I am a communication professional, with a bent toward marketing because of the bottom line results it drives. understand advertising. understand the value and benefits of it. even work with my team to recommend it to clients in integrated programs. But I’m not an advertising expert. That’s why I was so interested to read, “ How to Test Your Advertising Quickly, Cheaply, and Effectively, ” on the Harvard Business Review blog. The blog post discusses how to use Google AdWords to test your messaging before you go to your customers and prospects with it. The examples follow. MORE >>

Shruti Shah Goradia is Social Media Marketing Manager: Content and Community at Kodak. Her creative experience spans art direction, design, development and implementation of interactive and print campaigns in a wide variety of B2C and B2B industries including consumer electronics, hospitality, real estate and education. Also, she contributes to Kodak blog and her own blog Design Dreamz. You can follow Shruti on Twitter , Facebook or Linkedin. G: Where is the best place to build the community? S: This greatly depends on what your objectives are. We had our 1000words and PluggedIn blogs. link]. MORE >>

Watch your local Pee-wee football team’s practice sometime and you’ll see a lot of dropped passes, missed tackles, and a whole host of other mistakes. But…what would happen if you put that team on Heinz Field and gave them all the same amenities as the Pittsburgh Steelers? Yep, they still wouldn’t be able to complete a pass, kick a field goal or break a James Harrison tackle. Clearly, just because they were put on a better field and given the latest equipment doesn’t mean they will suddenly learn to play football. Similarly, simply adding the latest Enterprise 2.0 MORE >>

Do you know where you most valuable customers are talking about you? Harvard Business Review says 44% of businesses don’t know. That’s a problem. Without proper monitoring and measurement, you’ll never know where opportunities are for growth and you won’t be able to identify issues before they become problems. It’s crucial to measure everything you do on Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere. When you measure, you can see what is working and what is not working, and you can do more of what’s working. Facebook and other social networks equip you with limited analytic tracking tools. MORE >>

Small businesses typically play it safe when it comes to marketing – fishing in the same ponds as their competitors, and typically using the same bait. This includes publication advertising, trade shows, and direct mail. Could this explain why so many small businesses are slow to adopt social media practices? What’s missing? Leadership, innovation, and the willingness to take acceptable risks. Leaders Change the Game – And Then Own It. There are many leaders in every industry. They all know what to do; they are just waiting for the right time to take action. The are afraid. MORE >>