skepticism

When building an online persona and brand usually we start with the most basic aspects including over arching brand, logo, colors, core messages etc. All of these are foundational to success. We develop our plan, develop our platform, create and launch our brand presence, integrate social with our business goals and start the social media engagement. However, after a few months goes by we realize nobody is buying from us.[read more]

Now, brands are expected to address issues as they arise online. While this is great for the customer, many brands are left feeling uneasy about this change. Here are some thoughts on developing Customer Service on Social Media[read more]

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There is an awareness of what social media is and its potential impact but few pay attention to it as 90% report a basic understanding of this now established fact. However only 32% of their companies monitor social media to identify risks and only 14% measure social media sentiment about their organization.[read more]

It’s simple, just be original. Originality is what every writer strives for, there’s no reason content marketers should be any different. We should create new ideas and find genuine and interesting twists to put on our content. We should find our own ways to be exciting, interesting or funny, rather than jumping on a bandwagon.[read more]

A year or so ago, as Pinterest started to garner media attention and a mass audience, a host of agencies and consultants that focus on the financial services industry launched a wave of blog posts and presentation decks to champion the power of this new image-sharing platform for banks, insurance firms, credit card companies and credit unions. A year or so later, those optimistic predictions have been largely unrealized. While Pinterest is proving successful for retail, home goods, media, style and other categories, it is not proving to be the "next big thing" for financial services.[read more]

Google+ Communities, because of the added services available to Google+ Users and integration with all the other benefits of the Google infrastructure, simply blows Facebook Groups out of the water. Businesses can take advantage of all of the things they enjoyed on Facebook without having their content held hostage by EdgeRank.[read more]

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Social media marketing had a dismal showing over this year's thanksgiving weekend - achieving less than 1% of total sales. The ROI (Return On Investment) figures for eCommerce businesses from Black Friday to Cyber Monday are an indication of how poorly business understands social media and social media marketing.[read more]

Pears

There is an infection overwhelming social media strategy development and the virus is fear. I just read a number of reports all showing how CMO’s are still confused about what to do about social media. Really? It’s been on the table for at least 3-4 years now. Isn’t it time to figure things out?[read more]

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Facebook fails to grasp that the key to unlocking the value of online relationships resides in relevancy and context, two elements that truly guide engagement.[read more]

Google+ recently likened an advertisement on Facebook to a man wearing a Sandwich sign walking up to a couple of people having a conversation on a sidewalk. The advertisement is an unwelcome interruption. If you run a business, and you are looking to make money through driving people from Facebook to your products or services, Facebook is very likely not in any way worth the amount of time or expense required.[read more]

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Yes, there was a time that little tricks and cheats would skyrocket you to the top of the search engine rankings. That time has come, and unfortunately it’s time to fire your SEO company.[read more]