9 Steps to an Awesome Website
We’re very excited to let you know of the publication of our first eBook, entitled, “Failing to Plan Is Planning to Fail: 9 Ways to Save Money, Launch Sooner, and Dramatically Boost the Effectiveness of Your Website.” It focuses on nonprofits, but its lessons apply more broadly. Even if this isn’t of interest to you currently, perhaps you have friends that can benefit. It would be great if you’d send them a link. We wrote the eBook in response to a clear... Read More
Your Mother Was Right About Facebook
No, not that time she insisted you should be paranoid about tagging photos of yourself at “all the wrong parties,” or how you should never let strangers know that you aren’t home. (Although, hey, be smart.) She was right about asking other people for help. See, when you were a kid and you couldn’t accomplish something at school, your mother didn’t tell you to give up, did she? No, she told you to ask for help. Maybe from a teacher, maybe from... Read More
A Different Way to Think About WHY You Use Social Media
Some rights reserved by Terri (I.hope.you.dance) - http://www.flickr.com/photos/tbeitz/ Maybe your sales are up. Maybe you have a few new Facebook fans or YouTube subscribers. Maybe people are tweeting positive vibes about your brand. All of that is a good thing, right? Well, sure. But how do you really know if your inbound marketing is working? Beth Kanter, a longtime champion of social integration in the nonprofit world, makes a compelling case for thinking differently... Read More
Putting Tweets in Your Customers’ Mouths… Er, Mice
Some rights reserved by Andrew Huff (http://www.flickr.com/photos/deadhorse/) “I love Brand X!” If you were the CMO at Brand X, wouldn’t you love to see a steady stream of that exact sentiment being shared by your customers online? Unfortunately, that’s probably not going to happen. Not that people don’t say good things about brands and products online. Often, they do — and maybe they even say them about your brand — but they don’t... Read More
6 Questions You Should Ask Before You Send Your Next Tweet
Some rights reserved by albertogp123 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/albertogp123/ Did you just find another link you can’t wait to share on Twitter? Do you have a product you think your Facebook fans would love to see? Are you convinced that your YouTube subscribers are waiting breathlessly for your next clip? WAIT! Whether you tweet for yourself, your company, or as part of a team-based branding strategy, here are 6 questions to help ensure your inbound marketing efforts... Read More
Steve Jobs, Hurricane Irene and the Secrets of Better Website Traffic
Last week, the world was on fire with amazing news. Earthquakes in Virginia!!! Steve Jobs retires!!! Hurricane Irene is coming!!! HURRICANE IRENE IS HERE!!! And while the general public obsessed over those stories (or tried to ignore them so they could get some actual work done), a vast swath of social marketers were salivating. Why? Because they’ve been trained to look for angles on breaking news and pop culture stories that can help drag attention toward their own... Read More
Does Your Business Really Need a Flying Elephant?
Illustration by Dwight K. Schrute - http://www.flickr.com/photos/ibadatqayyum/ Let’s say a team of top scientists, who’ve been dedicated to the creation of the world’s most amazing new technology for the past twenty years, have finally released their brand-new invention to the world: a flying elephant! The media jumps all over the story. The early adopters rush out to buy, tame and dissect their very own flying elephants, and then they reverse-engineer them... Read More
Don’t Get Distracted by the Wrong Metrics
Last week, Mashable announced that Tumblr now serves more blogs than WordPress does. This was considered especially noteworthy because the 4 year-old Tumblr has achieved this lofty number in half the time it took the now 8 year-old WordPress. For an industry that considers WordPress to be as ubiquitous as Heinz is to ketchup, this number could have caused the blog world to step back and rethink its own identity. More practically, it may have caused plenty of social marketing... Read More
4 Things the Final Four Can Teach Us About Marketing
(Looking for “Is Google Rewarding People Who Buy Friends?” Click here.) Every year, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament proves why it’s earned the nickname “March Madness” — because, literally, anything can happen. But for an event that markets itself as a showcase of unpredictability, this year’s tournament revealed just how poorly the sports industry is prepared to take advantage of those surprises when they actually do happen. So... Read More
An Ancient Rabbi’s Advice For Online Marketing
The great Rabbi Hillel was once asked by a non-Jew to explain the entirety of the Torah within the amount time he could stand on one foot. Rabbi Hillel replied, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary.” The clear lesson, known in so many faiths as “the golden rule,” is what most people focus on, and rightfully so. However, marketers can also learn something else quite important from Rabbi... Read More
