Direct Marketing Observations

MARCH 23, 2015

The world of the content marketer/social media marketer is changing. What that tells us and what a lot of old school social media marketers will tell you (old school being about eight years… ) is that the art of engagement has now become a science. The conversations, have been lost. We can fix this though.

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Activities Social Media Conversation Engagement 100

Direct Marketing Observations

MAY 22, 2012

The beauty of social media isn’t in the online connections. No the beauty of social media is in it’s potential. Basically where social takes off and takes on magical tones is when we get to associate a name with a physical face and voice and not an avatar. That’s the money shot.

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Social Media Avatar Journal Conference 178

Direct Marketing Observations

AUGUST 24, 2011

If you’ve been in this business for any length of time, then its time to take your collective aggregate knowledge of social media and add it to the overall mix of what you know and do. We’re at least five years in and I want you to quit being a social media specialist, because you aren’t one any longer.

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Social Media Skills SEO Aggregator 199

Direct Marketing Observations

NOVEMBER 15, 2011

Do big brands actually have conversations with the people/customers/prospects that friend, follow and fan them? Do consumers really want the following conversations? Is the above simulated conversation the basis for a relationship? Leads, conversions and sales right? Happiness? A sense of belonging or inclusiveness?

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Conversation Brands Banking Compete 187

Direct Marketing Observations

MAY 7, 2010

I thought I might condense it a bit and focus not only on Tweetchats that I was familiar with, but also those that would benefit the Social Media, Marketing and PR folks out there, and which also had solid participation as well. 2) #4change is a monthly tweetchat on how social media is helping to create change.

Social Media 214

Social Media Health Care Pharmaceuticals Social Entrepreneurship 214

Direct Marketing Observations

MARCH 9, 2010

My last few posts have been about the darker side of social media and thus I wanted to clear something up. I am the biggest champion of social media that you will find and here’s why. The confluence of PR and social media ain’t no coincidence. I can help you, I know a few good people there.

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Social Media Meeting Social Networking Conference 196

Direct Marketing Observations

DECEMBER 19, 2011

As 2011 winds down, it’s time for me to reflect on the state of my social media world in 2011. Things that I thought I knew about social media in 2011: 1) That I knew what I was talking about. They’re ready as long as they have their social media policies in place. It’s actually a start. Does it work?

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Social Media Policies Consultant ROI 228

Direct Marketing Observations

AUGUST 17, 2011

If you talk at any length to any large corporations these days, they are all excited about the possibilities that social media might bring to their organizations, except that they are scared to death of the risks that social presents. Cisco is a good example of a company doing it the right way.

Social Media 159

Social Media Buy Handbook Policies 159

Direct Marketing Observations

JUNE 17, 2010

According to ESPN the Indians have established a 10-seat section in left field for bloggers and social media users in an effort to engage fans and further the Indians’ brand in the social media space. It’s called the Tribe Social Deck. Hmmm… I think I like the idea. This could be a problem.

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Social Media Sports Policies Press Release 166

Direct Marketing Observations

MAY 20, 2011

that commerce driven sites whose success was going to be reliant on transactions is a lot different than social sites and platforms with hundreds of millions of people with millions upon millions of daily visits that are reliant on nothing more than activity, conversations, shares, likes and content creation.

Social Media 176

Social Media Social Networking Buy Sites 176

Direct Marketing Observations

DECEMBER 23, 2010

A few weeks ago I was selected as one of the Top Social Media Strategists to Watch in 2011. We’re excited to have you on our list of “ Top Social Media Strategists to Watch in 2011.” We will post this to our social media channels this week. Sure it is. So here’s how I responded. Cristina. .

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Social Media Project Groups Groups 223

Direct Marketing Observations

AUGUST 19, 2010

It’s almost as if I’m reading Naked Conversations again. The essence of social media-talking to people. It’s why we gushed about social media in the first place. The conversations. This epiphany has also extended to using Twitter in a more conversational manner when I can.

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Social Media Strategy Conversation Meeting 180

Direct Marketing Observations

AUGUST 5, 2010

I was driving into Pittsburgh today to meet with a couple of clients and I was on the phone with one of my friends who told me that he had been talking with a local ad agency about social media. Before I cut to the chase, the agency is a major player in Pittsburgh but by no means a social media player.

