Archive for August, 2010

Along with the French, I love Jerry Lewis, not only because he’s an incredible comic but because he is the original social media marketer who’s 44 year run has a lot to teach us. Consider these 4 invaluable lessons.
Create Own-able, Original Content. The schmaltz, the cheesiness, the kids in wheel chairs, the has-been performers singing long-forgotten [...]

Want to increase your email open rate, white paper download rate, or registrations at your next speaking gig? Take the problem you solve, and turn it on its head to create a title that grabs attention. By throwing water on the conventional wisdom your readers have come to expect, you’ll give them an ironic break [...]

As we grope our way forward to embrace, understand and utilize social media as an efficient marketing channel, we have to recognize that hype and wishful thinking are far ahead of the reality. Our emerging social graph is new, morphing regularly, subject to the stampede of public opinion and mostly out of our control. Experimenting [...]

The land rush is on. Marketers are embracing and planning to embrace social media. Nobody wants to be left behind and no brand wants to be perceived as trailing the pack.

In a July 2010 survey of 137 marketers conducted using email and social media for the Pivot Conference by Extra Mile Audience Research, two-thirds of [...]

I talk with B2B companies who are on board with content marketing as a concept, but don’t know where to start. What makes content “good” for their particular buyers? And how can their content be more compelling than their competitor’s? They can brainstorm titles for white papers all day, but not be confident that one [...]

“Our customers already know who we are.”

This is a line I’ve heard since starting my business 12 years ago. The reasons for the statement vary with the company and the product / service offered:

“Our known universe of customers is small. They all know us and we know them.”
“We’re a big company with a big name.”
“We’ve [...]

Welcome to the pilot episode of Social Media Examiner TV with our host Mari Smith!

In this episode, Mari reviews Flipboard—a hot new way to consume social media news from your Facebook and Twitter contacts—along with her thoughts on Facebook’s 500 million users and a look at how Foursquare could help your business.

Share your feedback, see [...]

To optimize e-mail marketing, you need to stand out from the loud, growing and frequent crowd and take concerted action to get attention for your brand and your message.

1. Start with the end. What do you want the recipients of your e-mail to feel, think or do?  If this is a one-off effort it will [...]

How do service buyers do it?  How do they take that journey?  How do they go from knowing nothing or very little about a service provider to signing an agreement for thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars — all within a very short window of time? If a deal is primarily services, [...]

No one needs positive reinforcement more than someone who is unemployed.

Yes, I know this is hard, especially for working spouses.  At first, it is easy to be supportive, encouraging, positive. But as the months move past, long term grudges might manifest themselves more frequently..”remember that time you made me do all the [...]