the final post in the series. You can catch the entire Recover You series here. photo credit: JeremyMP via photopin cc I have spent a great deal of time over the last decade or two trying to understand and sort out the role of purpose as it relates to work. And you know what? – it’s a lot easier to consider in… -
The 10-Step Road Map To Promoting Webinars
13 Jun 2013 | 9:18 amThursday is guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing and today’s guest is Samuel Faith – Enjoy! When it comes to content marketing, nothing is better than a good webinar. You can educate, inform, engage and convert your target market – all at once. Independent reports from inbound marketing experts indicate that webinars can significantly boost your expert status, build meaningful and engaging relationships with your customers, and turn your audience into high converting prospects. But creating webinars is just one part of the equation. Promoting them is equally important…
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Rescue Marketing, Inc.
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The Amazon Prime Directive
15 Jun 2013 | 2:15 pmphoto credit: mendhak What did you learn from – and change in your business – after Amazon launched Amazon Prime? If you aren’t aware, Amazon Prime is a membership-based service that provides access to Amazon video-on-demand and free Kindle books from the Kindle lending library – but more importantly, it upgrades all purchases to from regular ground shipping to free two-day shipping. The question remains – what did you take away for your business from the launch and subsequent success of Prime? Did it provoke you to change anything about your business and how you… -
I know this sounds awful
10 Jun 2013 | 5:41 amphoto credit: Badruddeen On a late afternoon errand run, I stopped into a local hardware store for a bag of potting soil. I asked the woman at the counter if they had any left. She stared back at me as if I had asked her for a date (she was at least 25+ years younger), responding “Anything we have is on aisle 5″. A few minutes later, I’m approaching the register. As I take my place at the back of the line (now 2 people long), a car pulls into the parking lot as the guy in front of me asks about another possibly out-of-stock item. After answering him, she sighs and comments… -
What are your customers doing online?
6 Jun 2013 | 10:42 amI mentioned the Meeker internet / technology trends report last week on Facebook, but I thought I should summarize a few important nuggets from it for small businesses, particularly small software businesses. 30 percent growth in mobile users in the last year. 50% growth in bandwidth use by mobile devices. Specifically, 15% of all internet bandwidth use is mobile, up from 10% last year. Tablet use continues to expand quickly. Apple sold more iPads (140k) than iPhones (60k) last year. More tablets shipped in the last quarter of 2012 than desktops, despite being on the market only 3 years. -
Tell your fish story, Mr. Limpet
3 Jun 2013 | 4:25 amDuring a recent trip to Oregon, our journey took us to a dockside seafood restaurant in Newport. As you can see from my photo, this restaurant offers fresh local seafood in addition to meals made with the local catch. Take a close look at the sign used to describe this salmon. We know that the fish was caught locally by a real person who had to reel it in, on fishing vessel (“F/V”) that employs local people. The sign tells us it wasn’t farmed, pitched into a freezer with 30,000 other fish, much less frozen and shipped in by truck or rail from 2,000 miles away. The… -
Can you find the quality in this kitchen? It isn’t the bacon.
30 May 2013 | 4:41 amPhoto credit: Chicago Serious Eats People send me bacon links and/or bacon photos on Facebook almost every day. I’m not sure what started it. You’d think they see me around town with a fistful of bacon all the time (they don’t, I rarely have any) but it’s entertaining nonetheless. Today, I found my own link about Baconfest Chicago and it’s all business (OK, there is a little bit of bacon too). Check out the slideshow illustrating how Chef Rose cooks his Baconfest winning dish and look for ways he’s managing the quality of the food his…
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Web Ink Now
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PR vs marketing vs social media
18 Jun 2013 | 11:53 amOn the Web, there is very little differentiation between types of content. People don't really care where they get the best content: mainstream media, content created by organizations (what I call brand journalism) or things that people share via social media. Arguing that one is more legitimate (mainstream media) leads to flawed marketing and PR strategic decisions. In an offline world, marketing and PR are usually separate departments with different people and different skill sets. Creating silos in companies for marketing and for public relations and for social media doesn't work… -
What Mick Jagger Teaches us about Public Speaking
13 Jun 2013 | 7:53 amLast night, my friend Nick Morgan and I caught the Mick Jagger Show... er, the Rolling Stones... in Boston. It was a terrific show. Nick is my speaker coach, so we used the Stones show as a "field trip" to watch a master performer in action. And boy, is Sir Mick a master. There is no doubt that anyone who speaks in public can learn from Mick Jagger. As Nick says, "Any time I get a chance to see a legendary performer like Jagger, I jump at it, because it's a chance to learn stagecraft useful for public speakers." The rest of this post is jointly authored: What Mick Jagger Teaches us about… -
Reinventing your product category for a new market
10 Jun 2013 | 6:53 amOne of the best parts of being active on the global speaking circuit a chance to learn from marketers working in a wide variety of businesses. Yesterday I delivered a keynote speech at the Oticon Marketing Boot Camp. Oticon is based in Copenhagen and is the oldest hearing aid manufacturer in the world. The Marketing Boot Camp is a gathering of 200 hearing care professionals, Oticon staff, and outside speakers. What do you think of when you consider hearing aids? I think of skin-tone colored instruments that people use but they want to hide. Usually, needing a hearing aid means you're getting… -
The revolution in business today
7 Jun 2013 | 2:50 pmI recently finished Mitch Joel's new book Ctrl Alt Delete: Reboot Your Business. Reboot Your Life. Your Future Depends on It and enjoyed it very much, I asked Mitch to answer some questions for us. As I was reading. it struck me how similar Mitch and I think. We're both talking about the revolution going on in business today, but we come at if from different perspectives. Oh, and we’re both live music fans Mitch is President of Twist Image - one of the largest independent Digital Marketing agencies in North America (although he prefers the title, Media Hacker). So while I spend my days… -
How long does it take you to respond?
