Brian Cavoli of BzzAgent shares…

You could say there’s a universe of ways people measure the ROI from their social media marketing. Some of the more popular methods, like counting Facebook “likes” and re-tweets, have very little meaning to the CFO, while other newly developed formulas around engagement can be, well, rather creative.

Only one method, the analysis of sales revenue generated relative to the program investment, delivers ROI in the way it is meant to be measured – in financial terms. If you think of that as the center of the measurement universe, here’s how the rest of the social measurement solar system might look:

via [Infographic] The Social Media ROI Solar System « BzzAgent Blog – Social Marketing Insights.

The Social Media ROI Universe « The WOMMA Word

April 23, 2012 0

Some people like to make things overly complicated. Me? Sometimes I like to grossly oversimplify things and take them back to the basics. Example? ‘Thought leadership’ marketing. To my mind, if you want to be a thought leader there are only two things you need to do well:

Deepen your expertise through a continuous learning program
Document your expertise through blogging and social networks

Everything else is just details…

When it comes to effective business development, or marketing and sales again, I think there are only two activities you need to master:

Generating leads
Managing leads

Again, everything else is just details…

Whether you are a freelancer or running a large enterprise I believe there are 7 databases you must manage effectively to succeed. They are:

Email
An RSS reader
A Digtal Asset Management system
A Content Management system
Social networks and a social media ‘dashboard’
A lead database
A Customer Relationship Management system

That’s all there is to it! If you can effectively manage these 7 databases you can go from reacting to your market to dominating your market.

Questions? Feedback? I’d be happy to expand/expound on any of these topics…

April 21, 2012 0

How To Leverage Yourself As An Expert By Using Social Media

How To Leverage Yourself As An Expert By Using Social Media Infographic

April 19, 2012 0

Avoid high-sugar fruits…

Apparently eating healthily is more complicated than just avoiding demon Cheddarwurst…

Getting the recommended two cups of fruit per day while keeping sugar intake under the recommended 26 grams per day for women and 36 grams for men can be tricky. Depending on your choices, this could be bad news for fruit lovers: Just two cups of sliced bananas adds up to the maximum recommended amount, clocking in at 36 grams of sugar!

The sugariest fruit we found? Red grapes, which have a whopping 23 grams of sugar per cup. If you’re looking to cut back on your sugar intake, try strawberries or blueberries, which have a respectable 7 grams of sugar per cup.

The Takeaway: Some fruits can have a shocking amount of sugar. To keep it under the recommended limits, try sticking to berries and staying away from grapes.

Juiced?

Regardless of sugar content, whole fruit is always a better choice than fruit juice to keep sugar intake lower and take fiber intake up a notch.

Fun Fact

A cup of orange juice has 30 grams of sugar — nearly as much as a can of soda.

Source: Avoid High-Sugar Fruits | Greatist.com

Sigh…

April 14, 2012 2

On clutter…

If we don’t clear the clutter from our lives, we aren’t able to let new feelings, experiences, projects, visions and relationships flow in. We often can become so focused on wanting to add so much more to our lives that we don’t realize that what we get rid of can have the most profound impact of all.

via Clearing The Clutter – Both Inside And Out!.

April 7, 2012 0

On ‘the best way out’…

“The best way out is always through.” – Robert Frost

via Today’s Quotes: GROW Through It!.

April 7, 2012 0

If your happiness is based on always getting a little more than you’ve got…

…then you’ve handed control over your happiness to the gatekeepers, built a system that doesn’t scale and prevented yourself from the brave work that leads to a quantum leap.

The industrial system (and the marketing regime) adore the mindset of ‘a little bit more, please’, because it furthers their power. A slightly higher paycheck, a slightly more famous college, an incrementally better car–it’s easy to be seduced by this safe, stepwise progress, and if marketers and bosses can make you feel dissatisfied at every step along the way, even better for them.