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Social Media Conversation Meeting Types 156

Direct Marketing Observations

FEBRUARY 5, 2010

To say that it was a successful tweetchat is an understatement, but what really pushed the chat over the top was the last question in which she asked for quick tactics to encourage corporate social media adoption. 1) Create a Social Media case study of who is talking about your company both in good & bad ways.

Social Media 177

Social Media Case Study Crowdsourcing Hashtag 177

Direct Marketing Observations

JANUARY 29, 2010

Where you ask all or parts of the bulleted questions and conversations below? So you want to know about social media ? What do YOU know about social media? Do they have any idea how difficult social media marketing is? Do they have any idea how difficult social media marketing is?

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Social Media Marketing Social Networking Consultant 174

Direct Marketing Observations

OCTOBER 5, 2011

I’m the biggest proponent of social media that you could possibly find but I am also the one that told my daughter that she doesn’t need Facebook. I also told a group of 400 parents and educators that anyone under the age of 16 doesn’t need to be on a social network. She’s 14. So what happened?

Social Media 152

Social Media Aggregator Loyalty Social Networking 152

Direct Marketing Observations

MAY 17, 2011

The long form answer is that it starts with guidelines that include internal and external social policies, rules and guidelines that everyone can live by like what Cisco has done and it extends to adult like socially acceptable behavior. Need more examples of social media policies and guidelines?

Social Media 192

Social Media Guidelines Policies Meeting 192

Direct Marketing Observations

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

I’m having less conversations with my peers. What’s more, I’m seeing less conversations. What’s worse, with Google Buzz launching, another network has been created to have more conversations…with ultimately the same people. Tags: social media Social Networks. How do we scale?

Social Media 168

Social Media Social Networking Conversation Sites 168

Direct Marketing Observations

JULY 2, 2010

The conversational divide… I have a couple of quick questions: Does social media allow customers to get their issues resolved quicker than if they were to use traditional means? Does whining via social media move you to the head of the line? Social media is my ally. Or at least to be heard?

Social Media 159

Social Media Nielsen Company Issues 159

Direct Marketing Observations

APRIL 11, 2011

Is it creating a Twitter profile “in case&# someone maybe be talking about you so that you can claim that you and your company are proactively listening to the conversation? What are they doing with social media that you are not? Or is it a blog that has 3-4 posts over the span of 6 months? Maybe, possibly, and perhaps?

Company 178

Company Social Media Compete Sports 178

Direct Marketing Observations

DECEMBER 8, 2011

We also decided to create a killer, award winning, website thanks to developer Terry Mckyton that would captures all of the conversations in real time and even allows you to tweet from the site, but other than that, we were ready to go have Tweetchats. In the course of about a 1 minute conversation, Hashtagsocialmedia was born.

Social Media 218

Social Media Hosting Hashtag Collaboration 218

Direct Marketing Observations

MAY 13, 2022

With that said, I’ll start by going out on a relatively sturdy limb and say that social media, as a source for information, disinformation, and entertainment, in all its various shapes and forms, has been the absolute center of our global universe for the last five years. For those that say they don’t pay attention to social.

B2B 112

B2B Social Media Conversation Platform 112

Direct Marketing Observations

JUNE 28, 2010

Below is an email response I gave to someone I did not know who is determined to reinvent themselves and reposition their very talented skills in the social media arena. But before you can start selling yourself as a social media consultant. Don’t do that. Be transparent. Be authentic. It takes time.

Consultant 171

Consultant Social Media Posterous Authentication 171

Direct Marketing Observations

MARCH 18, 2010

I knew they were still trying to wrestle with the alternative options that social media might provide. But coupled with wrestling whether to make the leap or not, was the notion that commitment to social media is labor intensive. They already wear a lot of hats and now they have to somehow integrate social media?

Social Media 168

Social Media Tweetdeck LinkedIn Social Networking 168

Direct Marketing Observations

FEBRUARY 11, 2010

If you are a marketer thinking about social media marketing then there is a good chance, if you have not done anything yet, that its because you just don’t have enough information yet. In this post I want to address those issues so that you can get started with social media marketing. Is it fear of social media?

