I was on the phone with a good friend the other day, talking about social media and what bothers us most about Twitter. Don’t judge. Isn’t this what you talk with your friends about? We both had our own unique set of opinions on the subject. I made an observation, which turned into a 15-minute rant that my friend labeled, “The Genesis of Social Media”. The premise of this was

Here’s a video I saw come over Twitter today with Biz Stone of Twitter and Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn discussing the integration of Twitter features and updates on the popular business social network LinkedIn. Unfortunately I’m feeling some bitterness about LinkedIn timeouts as I type this, as I’m sure they’re getting hit hard with visitors over the news.  So while I can’t yet implement this new functionality yet, I will

This morning, Facebook’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg shared the company’s view of advertising and the role they play.  Some of the questions were centered around Pages.  One audience member asked, “How do big brands connect with their fans on Facebook, without being overly promotional?”  Sheryl’s response was, “They do it around authentic news and authentic things or authentic offers that people want to see; ads that they’re interested in.”  Keep this

Just about every day, a new potential client calls or emails asking how quickly we can build followers for them on Twitter or when they can expect sales from their social media efforts. Most are not immediately impressed when I tell them it will generally take between six and twelve months to see results, as long as things are done correctly from the beginning and tracked properly. I thought it

This video explains that we no longer search for news–it now finds us. This is well-explained by the fact that last night YouTube reported that it had a few more than 90,000 views.  As I write this it has had 113,585 views.  This video is finding its audience-fast!  That’s the power of social media.  While we slept, this video was shared and clicked on nearly 25,000 times.  I would imagine

I’ve met some really talented experts and some know-nothing posers and have to say both can teach you a lot about what’s going on in social media. Anything that rubs you the wrong way is probably going to cause the same reaction in others, so don’t do those things! Frankly I’m glad both players are around for now, and there will certainly be a shake-out at some point. I’ve been

Have you tried using Twitter Search? This is a remarkable tool that allows you to conduct keyword-specific search queries that yield real-time tweets containing your search terms. Searching tweets in real-time is a great opportunity to strike up a conversation about your industry.  Many people are looking for conversations to join that are somehow connected to their brands.  Twitter Search opens the door to just such a possibility.  The other

Recently, I came across many news and online articles which stated that bloggers are engaging more in Twitter rather than blogs.   More and more bloggers are turning to Twitter to express their messages and opinions rather than blogging on other social media networks.  They stated that using Twitter is a faster means of communication and expresses their message directly to their audience/followers. Bloggers usually have a tendency to express their

The video below is without a doubt one of the most amazing things anyone has ever pulled off.  The inspirational value alone is priceless.  If you research the making of this video you’ll see some of the ideas the creators implemented to make it happen. More companies need to think like this.  It is not about selling, it really is about people.  If you can win someone’s attention through a

1. There are no rules. 2.  See rule one. Social media is the dawn of a new day in communications. Control is virtually absent and a new way of communicating has formed: connecting with strangers based on mutual similarities and common interest. Many voices are making what I believe to be a futile attempt to impose rules on the wild frontier that is social media. Rules don’t exist here. There