Their rules, their increments, and you are always on a treadmill, unhappy today, imagining that the answer lies just over the next hill…

All the data shows us that the people on that hill are just as frustrated as the people on your hill. It demonstrates that the people at that college are just as envious as the people at this college. The never ending cycle (no surprise) never ends.

An alternative is to be happy wherever you are, with whatever you’ve got, but always hungry for the thrill of creating art, of being missed if you’re gone and most of all, doing important work.

via Seth’s Blog: If your happiness is based on always getting a little more than you’ve got….

April 3, 2012 0

The first commandment of social media is ‘share, share, share’. A blog should be designed in such a way as to facilitate that sharing, both for the author AND the reader. Here are some practical tips on how I use sharing from my blog to drive traffic and engagement…

April 3, 2012 0

Selling Through Social Media To Close More Leads « Serve4Impact

March 30, 2012 0

Healthy choices

Just in case you missed this…

The cause is hidden, but the result is known. Ovid

We know it’s coming before we do it. Our boy[girl]friend dumps us and we devour the ice cream.

We don’t get the promotion so we head for the bar. We have a fight with our spouse and treat ourselves to a new leather jacket – at his or her expense. We decide that because we’re feeling bad anyway, we might as well take full advantage of it. We figure the worse we feel, the more entitled we are to the indulgence.

This type of behavior starts a cycle. The worse we feel, the more we want to self-destruct. Let’s face it – our actions are usually premeditated.

We think about the ice cream, the drink, or the leather jacket until we can get to it. During the planning stage, we can shift gears. We think it through. We know we have a choice. We decide to do something healthy instead of destructive.

Today I will make only healthy choices for myself.

Source: March 28, 2012 – Today’s Gift from Hazelden « cmmacneil

March 29, 2012 0

If you want to be a thought leader on the internet, there are only two things you need to do really well…

Assuming that you’re already an expert of some sort — and according to Seth Godin we are ALL experts at something — the two main things you need to do are:

Deepen your expertise. In other words, get smarter by effectively managing the content you need to become even more of an expert at what you do…
Document your expertise. Simply put, let people know you know what you know…

Deepening and documenting your expertise may actually facilitate thought leadership by using a few “good, fast, and cheap” tools to get you a share of voice which may get you a share of mind which ultimately could get you a share of market…

I expound here:

[Almost] everything I think I know about the mechanics of curation (e1evation.com)
A summary of thought leadership in 2012 – 12 experts’ views (thoughtleadershipstrategy.net)
What Makes A Great Curator Great? How To Distinguish High-Value Curation From Generic Republishing (e1evation.com)
12 experts on the key thought leadership trends for 2012 – content curation (thoughtleadershipstrategy.net)
Why Social Media is Important for Leaders (asliceofleadership.com)

March 28, 2012 0

Can you ever lose expert status?

Think you’re an expert? Ponder this…

Most people agree that it takes a long time to really reach expert status, but how long does it take to lose it? Is expert status something that comes and goes, or do you have it forever? After all, being an expert means knowing everything you can about a particular craft, no matter how specific. You could be an expert Apple pie maker, and expert business owner, or a social media expert, but what if you quit?

Can something that takes so long to earn be taken away so quickly?

Two ways to lose expert status

This led me to consider the two types of milestones that can be lost in the blink of an eye:

Someone who has a type of physical achievement. You may work your whole life to get in shape and finish that triathlon, but the minute you give up your superman cardiovascular endurance will quite right along with you.

Someone who has a type of mental achievement. You may work your entire life as an accountant, but if you give it up to live the life of a golfer, how will your math skills hold up? Anything that involves your mind needs to stay sharp and be practiced if it’s going to last.

Not only can you lose knowledge because you have given up, but you can lose knowledge because of age. As people grow older, it’s hard to stay on top of the times and do things that were once easier to a young body and a young mind.

via Can You Ever Lose Expert Status? | Expert Enough.

Go to the source if you’re interested in the topic. What do you think about the author’s position?

