Direct Marketing Observations

JANUARY 31, 2018

Lately, I’ve been thinking way too much about organic B2B social media marketing. For obvious reasons, it’s where I play and have played for the last eight years. In that time, I’ve worked for some of the largest companies in the world and If you were to ask me what keeps me up at night it would vacillate between how can I do more with the tools and resources I have available to me and what am I missing?

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Social Media B2B Metrics Content 164

Direct Marketing Observations

OCTOBER 4, 2017

B2B Social media success is like the American ninja warrior TV show. Everyone makes it to the starting line and yet very few make it to the finish line. In fact, those that can make it just halfway through the course can sometimes advance to the next round, based simply on how difficult the course can be. They’re deemed, somewhat victorious for just getting ‘that far.

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Social Media B2B Conversation Marketing 100

Direct Marketing Observations

JUNE 21, 2017

What if you had no filter? What if there were no repercussions for your actions both offline and online? What kind of world would that be? That would be 2017, where streaming your crimes, your transgressions or other people’s flaws, misdeeds, and imperfections on your phone seem to be the norm. Then you go to sleep and you go to work. Then you go to sleep and you go to work.

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Direct Marketing Observations

MARCH 31, 2017

Why do you click on a piece of content? Probably because you were compelled to. Some trigger caused you to cross over the invisible threshold of no and maybe. Was it an image? Was it the promise of a video or was it because the source was one that you trusted? Chances are, the answer to all three questions is some sort of yes. Beyond that, what prompts us, is the text or words in front of the content.

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Blogger Content Video Eventful 137

Direct Marketing Observations

MARCH 1, 2017

Follow me here. The principal concept of Snapchat is that pictures and messages are only available for a short time before they become inaccessible. They become obsolete if you will. When a brand pushes out a “piece” of social media content, they’re hoping that content will move the needle in the form of a standard KPI, i.e. mentions, likes, favorites or followers.

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Social Media Content LinkedIn Brands 100

Direct Marketing Observations

DECEMBER 16, 2016

Today I was thinking about a website that I go to, from time to time called Quotes on Design. What’s cool is that you can constantly refresh the page for a new quote on design. That thinking posed a question internally… ‘How about a site on things I said? I quickly shut that thought down. But… Instead, here are things I’ve written in my Moleskine over the past 12 months.

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Pluck Analytics Crowdsourcing Mobile 100

Direct Marketing Observations

MAY 5, 2016

Recently via ESPN, a social media drama played out nationally as a Texas A&M football recruit and one of their coaches sparred via Twitter , over the perception of each other’s veiled tweets. There will be no good that will come out of this. The fall out is bad mostly for the football coach and his respective university. The fall out is additionally bad because it also shows how recruiting athletes in a social media world can go terribly awry.

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Social Media Sports Twitter Instagram 100

Direct Marketing Observations

AUGUST 18, 2016

In the back of every Vanity Fair edition is the Proust Questionnaire which is devoted to the answers of someone who is fairly well known. The answers never cease to make me think about my own mortality and legacy. The questionnaire has its origins in a parlor game popularized by Marcel Proust, the French essayist and novelist, who believed that, in answering these questions, an individual reveals his or her true nature.

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Travel Eventful Questions How To 100

Direct Marketing Observations

AUGUST 18, 2016

In the back of every Vanity Fair edition is the Proust Questionnaire which is devoted to the answers of someone who is fairly well known. The answers never cease to make me think about my own mortality and legacy. The questionnaire has its origins in a parlor game popularized by Marcel Proust, the French essayist and novelist, who believed that, in answering these questions, an individual reveals his or her true nature.

Travel 100

Travel Questions How To 100

Direct Marketing Observations

MAY 5, 2016

Recently via ESPN, a social media drama played out nationally as a Texas A&M football recruit and one of their coaches sparred via Twitter , over the perception of each other’s veiled tweets. There will be no good that will come out of this. The fall out is bad mostly for the football coach and his respective university. The fall out is additionally bad because it also shows how recruiting athletes in a social media world can go terribly awry.

Social Media 100

Social Media Sports Twitter Instagram 100

Direct Marketing Observations

MARCH 21, 2016

Twenty six years ago at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival I watched Stevie Ray Vaughn rip it up in front of thousands of people. The only way people knew that I did was because I told them about it. Yep, WOM. I would go on to see SRV a few more times after that before he was taken from us too soon. My memories and stories of the times I’ve seen him and hundreds ( Yes hundreds, I sold concert T-shirts ) of other acts are solidly entrenched in a sense and duty that those stories are

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Social Media Fashion Eventful Marketing 100

Direct Marketing Observations

SEPTEMBER 4, 2015

In 2016, it should be readily apparent that each relevant social platform has a specific value to us. If you, as a digital marketer still don’t know what that value is, well then, shame on you. Let’s stop for 30 seconds and re-look at that value of each. Let’s take stock really quick. Look at Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Tumblr, Instagram, Snapchat, Periscope/Meerkat/Blab, Redit, Youtube, Pinterest, WhatsApp and G Plus.

