Ayn Rand Mike Wallace Interview 1959

June 12, 2010 0

Adding the Facebook Like Button

June 12, 2010 0

5 Reasons Agencies Continue to Struggle with Social Media

Forrester’s recently projected social media marketing spend to increase at an average of 34% a year through 2014. But Marketers are still finding it difficult to locate the ad agencies that are credible and capable within the social media arena. According to Forrester’s research, marketers don’t trust traditional agencies to run their social media campaigns, but neither do they trust interactive agencies their entire marketing program to smaller interactive agencies. Marketers find it difficult to find credible and capable ad agencies experienced in the social media arena.

In 2009 more agencies had surrendered and started participating in social media. But they left their marketing minds on the bank when they jumped into the water. A lot of agencies don’t have a clear objective for using social media and it almost seems like they have a check list to check off to show they are social media credible. We have a agency blog, Twitter account, Facebook Fan page and LinkedIn. They fail to connect the dots to make social an effective tool for new business.

via socialmediatoday.com

Follow the ‘via’ link to go to the source and read 5 reasons why agencies struggle…

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June 12, 2010 0

The Future of Cloud Computing

A solid majority of technology experts and stakeholders participating in the fourth Future of the Internet survey expect that by 2020 most people will access software applications online and share and access information through the use of remote server networks, rather than depending primarily on tools and information housed on their individual, personal computers. They say that cloud computing will become more dominant than the desktop in the next decade. In other words, most users will perform most computing and communicating activities through connections to servers operated by outside firms.

Among the most popular cloud services now are social networking sites (the 500 million people using Facebook are being social in the cloud), webmail services like Hotmail and Yahoo mail, microblogging and blogging services such as Twitter and WordPress, video-sharing sites like YouTube, picture-sharing sites such as Flickr, document and applications sites like Google Docs, social-bookmarking sites like Delicious, business sites like eBay, and ranking, rating and commenting sites such as Yelp and TripAdvisor.

This does not mean, however, that most of these experts think the desktop computer will disappear soon. The majority sees a hybrid life in the next decade, as some computing functions move towards the cloud and others remain based on personal computers.

via pewresearch.org

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June 12, 2010 0

Blogging is the answer. Now, what is the question?

My business website is one of the most visited sites in Wisconsin, outranking websites with much bigger brands, more popular products, and bigger marketing staffs. How do I do it all by myself? The short answer is that I blog. The longer answer is that I have a documented workflow that anyone can use to drive traffic to their website and value proposition and it’s driven by email and bookmarking – two skills that almost everyone has mastered in this new millennium…

Now I don’t know a whole lot about search engine optimization or SEO – if that’s what you’re after, you want to call my friends at Envano. I do know however, that if you use the right tools and process, there’s a natural SEO that occurs through frequent posting. That ‘right tool’ is a blog…

“B2B blogging experts understand that a blog is a lead generation machine. This blog generates more traffic than our main company website. Each month, tens of thousands of people find this blog through search engines and social media websites, and thousands of them like the content enough to take the next step and respond to one of our offers and become a lead.

Some B2B bloggers think a business blog is just about thought leadership. Yes, B2B blogging is great for thought leadership and brand building. But, with this blog we get all the benefits of thought leadership, and also get lots of leads. By maximizing the lead generation potential of your B2B blog, you can have your cake (thought leadership) and eat it too (leads).” Source: How to Turn a Blog into a B2B Lead Generation Machine

There are options to consider whether you have a website or not. The first situation may actually be easier to resolve, depending on how much you want your new blog to resemble your existing website. I used to be a real stickler on this, but as time has gone on, I’ve become less concerned about matching the exact look and feel of the site [just know there are options for you regardless of your perspective] and more concerned about just driving traffic.