March 28, 2012 2

Chris Brogan starts the week with a very zen-like perspective on social media…

A lot of what we do in social networks certainly seems busy and active. We tweet. We share. We pass on articles (sometimes because we’ve been asked/begged/pleaded with to share them). We skim a lot. We glance over a post or concept and pass it on without adding much except for that valuable pass-through.

Agencies and other organizations quite often pat their clients on the back and say, “Wow! Look at that! Your article got 1000 retweets and 2900 likes!” The company owner then smiles politely back and asks, “And that gives me….”

We can surely look very busy, doing all this social media work. But that’s not the real work.

The real work is earning a valuable share from a trusted resource to a network of thoughtful and potentially like-minded individuals.

Seek those opportunities for business, and not the blind retweets and busy-ness that can otherwise glitter just as brightly.

Source: The Opportunity for Business

Sure, I could have just retweeted this but it’s such a good thought to start the week I wanted to do a little more! It’s a good reminder to be intentional about sharing and curation this week. Go to the source if you’d like the rest of his perspective…

11 Guaranteed Ways to Get Others to Retweet Your Content (hubspot.com)
Chris Brogan on Adopting and Investing in Social Media (venpop.com)
Is Social Media Strategy Required or Redundant? (convinceandconvert.com)
5 Tips for Moving Social Media Leads Into the Sales Funnel (socialmediaexaminer.com)
Facebook, Passwords, Employers and a Business Opportunity (readwriteweb.com)

March 26, 2012 0

March 22, 2012 0

Don’t Follow Your Passion, Follow Your Effort

The great philosopher Mark Cuban shares this…

I hear it all the time from people. “I’m passionate about it.” “I’m not going to quit, It’s my passion.” Or I hear it as advice to students and others “Follow your passion.”

What a bunch of BS. “Follow your passion” is easily the worst advice you could ever give or get.

Why? Because everyone is passionate about something. Usually more than one thing. We are born with it. There are always going to be things we love to do. That we dream about doing. That we really really want to do with our lives. Those passions aren’t worth a nickel.

Think about all the things you have been passionate about in your life. Think about all those passions that you considered making a career out of or building a company around. How many were/are there? Why did you bounce from one to another? Why were you not able to make a career or business out of any of those passions? Or if you have been able to have some success, what was the key to the success? Was it the passion or the effort you put in to your job or company?

If you really want to know where your destiny lies—look at where you apply your time.

Source: Don’t Follow Your Passion, Follow Your Effort [BLOG] « Positively Positive

Me? I think Cuban’s binary perspective that is BS. I am fond of saying it’s not either/or — it’s both/and. In this case, it’s not passion or effort — it is both harnessed and combined effectively. Go to the source if you’d like to read the rest of his perspective, but it seems to me he comes around when he says “When you are good at something, passionate, and work even harder to excel and be the best at it, good things happen.” imho, passion is the fuel that makes the effort possible; without one you don’t have the other…

Bad advice from Mark Cuban: “Ignore your passion” (positivesharing.com)
Create The Day – With Passion (createabeautifullife.com)
Career & Life 2.0: Find Your Purpose and Passion and Experience Peak Performance (timesunion.com)

March 22, 2012 2

The grass is not greener…

“The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side of the fence. Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is watered. When crossing over fences carry water with you and tend the grass wherever you may be.” ~Robert Fulghum

via Swapping out your To-Do list for a Be-Now List | Tiny Buddha: Wisdom Quotes, Letting Go, Letting Happiness In.

March 22, 2012 0

Here’s How To Defunkify Yourself!

Feeling kind of funky? Finding yourself immersed in the drama of your own life despite your desire not to be? I have a quick fix for you. Now, I don’t believe in many quick fixes because usually they are temporary and based in escapism. However there is one quick fix that I subscribe to for de-funking because it always works AND if done over time, creates lasting positive change.

Ready for the quick fix recipe? Here it is: Being of Service.

The best way to shift out of negative and ego based thinking is to stop thinking about yourself! The instant you shift your focus from me to we, your vibration changes. When you start thinking about how you can uplift others, you’ll soon find yourself in your heart and out of your head.

via Here’s How To Defunkify Yourself!.