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LinkedIn Social Networking Tumblr Instagram 100

Direct Marketing Observations

JANUARY 28, 2016

If we thought millennials shared too much, what are we to think of the YouTube generation or as they might be called, Gen C? Better yet, what are we to think of anyone with zero filter nowadays? A product of the times? Good for them, they’re just being transparent? I ask that because recently a friend of mine was on a call in which there were multiple participants.

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Social Media Forums YouTube Conference 100

Direct Marketing Observations

OCTOBER 6, 2015

Often times reading Twitter feeds can seem almost post-apocalyptic. A vast wasteland of nothing. You scroll through your feed and you see nothing redeeming. Fun fact, we used to refer to the World Wide Web with the same disdain. It essentially was the wild, wild, west where anything goes and anything went. Some think that’s no longer the case. never fear, there’s always Twitter.

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Direct Marketing Observations

SEPTEMBER 29, 2015

About four years ago I wrote a post/checklist on what you should require when you hire your next social media rockstar. Recently I was asked to build a roles/responsibilities description for a client who had a similar ask and thus I thought my old post might help me in building out that description. So let’s relook at the post and see how it compares to 2015 with comments, updates and observations in red. 1.

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Social Media Collaboration Strategy Social Media Management 100

Direct Marketing Observations

SEPTEMBER 2, 2015

I was recently speaking to an entrepreneurship/marketing class in Naples Florida about what it takes to get something from cradle to grave. The main idea hit me like a ton of bricks, so I’m going to share it with you. It’s quick, so relax. It’s as simple as this. It starts with one person. It’s born from one idea. You take that one idea and you make it better.

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Class Products Marketing Company 100

Direct Marketing Observations

AUGUST 20, 2015

Sh*t is getting ready to hit the fan again. Just now on Twitter I was curious about the Ashley Madison scandal. So I did a trending hashtag search on the topic. I found it fascinating how it kind of exposed sunlight to the other side of or the ugly side of the web where people like to play, preferrably in the dark. Pun intended. Think Bitcoins and Silk Road but in the name of cheating… For those in the know, this is just another notch in the belt of just how “nonprivate” your

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Marketing Paid Search Social Media Hashtag 100

Direct Marketing Observations

APRIL 17, 2015

'It’s true, the internet has shortened our attention spans. We’d rather watch a video than have to read 400 words or more. As a digital marketer one of the great challenges is to figure out what your audience wants and then to package that into something that’s measurable and moves the needle. It’s getting harder. You’d think that with the advent of all the new data tools and analytics packages on the market, that we would know exactly what the customer wants.

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Content Marketing Analytics Video 100

Direct Marketing Observations

MARCH 18, 2015

'I promise you that what I’m about to say is worth reading. Before I elaborate though, let me stress that I am qualified to post something so link-baitish as this. I’ve been knee deep in social for the better part of 8 years. So much so, that it seems that not a year goes by now where I either hear or read about how social media doesn’t work or is useless or is dying.

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Social Media Marketing Social Media Management Engagement 100

Direct Marketing Observations

MARCH 17, 2015

'I’m cutting to the chase. and feel free to disagree with me at any point when you think I’m wrong. Content curation tools are great. No really, they are, except all they do is pull the content in and that really is just half the battle. The content game played by every brand, everywhere, in some way, shape or form, is finding that content, every day, manually interpreting it and then tailoring it to their audience and then pushing it out.

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Content Curation Marketing Brands 100

Direct Marketing Observations

MARCH 16, 2015

'You’d think brands would know what the customer wanted at this stage of the game, right? It’s 2015 and companies left and right keep talking about their new mandate of delivering on a quality customer experience. delivering a powerful customer experience. It’s almost as if what has happened up to this point didn’t matter. I guess I want to know, what have I been getting all of these years?

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Social Media Compete Brands Sample 100

Direct Marketing Observations

JANUARY 8, 2015

'The short answer is no. The easy answer starts with Google’s Nest. Which is a smart thermostat. From there things have quickly spriraled out of control so to speak. In a short time The Internet of Things has become akin to what it was like when social media became a “thing.” Everyone is writing about it, everyone is talking about it and everyone is trying to figure out what it does, what it means and how it will affect us.

Social Media 100

Social Media Google 100

Direct Marketing Observations

OCTOBER 14, 2014

'Did Facebook just jump the shark? Or does it just seem like it? Back in April of 2013, Facebook launched stickers but only in private messages. Now they’re is rolling out the “stickers” feature to everyone’s timeline posts, enabling users to voice their opinions with a cat, a smiley, or anything else that’s in the Facebook’s Sticker Store (social commerce?