3 Jun 2013 | 7:58 amOn Friday, I presented at BMA Blaze, the Business Marketing Association's annual conference. I delivered a mini-keynote and then led a panel In the Moment: How and Why to Do Real-Time B2B Marketing with: - Matt Petitjean, Vice President, Corporate Marketing, ADP - Rich Jurek, Group CMO, The Inland Real Estate Group of Companies, Inc. - Jeff Beringer, Global Practice Leader, Digital + Social Media, GolinHarris During my talk, I used an audience response system to get a sense of the 500 or so senior B2B marketers in the room. My question was "How long would it take you to respond…
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Epiphany Marketing's Strategic Marketing Blog
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How Much is a Facebook “Like” Worth to Your Business?
6 Jun 2013 | 6:39 amThere’s an enormous caveat to what I’m about to tell you. In the work we’re doing with clients for whom we manage social media, as well as in the training we do for business owners and their teams to manage their own social media, there’s one fact that we emphasize constantly: In social media, the level of engagement is far more important than the number of fans or followers. That said, a recent research study by Syncapse and Hostpex places an average value of $174 for each Facebook “fan” a business gathers. (Note: although term “fan” is… -
How SEO Hasn’t Changed [Infographic]
7 Dec 2012 | 5:50 amFrom the very moment we began providing training to business owners and marketing executives to help them understand how search engines work, we have preached a very simple message: Create content that delivers value to people in your target market. And do it often. I’m constantly amused by the SEO (search engine optimization) industry—when not infuriated by stories of ripoffs, that is. Everyone was in an uproar when Google’s Panda update came on the scene. When Penguin arrived, it was another round of insanity as SEO firms and marketing consultants began realizing that many of… -
Reason #237 for Marketing Strategy: the Elevator Pitch
22 Oct 2012 | 10:20 amIs this where you want to buy something? Seth Godin’s post from today reinforces yet again the need for you to strategically and intentionally design your business’s “message”: If your elevator pitch is a hyper-compressed two-minute overview of your hopes, dreams and the thing you’ve been building for the last three years, you’re doing everyone a disservice. I’ll never be able to see the future through your eyes this quickly, and worse, if you’ve told me what I need to know to be able to easily say no, I’ll say no. As usual, he manages… -
Time to Update Those Copyright Notices!
2 Jan 2012 | 10:36 amOut with the Old! Have you changed the copyright notice at the bottom of your website? Now’s the time to do it! After all… nothing says, “we aren’t paying attention” like last year’s date (or worse: an even earlier year!) being displayed on a website through mid-June (or whenever it is we happen to catch it). So… in addition to all the other calendar-changing exercises — remembering to write 2012 on your checks, ditching last year’s desk blotter, swapping the wall calendar, etc — make sure you check out your websites. And no fair… -
How to Handle Negative Reviews and Feedback
21 Dec 2011 | 5:27 pmRecently, I was talking with a client who was reluctant to set up a profile on Google Places for his business. “What if people leave negative reviews?,” he asked. “You can’t do anything about it, can you?” A valid point. Unlike a WordPress blog or even a Facebook page, profiles in Google Places (and many other business listings locations around the web) do not permit the business owner to remove negative comments. Most of the time, a concern like this isn’t because the business is in the habit of disappointing the majority of its customers — usually…
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Holy Kaw!
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The ultimate catcall killer: Hairy tights
18 Jun 2013 | 4:09 pmCan’t wait to hit the streets in that hot micro-mini, but worried about attracting the wrong kind of attention? Though you’d definitely be turning heads in this Chinese export, this accessory will probably keep those with less-than-honorable intentions at bay better than a king-size bottle of pepper spray. According to the Telegraph: They first appeared [...] -
Mexican volcano blows its top! [video]
18 Jun 2013 | 2:09 pmWhile it isn’t unusual for those near Mexico’s Popocatepetl volcano to see signs of activity, Monday provided plenty of excitement for the 650,000 residents in the high-risk zone. Monday’s eruption spewed ash four kilometers in the air, as can be seen in the video below, and access has been restricted in a twelve-kilometer radius of the [...] -
50 years of must-read books
18 Jun 2013 | 1:35 pmSo, you’ve cleaned out the classics section of the library and are ready to move into a new era, preferably one with telephones, but where do you turn for recommendations? Give Flavorwire’s list of the fifty best books for each year from 1963 to 2013, which comes complete with alternates, the only stipulation being that [...] -
Tribute to a master: Honoring Alfred Hitchcock [video]
18 Jun 2013 | 12:44 pmLooking for a great movie marathon idea for the dog days of summer? Then start tempting your film palate with this tribute to Alfred Hitchcock by Vimeo user Jean-Baptiste Lefournier, and prepare to be paranoid! We assure you, the chills won’t be from the AC being on high. Full story at Vimeo via Presurfer. Classic movies. -
Nasty parasites turn up in dead otters
18 Jun 2013 | 12:21 pmResearchers in the UK have identified a number of parasites in the bodies of dead otters. Among the parasites is Toxoplasma gondii, which is spread by cat feces and can cause miscarriages in women. “The project’s research on the parasites that infect otters has revealed previously unknown aspects of their distribution and ecology,” says Elizabeth [...]
