Your sites have been audited, improvements have been made and there is more to come in the road map. The technical, editorial and marketing teams are trained in SEO best practices and are integrating them into the daily workflow. Sounds good, but are your efforts working? That’s where tracking and measurement comes in. When it comes to SEO publishers need to understand and effectively communicate progress and success. SEO is a never-ending process and without good benchmarks, clear and realistic goals and solid reporting it is easy to lose momentum within the organization. What Else? MORE >>

Rachel Happe has a really important post at the Community Roundtable about the lack of support she’s seeing for community managers. We’re seeing a lot of this too:  organizations want to hire for a social media position, which is basically senior enough to do everything social-related under the sun, but not paid at the level the position deserves and ALSO without lower level administrative support. Rachel spells it out perfectly: The same group of senior community leaders is increasingly frustrated, over-worked and emotionally deflated in their current roles. Sound familiar? MORE >>

Tweet Anyone who’s ever been on YouTube knows how powerful it is (if you have  never  been on YouTube there is a good chance you might be an alien). It sucks you in, and if you aren’t careful, it WILL waste several hours of your life without you even realizing it. How does this happen? The answer to that is simple: the ‘related videos’ or ‘suggestions’ feature of YouTube. You know, that little area to the right of a YouTube video that suggests what video to watch next instead of getting back to work or doing something productive with your life? MORE >>

For years sellers maintained power over buyers. Technology is changing the game and buyers are now gaining power over sellers. As a result corporate behavior, regardless of industry, will have to change in order to survive. The New Participation Model. “Corporations will allow the public to participate in the construction and representation of their creations or they will, eventually, compromise the commercial value of their properties. ” –Grant McCracken (1997). The New Buyer. If old consumers were assumed to be passive, then new consumers are active. 18-19). MORE >>

Today’s guest post is written by  Neal Schaffer. Despite having preceded Twitter and Facebook in the social media space, LinkedIn, which was launched in 2003, has so far been unable to capture a larger share of social media users. Many call LinkedIn the “black sheep” or the underdog of social media. Social media demographic statistics  show us Linkedin only has 150 million registered users, way below the nearly one billion Facebook users or Twitter with more than 400 million users. See this excellent infographic for full details. Why is this the case? MORE >>