March 21, 2012 0

The Unpredictable Freedom and Sweetness of Chaos

I’m going to share a productivity, planning and organizational hack that will change your life. It will yield some unpredictable results, but if you approach it the right way, it could bring some of the most amazing work of your life, along with freedom, joy, exhilaration.

What’s this miraculous hack?

It’s a simple one: let go. Let go of control and allow yourself to be swept away by the powerful currents of life. Let go of planning and embrace not know what will happen. Let go of productivity and be open to new ideas, new opportunities, spontaneous creativity.

via » The Unpredictable Freedom and Sweetness of Chaos :zenhabits.

Go to the source if you’d like the rest of Leo’s perspective on this. Me? I’m going to have to ponder this a little more…

March 16, 2012 0

Master your Gmail!

If Gmail is so easy, why do people still have hundreds — thousands — of unread emails in their inboxes? In part it’s because technology without good thinking and tactics means nothing…

I teach my students that email should be for ‘just in time’ information — information that affects relationships and revenue. Everything else belongs in Google Reader! My friend Dana VanDen Heuvel of The Docking Station talked me into revealing my secrets for effective email handling at an event that happens next week. Here’s Dana’s press release…

“The Docking Station, Green Bay’s first Coworking space, is inviting business professionals to take back their Inbox and attend a free course on how to master Gmail to be more effective and efficient.

“An overwhelming inbox decreases efficiency and productivity,” said Dana VanDen Heuvel, co-owner of The Docking Station. “There are quick and easy solutions to manage your email and make it work for you. A lot of people dread opening their email. This course will help alleviate email stress and make your inbox about creating relationships and bringing in revenue.”

The Gmail course will be taught by Todd Lohenry, owner of e1evation, llc, an international consulting firm that has been educating and empowering business owners and professionals for the past 7 years. “I spent two hours with Todd that will save me at least a gazillion hours. His patient coaching and time-saving processes helped me get to an inbox of zero that same day,” said Carrie Klassen, Creative Director for Pink Elephant Academy for Entrepreneurs.

The Gmail course is part of a series of free events that The Docking Station hosts as part of their mission of being an educational resource to the entrepreneur community. “Our hope is to bring professionals together and connect them to thought leaders and resources that can help them increase productivity and grow their business,” said VanDen Heuvel.

The Docking Station is one of approximately three hundred Coworking spaces in the United States that is redefining the way independent professional work. It was founded by small business owners and entrepreneurs Dana VanDen Heuvel of The MarketingSavant Group and Peter Nugent of Enlighten Financial, LLC. The Docking Station is located at 111 S. Broadway in Downtown Green Bay. To register for the Gmail course, go to http://www.thedockingstation.net/events/ or for more information call The Docking Station at (920) 644-3625.”

If you can’t make it to Green Bay, try my ebook — you can find it online at http://elevation.company/pna. Just click the register link, provide a name and email address and you’ll be on your way to a more productive tomorrow…

ROUNDUP: The 10 Best Features That Keep Me In Gmail (makeuseof.com)

March 8, 2012 1

You Are Not A Victim

Here’s a kick in the pants from Kute Blackson…

You are not a victim.

Regardless of what might have happened in your past.

You have a choice in this moment to choose what your experience of yourself and life will be today.

Now.

If you want to be happy, being a victim doesn’t serve you in any way.

It takes real courage to forgive and let go. It takes courage to take responsibility for your inner experience, especially when someone has wronged or hurt you.

The degree to which you take responsibility for your inner experience determines the degree of freedom that you will experience in your life.

So how much freedom do you want to experience?

You choose

There are many things you will never be in control of in life. This is a fact.

The weather.
The Traffic.
Other people’s opinions of you.
The government.
The media.
Your spouse or lover.
The stock market.

But you have the choice to choose your interpretation of what happens. And to choose again until the choice you choose serves your true happiness.

Source: You Are Not A Victim. Own Your Power!