Social Media 174

Social Media Conference Policies Social Networking 174

Direct Marketing Observations

JUNE 18, 2010

My passion and understanding of the power of social is not theirs. They may want to be part of the conversation but it’s not the same as mine, or the same for other similar organizations or competitors. What level of buy-in and to what extent of buy-in internally do you need with social media in order to be successful externally?

Buy 159

Buy Social Media Survey Social Networking 159

Direct Marketing Observations

JULY 12, 2010

I read an article in Wired’s Epicenter from a couple of days ago titled- Gaming the System: How Marketers Rig the Social Media Machine and the article caught my eye for a number of reasons. The first reason is that when I first “dabbled&# in social media 5 years ago-I was that marketer. And it was cool.

Consultant 159

Consultant Company Social Media Remix 159

Direct Marketing Observations

JULY 15, 2011

Sure you can have those short staccato like conversations, but we have chosen to use it in another way that suits are needs and desires. We have decided that Twitter is a great way to share links, to share content and to consume content. It is now purely a content consumption and content push platform.

Social Media 168

Social Media Startup Engineering System 168

Direct Marketing Observations

JULY 6, 2010

Traipsing in and bellowing to anyone who will listen, that the tranformative nature of social media will change the way you do business for the better, is a lofty claim. What if you could only use one “social solution&# ? Let’s say you’re a consultant, which social media solution would you suggest and why?

Social Media 143

Social Media Wiki Social Bookmarking Flickr 143

Direct Marketing Observations

NOVEMBER 20, 2013

Erich Joachimsthaler : They have done well by building on key drivers of social currency mainly conversation, advocacy and affiliation (#cakeface instagram, etc). That is, the comeback campaign sought to activate loyalists and fans through various efforts on social networks. What caught my eye?

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Loyalty B2B Metrics Curation 226

Direct Marketing Observations

APRIL 26, 2010

magazine has 100k circulation + 2 times pass along and costs $5k) and sales (call volume rises when our infomercial airs and conversion increases 12%) then your digital marketing reports cannot use language like followers, subscribers and linkbait, they must be consistent. If you measure traditional marketing with reach (ie.

Social Media 173

Social Media Radian6 Apple Marketing 173

Direct Marketing Observations

JANUARY 11, 2010

Everyone’s talking about integrating social media into our everyday business. Whether you have a small local business or are a global enterprise, everyone is interested in the best way to incorporate social media practices in some way to solve their business challenges. via hashtagsocialmedia.com.

Social Media 100

Social Media Compete Tweetdeck Small Business 100

Direct Marketing Observations

JUNE 19, 2012

Other things that gnaw at me but at a more “come to a boil type” nature, are the current and future states of social media. Like it or not, the conversations are NOT solely about social media any longer and I’m cool with that. Hell, I even got tired of my own stuff that I used to write about social media.

Mashup 176

Mashup Mobile Consultant Microsoft 176

Direct Marketing Observations

JUNE 28, 2011

At some point over the past few years social media has caused us to redefine the term “engagement&# to mean something more than what it really means. It’s not conversations, it’s not discussions, nor is it customer centric inquiries. When was the last time you had a meaningful conversation with a baseball card?

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Engagement Social Networking Meeting Conversation 258

Direct Marketing Observations

MARCH 30, 2012

“Social” claims or has been claimed to do everything and it really has become quite the game changer. OK, so I’m kidding, but the point is this: One thing that social media does and has done is that it has spurred relevance in everything that online and offline touch now. Chew on that.

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Conversation Buy Social Media Tips 162

Direct Marketing Observations

JANUARY 20, 2010

I thought it was just me and thus I wrote about the rise of the transactional conversation of Twitter on Monday. Then yesterday David Binkowski threw a post up on Shamable about gaming social media. The conversations have eroded into flat out pimping, so has the spirit of what all of us celebrated no less than a year ago.

Sentiment 189

Sentiment Twitter Microblogging Hubspot 189

Direct Marketing Observations

APRIL 27, 2010

If you’re a social media consultant like Jay Baer , or a larger organization like Accenture for instance, one of the constant constants in social media is the amount of education required to get people all on the same page, before anything can really be accomplished. Social media validates my feelings and actions.

Social Networking 204

Social Networking Flash Mob Forums Communities 204