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Facebook Social Media Features Questions 170

Direct Marketing Observations

OCTOBER 10, 2014

'Think just because you play on Twitter and Instagram, have a Tumblr page and have a Facebook account that you could “do” social media for a large company? You might want to rethink that.

Social Media Management 189

Social Media Management Social Media Tumblr Instagram 189

Direct Marketing Observations

OCTOBER 6, 2014

'First I want to quote a paragraph from the abstract of a 2011 paper by danah boyd , a renowned expert on teen culture and social media at Microsoft Research. The paper is titled, The Drama! Teen Conflict, Gossip, and Bullying in Networked Publics. Here’s the quote: “Drama is a gendered process that perpetrates conventional gender norms. It also reflects discourses of celebrity, particularly the mundane interpersonal conflict found on soap operas and reality television.

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Social Media Back channel Instagram Twitter 228

Direct Marketing Observations

JUNE 3, 2014

'I haven’t been posting much, for that I blame it on client work. With that being said, I stumbled on this and thought I would share. It comes from a site called Funders and Founders. Good stuff!

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How To Sites 162

Direct Marketing Observations

NOVEMBER 14, 2013

'Remember this? It’s one of the classic lines of all times in a movie. Greed is Good. Remember this? It was one of the biggest acquisitions in 2013. Remember this because it will be the social media headline of 2013… To quote The New York Times : What business makes no money, has yet to pass its third anniversary and just turned down an offer worth billions of dollars?

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Social Media Facebook 202

Direct Marketing Observations

SEPTEMBER 3, 2013

'It’s hard to actually write that in the title. Is it possible that G+ could actually compete with Facebook? Check out this infographic from Social Annex , what do you think?

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Facebook Google Social Media Compete 265

Direct Marketing Observations

MAY 21, 2013

'Yahoo’s recent announcement of it’s intent to purchase Tumblr has brought out the virtual fangs. Let’s take a look at some of the more creative responses. . . . Tumblr users are passionate and are worried about what will happen to their platform. Is that passion enough to keep their pages safe from being “Yahoo’ed?” If the deal goes down, Tumblr as you and I once knew it, may be done.

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Tumblr Yahoo Flickr Posterous 226

Direct Marketing Observations

MAY 17, 2013

'I was just reading about the social media meltdown of Amy’s Baking Company in Scottsdale, if you’re not familiar with it, the restaurant was featured on Chef Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares production that airs on the FOX Network. To give you a quick recap, things did not go well for the owners of the restaurant and for the second time since Ramsay has been doing the show, he walked away and essentially refused to help the restauranteurs out.

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Flash Mob Reddit Social Media Video 219

Direct Marketing Observations

MAY 14, 2013

'It can’t be good… I was going to go off on a rant, but the fact of the matter is…it can’t be good. You feel duped and cheated and misled.

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Content SEO 185

Direct Marketing Observations

APRIL 2, 2013

From the cartoonery of John Atkinson and WrongHands we give you… Vintage social networking.

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Social Media Social Networking 238

Direct Marketing Observations

MARCH 21, 2013

Check out this image. . Now I’m pulling this next blurb from Vivaldi Partners via wikipedia but pay attention to it: Vivaldi Partners defined social currency as the extent to which people share the brand or information about the brand as part of their everyday social lives at work or at home. Now, let’s fast forward to an article that Jay Baer wrote in which he states that online influencer outreach is overrated: I’m not suggesting that influencer outreach is useless or should be a

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Wikipedia Social Media ROI Influencer 208

Direct Marketing Observations

MARCH 14, 2013

Saw this picture and it so captures the essence of who we are now. We are a global, digitally enabled people. Amazing!

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SEO Mobile 189

Direct Marketing Observations

MARCH 12, 2013

Are we becoming a nation or a society that is devaluing certain aspects of online privacy? As more and more of our lives become intertwined with online networks we become desensitized as to what is private and what is not. Take for example the liberties or assumptions that Live-Hive would like with your personal information. CtoCloud Application is requesting permission to: Manage your contacts.

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Privacy Applications Google Data 168

Direct Marketing Observations

JANUARY 8, 2013

It’s safe to say that just because I waited until January 8 th , it doesn’t mean that I can’t roll out what I think will happen in the next 12 months. In other words, not posting prediction pieces in December does not diminish their likelihood of occurring. In the immortal words of former NFL coach, Dennis Green, predictions are what we thought they were.

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Google Apple Content Data 222

Direct Marketing Observations

DECEMBER 27, 2012

Looking back on the year, it’s easy to see what was big when we have the benefit of an infographic. At the least, there’s no doubt that social adds a layer and an element to our memories. Big shoutout to Mashable and The SEO Company.

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Social Media SEO Company 240