It’s an easy thing for me to add a blog to an existing site that will drive traffic using my ‘e1evation workflow’. From a design perspective, it’s much easier to just start from scratch using WordPress – a blogging platform that offers blogs that are already integrated with websites – but starting from scratch begs the issue of how you will populate the other pages on your site with information about your brand and products…

The bottom line is that whether you have an existing website or not, there are a couple of “good, fast, and cheap” solutions that are available to you. If you’re trying to figure out how you can add blogging and social media to your already overflowing plate and still get home for supper, comment, call or contact me — I’d love to show you how…

June 12, 2010 0

Don’t go changing, to try and please me…

via geekculture.com

Have a great weekend!

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June 11, 2010 0

Taking Online Social Offline

Many of us are finding knowledge resources and networking opportunities in new places. My top professional development resource is now Twitter. It used to be my Google Reader but now my Twitter friends act as a filter (or curator) by sharing the best blog posts they’ve read about social media, association management and other topics that interest me.

I’ve first met more social media and association friends via blogs and Twitter than I have in real life. When I finally met some of them face-to-face it was more like a reunion than a first meeting, and the real life encounter definitely strengthened our relationship. However, there are many whom I’m still eager to meet in person and that desire drives many of my decisions about the events I choose to attend, both locally and nationally.

More and more associations are wisely nurturing online communities using social networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The word ‘nurturing’ is key as a good community doesn’t just develop without care and feeding. Let’s jump ahead and imagine that you have developed an online community by providing valuable and interesting content (both yours and member-generated) and a platform for conversation and connecting. Now what?

Why not organize, or support and encourage your members to organize, face-to-face meet-ups for those who participate (or lurk) in your online communities? Have a Facebook after-hours, or a tweet-up (meeting of Twitter followers) or a LinkedIn meet-up. Give your members a way to strengthen those online relationships outside of your regularly scheduled programming.

via smartblogs.com

Locally, Link Appleton and Link Greater Green Bay are doing a great job of this on LinkedIn. Check them out…

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June 11, 2010 0

Flickr Adds Full Facebook Integration

via allfacebook.com

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June 10, 2010 0

LucidChart; Online Collaborative Flow Chart Application

http://www.lucidchart.com/video/player.swf

via lucidchart.com

I use it and love it. Have you tried it?

Posted via web from The e1evation facebook page

June 10, 2010 3

60 free handwritten and script fonts

via holykaw.alltop.com

Posted via web from The e1evation facebook page

June 10, 2010 0

Copywriting For Social Media

One of my big regrets in my time in the advertising agency world is that I never seemed to have enough time to figure out a good way to talk to the creatives at my former agency about social media. My door was always open, but I was covered up with projects, as were they. So when it came time to look at the social media concepts for our clients, most of the eyes looked my way.

I’ve always maintained that advertising creatives are far better than me for coming up with the “big idea.” It’s kind of what they’re trained to do. Sure, I’ve been able to produce a few of my own through the years, but leaving your winning social media concepts up to one guy’s (or gal’s) brain isn’t a sustainable approach. Even as my staff grew, we were PR folks, SEO folks and technology folks. We weren’t creative concept folks.

Still, there was (and I assume still is) a disconnect in a lot of advertising creatives (art directors and copywriters) and the world of social media. Some have made the transition. Still others are still finding their way.

One of my former creative colleagues emailed me recently and asked my take on copywriting for social media. Below is a more polished version of my response.

via socialmediatoday.com

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June 10, 2010 0

Reblog this at your own legal risk

Bloggers rip, reuse and rehash text and media from the entrails of the Internet all the time, but the legality of doing so remain contentious.

Legal questions aside, the major blogging platforms have come to facilitate the reproduction of content from other websites.

Last week, WordPress, the top host of blogs, added a “reblog” feature. Clicking that button composes a new post housed on your blog suffixed with the headline, description, thumbnail and link to the source material — a process nearly identical to adding a link to your Facebook profile.

“Borrowing” content has been a common practice among bloggers practically from the beginning. You can take whatever you want as long as you give credit, right?

Not necessarily.

via latimesblogs.latimes.com

I ‘slurp’ content all the time as you can see here. Follow the ‘via’ link feature for a better understanding of the ‘dos and don’ts’…

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