Tag: CrunchBase

I’ve hit the Twitter wall! Apparently my ‘twitter ho‘ [warning! link NSFW] strategy of follow everyone is tragically flawed…

According to Twitter…

“We do not limit the number of people who can follow you, but we have put limits on how many other accounts you can follow. Every account can follow 2,000 users total. Once you’ve followed 2,000 users, there are limits to the number of additional users you can follow. This number is different for each account and is based on your ratio of followers to following; this ratio is not published. Follow limits cannot be lifted by Twitter and everyone is subject to follow limits, even high profile and API accounts.” Source: Twitter Help Center | I Can’t Follow People – Follow Limits

I have been using a cool new app called SocialBro [I don’t make these names up — I just report them] to aggressively follow more people. Even I didn’t realize there was a limit. Until now. I’ll have to consult with the great Twitter oracles in my network @tommytrc and @mmangen to see where I went wrong. This social media stuff can be tricky — even for an instructor that supposed to know it all [remember, all is a lot to know!]. I’ll report back on what I learn next Thursday — twitterday @ e1evation!

In the meantime, if you’re interested in Twitter trends, you might like this screencast I did a few weeks back on how I’m using Getting Things Done [GTD] principles for content marketing. Twitter has become an even more critical part of my social media strategy because of the way I use it now…

Here’s the roundup of the best Twitter articles I read in the past week…

http://storify.com/e1evation/twitter-roundup-for-2-9-2012

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The highlights of my week included a couple of convos on blogging and Search Engine Optimization [SEO] with a brilliant guy named Ronnie Bincer that have my head spinning with the possibilities and cracking the code on autopublishing from Google Reader with the help of a tool called ‘If this then that’ or ifttt.com…

Using ifttt, I can direct content to several places at one simply by starring it or tagging it. This has great implications for my ‘content marketing for thought leadership’ workflow because it makes it easier for thought leaders to go from consuming content to producing content. I’ll have to so a screencast next week to show you what I’m talking about…

Here’s the wrap up…<script src="

The things I think I learned this week…

The things I think I learned this week…

The things I think I learned this week…

The things I think I learned this week…

The things I think I learned this week…

http://storify.com/e1evation/my-week-in-review-for-1-28-2012.js”>%5B<a href="

The things I think I learned this week…

The things I think I learned this week…

The things I think I learned this week…

The things I think I learned this week…

The things I think I learned this week…

http://storify.com/e1evation/my-week-in-review-for-1-28-2012&#8243; target=”_blank”>View the story “My week in review for 1/28/2012” on Storify]Questions? Feedback?

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Is LinkedIn the ‘red headed stepchild’ in your social media arsenal? It is for me. Read on…

Not a day goes by when we don’t see Twitter and Facebook as being talked about as essential social networks for bloggers to be investing time into – but over the last few months I’ve been investing a little extra time into another social network – one that I wonder if some have forgotten about a little – LinkedIn.

I’ve long had a LinkedIn Account (I’d love to connect with you there) but I’ve not really known what to do with it for a long time – but lately I’m seeing more and more opportunities in the network. Let me quickly mention a few…

via problogger.net

You can follow the ‘via’ link if you want to know the 5 ways. Comment, connect or call if you’d like to talk about how this applies to your situation…

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Still not convinced on the topic of curation? Read on…

Curation is now a necessity. The web is full of content. More than a person could consume in several lifetimes if all they did was sleep a couple hours per day and surf the web, life after life.

Google can’t help us with our internet A.D.D.  Nor can Facebook or Alltop.

The best we’ve been able to do so far to harness the massive information overload is use tools like Google Reader and RSS feed aggregators like Alltop.  They’ve helped, to be sure, but no one is going through all that information and picking out the best of the best and making sense of it all for you.

Rather than start a new site with the goal of creating a bunch of new content, it’s time for people to think about being content curators.  Organizing and commenting on the best content around a certain topic.

Curators still use blog software to publish their content, but the vast majority of each post is made up of carefully reviewed and organized 3rd party information.

via jackhumphrey.com

Jack Humphrey says it well here and I encourage you to follow the ‘via’ link and read his 11 reasons. Me? I am the self-styled ‘king of curation’ and my ‘e1evation workflow’ allows you to curate content better and faster than any other system I know of with maximum effect. Comment, call or ‘connect’ so we can talk about how this applies to your organization…

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Tweet a lot?

