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Sorry it’s late but I am working to do much better by the visitors to this site. More good things are in the works…
Mr Thiessen , Courting Disaster author discusses:
How to become a presidential speechwriter.
Is the job of president overrated?
Stealth care deform.
How the Obama Administration’s September 10,2001 approach to terrorism endangers the nation.
It’s been awhile since I’ve been back here. My focus has been sharpened to zero in on my life’s passion: Politics (God, family and country notwithstanding). This site will concentrate on political events and people as they intersect with my special training in Inbound Marketing (blogging, podcasting, Search Engine Marketing and the like).
Upcoming interviews include David All of David All Group and Phil Van Trueren of Killer Campaigning.
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John Appler is CEO of REC.fm, a social networking site that allows users to create concise, trustworthy, and trusted product recommendations. The unique twist here is philanthropic: a charitable donation is made on behalf of those who purchase recommended products. Designated charities include The Red Cross, Kiva, and the National Foundation for Cancer Research. In lieu of the humanitarian challenges currently unfolding in Haiti, REC.fm has the potential to expand social media philanthropy in a unique and dynamic way. Look for REC.fm’s presence to expand on February 1st as the pilot business customer of the SocialGrow social network. Thanks to John Appler and Social Grow’s Ken Herron for their cooperation and support to this effort.
I tested some of these tips on my own for user-friendliness. I recommend them to those of you/us looking for new employment. Every little clue helps. The ultimate networking/jobsearch tool is LinkedIn IMHO.
Tip 3: Enter your contact’s first and last name, company and location in Google search and review the results. You might get lucky!
Kudos to J2B Marketing for this one.
This tool is more than handy for those of you looking to research domain names and to obtain related information. Here’s my Delicious coordinate too!!!
A ten page, step by step guide to succeeding on Digg. Excellent content, easy to read, comprehend and implement. The takeaways, success (rising to the front page), is a process requiring systematic effort. In particular, it is better to give comments and “Diggs” than to solicit them right off the bat. Furthermore, quality content is king as is active participation in the Digg community.
Global business executives are optimistic about their 2010 email marketing initiatives. According to Strong Mail’s 2010 Marketing Survey, email marketing and social media budgets will expand in 2010 (respondents were allowed to select more than one initiative. Specifically asked which initiatives would realize increased spending in 2010, email garnered 69% while “social media” received 59%. SEO/PPC was third on the list at 42%. Direct mail, advertising and trade show budgets (Outbound Marketing tactics) are headed for the chopping block according to the same survey respondents (42%, 32%, 44% respectively.
When asked to select their top three email marketing initiatives, “Improving the effectiveness of our email campaigns” topped 59% of the responses, followed by “Improve segmentation and targeting” (46%) and “Growing our opt-in list” (44%).
A curious element emerges from the survey: When asked “Are you planning to integrate social medis into your email marketing campaigns in 2010?”, 69% responded affirmatively, with 18% responding “Yes, but we don’t know where to start.”
This latter response is a golden opportunity for enterprising social media types (such as myself). Your thoughts???
I apologize upfront for not posting more often, but I am heavily involved in a new job search, which in and of itself is a full time job. Nonetheless, here are a few snippets worthy of consideration.
Beth Kanter of Beth’s blog has some valuable material on social network analysis, particularly its visualization. The entire post is here and well worth reading. The idea that interests me is exemplified by Marc Smith, a self-described “Internet Sociologist. He has developed a tool called NodeXL, which is a FREE Excel add0n that allows the user to import and graph social network data. How clever to combine Excel with “New Media” to provide visual insights into vital trends. Might the CIA use such a tool?
In terms of emerging trends for 2010: my own veddy veddy informal LinkedIn poll suggests that 1 in 5 (20%) respondents would like to implement an email campaign but don’t know how. This informal/unscientific response dovetails roughly with global data suggesting similar trends. More on that later.
There is a plethora of information from which to answer the question on the minds of many social media consultants: “How do I go about measuring or quantifying the impact of a marketing campaign. Or, how do I convince my boss/superior to implement my proposal(s)?
New Marketing Lab’s Chris Brogan shares his thoughts on the subject; an excerpt follows:
In working with clients, I have eight questions that I like to ask to get a sense of what we might be able to do to improve business:
- How can we fill your sales funnel?
- How can we improve engagement?
- How can we improve exposure and coverage?
- How are we empowering your community to interact?
- How do we grow sales from your community?
- How can we build a voice and a new stage for your ideas?
- How do we bridge your offline experiences with your online presence?
- How are we extending to the mobile environment?
Robin Broitman of Interactive Insights Group compiles a KILLER list of tools and resources for your use.
Beth Kanter, an evangelist of social media as it applies to non-profits includes specific applications such as Feedburner, Google Analytics, and PostRank in the “quantification” process.
You need to pick the right hard data points (fancy way of saying metrics) that will help you harvest insights to improve your social media strategy. For blogging, you have to use a couple of different tools to get the different metrics you need. The tools include Google Analytics, PostRank, Feedburner, and others.
We have but scratched the surface of this topic. I will have more content as I engage in more conversations.
The essence of social media often gets lost in efforts to quantify R.O.I., optimize landing pages and research the most effective keywords. Social media involves shared conversations about meaningful people, places and things. Word of mouth marketing on a grand electronic scale if you will. It is in this spirit that I share my Thanksgiving day experience.
11:45 AM – Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. (For those unfamiliar, Jamaica Plain is a borough of Boston). I found myself searching for a late breakfast-early afternoon snack. I wandered into City Feed and Supply for the first time and it will definitely not be my last time. The atmosphere was warm and friendly. The employees friendly and welcoming without being pushy. City Feed is a combination “country store”, supermarket, and cafe located on busy Centre Street. Among my purchases was a chickpea salad made by Cedar’s Mediterranean Foods. Cedar’s is local, based in Ward Hill, MA and offers a line of Mediterranean foods, most notably revolving around hummus and chickpeas. I purchased a chickpea salad about which I can’t say enough. It is to live for and to die for. A fabulous collection of chickpeas, cranberries, peppers and carrots, delightfully seasoned and marinated. In a word: DELICIOUS. I heartily recommend it and the roster of Cedar’s fare.
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