How many hours have you spent adding buttons, gadgets and widgets to your new blog or website? You research the right tools, share buttons, share bars, analytic tracking tools and more. You install them with a hope and a prayer that someone somewhere is going to use them. However, unfortunately many business leaders find they don’t get used. The share buttons sit on their site with the lonely zero or default +1. Chances are your pocket book or wallet might be feeling a little lonely too.
It is human nature to want to connect, feel needed, be acknowledged, be understood, appreciated for what we accomplish and contribute to our small circles and ecosystem as a whole. It’s no wonder that social networks such as Facebook and Twitter have taken off as a force to be reckoned with.
What are the successful social networks doing better than other networks? Why do people gravitate to one social network over the other? What makes them stick around?
Wow, is it me or is it starting to be more and more steps to follow someone.
We round em’ up in circles. We click the Facebook like, send and share buttons. We accept or invite them to LinkedIn. And if they’re lucky we may even opt-in to their email list via their blog or website.
So you tweet into a Tweet chat, a Facebook LinkedIn group or page, Quora stream, Empire Avenue community or blog comment discussion with good intentions. So what is it? Why do you have difficulties “gelling” with these online groups? Your offline relationships are “just fine.” You simply wish people would spend more time “offline” living “real life.”
How many times have you heard these remarks? “Yes, we are on Twitter. We hired an intern. He/she tweets links to our blog” or “yes, we are on Facebook. We have a website with the Facebook logo on it that links to our Facebook business page.”
At the core everything about social media is about the people.
It’s time for the next social media and marketing event. You pack your bag, charge your iphone or Android, grab the iPad, and your new business cards with the QRC code on the back.
You’re off, you’re ready and before you get to the airport your twitter followers know where you are going, what the hashtag is and what you’re excited to see and do when you get there. You tweet your fellow attendees to plan your first face to face get together. You’ve already planned the first tweetup that by the way use to be called “Happy Hour”.
Getting out into world, learning from new perspectives, enjoying the company of others is the spice of life.
So why in business do we find this so hard to accept? Why do we think we’ll accomplish more if we stay inside our corporate and virtual home offices as we fervently turn in our social hamster wheels of marketing strategies, business plans, engagement approaches, audience research, websites, Facebook pages and suites that hoot?
Yes, the economy stinks. However, that doesn’t mean we need to work the hamster wheel 24/7. It actually should drive the opposite behavior.
So we all know the cute little blue and white hand glove. The one that is the logo, often represented by the skinny blue rectangle. We look for it. We click it. But why? Why do you click the “like” button? Do you click it because you really like whatever content was on the page? [...]
Social media listening is similar to what Granny use to say, “if you want to learn about your audience and make em’ feel good shut yer yapper and listen”. Many new marketers who leverage social media forget about one of the greatest benefits, social listening. There are many benefits to social listening including: learning about [...]
When you first jump on the social media train you hear the stories. You hear the comments of people complaining that all people do is promote themselves, talk about lunch. Yet isn’t Facebook Places really all about what you had for lunch today? Or if you had the will to make it to your 6:00 am spin class or spend another hour recovering from your late night of Tweeting?
No wonder Facebook is beginning to feel like surfing. It’s because we can get whatever we want via a Fanpage, quick search, query of top trends and “likes”. We can seek filtered information. We can filter information to our most favorite. On one page we can share a photo of our dog and kid, a blog post and invitation to a research conversation on LinkedIn. To me that is power of communication, content and community all in one place. Yes, we can accomplish some of the same sharing on Google. However, it’s not as intimate. It’s not as controlled. And most importantly it is not FREE!
Social media is all one big relationship. Making them meaningful, inspirational and profitable are top goals. Many times we get too caught up in the science of social media. Too many folks worry too much about how many followers they have on Twitter, number of fans on Facebook and the list goes on and on. [...]
Good organization up front goes a long way! Get control of your privacy settings early on.
Most of you know we LOVE INTEGRATED marketing! RANDOMNESS is in our vocabulary only as reference to Random Acts of Marketing (RAMs) of which we help customers avoid. We help them remove the RANDOM I-V feed and replace with marketing that zooms ROI, impact, and brand equity. People usually raise one eyebrow when we talk [...]
How did you get to where you are in your life and career?
I woke this morning to the Blackberry (of course). Unfortunately it’s usually in hand before I can officially open my eyes 100%. It’s an issue I know 
So today I opened my BB to a perfect Monday morning blog post from Seth Godin. Seth is one of my favorites and also use to work at MessageMedia with both my husband and I years ago.
It was so perfect I just had to share.
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