Integrated pictures, keyboard shortcuts, a decent way to track conversations and a slick new look. That’s what some users of Twitter found recently, and they were really happy. Twitter isn’t sure how long it will take to push these features out to everybody, but if you primarily use Twitter from a client such as Tweetdeck or Gwibber you may have access and not know it. 

We at MakeUseOf don’t hide our love for Twitter. You can find the entire MakeUseOf staff on Twitter, and most of us are pretty active there.

Our articles about Twitter, though, largely revolve around ways to avoid going to the site altogether.

For example, I recently pointed out five Linux Twitter clients you’ve probably never heard of and Steve recommended you use Seesmic Desktop 2 as your Twitter client. The new Twitter might convince people like us to stop using a client and use Twitter directly. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of the new Twitter, as compared to desktop clients.

via makeuseof.com

Personally, I’ve been stuck on HootSuite for over a year because it gives me powerful Twitter management tools and more; the ability to monitor other social media accounts and post across platforms. It’s nice that Twitter finally got their act together on their end user side, but imho they should spend more time getting their act together on the server side. btw, I like Seesmic Desktop 2 as well, but HootSuite, being a web app, is always ready for me on any platform. If you’re interested in mastering Twitter, give HootSuite a try…

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Sweta of GlobalThoughtz has an interesting blog post on the topic of corporate blogs…

“How do you follow your favorite company? How do you come to know about their latest launch or what’s cooking in their labs? My answer to this would be their ‘Corporate Blogs’. Not only does it give me a constant update about the company I like but also makes me feel connected to them. It gives me the feeling that they are listening to me. 

Today as a consumer, I have several products to choose from for each of my need and certainly my choice is driven by my affinity to a particular brand. Just like Internet presence had become crucial a few years back, corporate blogs are absolute necessity now. After all we live in the world of Social Media.

Its not just web companies that need to engage their consumers with their blogs. Few of the most loved companies in the world also house must read blogs. One of the best example of corporate blog is Official Google Blog, not only does it provide an insight into the company but also provides useful information to its readers. Corporate blogs such as McDonald’s Corporate Social Responsibility by McDonald’s, Check Out by Walmart and Fast Lane by GM have made these most loved companies even closer to their consumers. The Social networking sites Facebook and Twitter constantly update their users with their blogs The Facebook Blog and Twitter Blog.” Source: Why a company must have a blog.

Here’s the real payback, however, and the real reason why these corporations do it: HubSpot says that companies that blog get 55% more visitors, have 97% more inbound links, and 434% more indexed pages [which are valuable from a search perspective]. Better yet, customers who are engaged by a corporate blog and social media spend 30% more than their disconnected counterparts, according to MarketingSavant Dana VanDen Heuvel…

I guess you don’t really HAVE to have a blog, but at a time when many companies are fighting for their economic survival, I think it’s good to know there’s a good, fast and cheap tool that delivers these kinds of results. Question? Feedback? Leave a comment or use the contact page…

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Things we’ve been tracking in the past 24 hours…

 

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Forrester reported over three years ago that the lead management market was heating up…

“Since the start of this year, I’ve been receiving a boatload of briefing requests from companies wanting to show me their lead generation and management solutions. Most recently, Marketo just announced their lead management solution. While honored, I also find reviewing these solutions confusing because there is a lot of variation in the product presentations and overlap between categories. And it’s not clear to me if lead management automation deserves to be a separate category or to be subsumed as part of the broader marketing platform. (I know Suresh Vittal includes lead management as a component of his enterprise marketing platform. But does the B2B need the same platform components as B2C?) Here’s how I see it and I’d like to hear your views as well.”

Click here to read more…

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I had a great connect with an old friend who is a real estate rockstar in Barrington, IL. She’s not willing to accept anything less than being the dominant player in her industry and she’s looking at social media as a way to help her accomplish her objectives. Couldn’t help but think of her when I saw this article…

“Brian Halligan is the founder and CEO of HubSpot, an Internet marketing software company that helps small and medium-sized businesses get found on the Internet and converts website visitors into leads and customers. He is also the author of Inbound Marketing: Get Found In Google, Blogs, and Social Media.

It used to be that you could efficiently grow your businesses by interrupting potential customers with outbound marketing methods like cold calls, email spam, and advertising. Today people and businesses are tired of being the targets of so much outbound marketing and they’re getting better and better in blocking it out.

At the same time, people and businesses have fundamentally changed the way they shop and learn, turning more and more to Google, social media sites and blogs to find what they want. Inbound marketing helps companies take advantage of these shifts by helping them get found by customers in the natural way in which they shop and learn. The following are Brian’s five steps to help you get “get found.”” Source: How to Get Found : The World :: American Express OPEN Forum

You can go to the source and read more, but just in case, those 5 ways are:

  1. Be remarkable
  2. Create content
  3. Optimize content
  4. Promote content
  5. Measure results

As for my old friend, she certainly has 1 and 2 down cold — I’m hoping to get the chance to help her with numbers 3-5… ;-)

In the meantime you can use the site tools [comments, contact form, call button] to contact me if YOU are an entrepreneur who wants to be found!

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Here’s what’s been fascinating me for the last 24 hours…

 

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What a great quote on the possibilities of social media…

How dare you squander even one more day not taking advantage of the greatest shifts of our generation? How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable?

via great-quotes.com
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First Impressions

First, your headline matters. It’s what people see when they accept your invite, and it’s probably the fastest first impression one receives. If you work for a company, put that name in the headline. When I don’t see a company name, I wonder if you’re solo.

Your Summary

Here’s where I think the most work can be done. When I look at my profile, I think it’s a bit long, but otherwise, I’ve done the following:

  • Lead with what I do most.
  • Lead with the type of business I want to do.
  • Move into the reasons why you’d do business with me.
  • Move from there into all the nuances of what I do.

In every case within the summary, your plan should be to write from the mindset of the prospective employer (or client), such that when they read it, they think, “I need to hire this person.”

Tip: refresh your summary every two weeks.

via chrisbrogan.com

Thanks, Chris, for posting this. My LinkedIn profile is the ‘red headed step child’ of my social media empire! If you’re like me, you can follow the ‘via’ link above to spiff up your profile…

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Reaching out to mobile travelers is good business, especially where I live on the Door Peninsula of Wisconsin. Every year, thousands of wired [that means “internet connected” for you folks from the U.P., eh?] travelers drive through our area on their way to Door County. The smart restaurateur should be looking at ways to figure out how to get their fair share of that mobile business! Here’s a interesting article that I found on the topic…

“For my project, I had a chance to develop top-level social media strategies and participate in the day-to-day management of social media presences. There is no better way to to hone your social media skills than to roll up your sleeves and “just do it” as this process gives you a way to see firsthand what works and what doesn’t work so well.

Based on my experiences, I have come up with a list of “7 Must-Do’s” for the restaurant industry. Some of these tips are no-brainers and can be implemented immediately. Some of the other tips are bigger projects and tasks that will need to be updated and monitored on an ongoing basis. Each of these tips will contribute to what should be the social media goals of any business: expand corporate mindshare, augment and expand existing marketing channels and increase the number of customer interactions.” Source: 7 Social Media Must-Do’s for the Restaurant Industry « Social Media Musings by Tom Humbarger

You’ll have to click through to the source to get the author’s thoughts, but here are the tools he recommends…

  • socialmention
  • Google Local Business Center
  • Yelp for Business Owners
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Wikipedia
  • Blogging

It’s all great stuff and I recommend the tools he suggest for any small business looking to connect with wired travelers. Unfortunately, however, he forgot to mention Foursquare which is rapidly emerging and Snacksquare which is a location based coupon provider that sms’s coupons to people looking for places to eat in your area. Here’s the skinny:

“Users can get a glimpse of deals on a map, filter by category, check in at venues and have specific deals sent to their mobile phones. From a consumer perspective, Snacksquare offers a nifty way to explore deals before heading out.

The site also caters to hungry business owners anxious to get into the location-based promotion game. Essentially, merchants can use Snacksquare to add their venues to Foursquare (Foursquare) and to compile an SMS contact list of past and present customers for push marketing purposes.

Merchants can send friend requests to customers via Snacksquare and the customers that accept these requests can opt in to SMS messages from the merchant in question. Merchants can then use this SMS list to blast out automated location-based alerts to customers within a specified radius of the venue based on their most recent checkin. The service does come with associated costs, but businesses that sign up for the upcoming Foursquare Day can get free beta access.” Source: Snacksquare Connects Foursquare Merchants to Customers

Cool, huh? At the time, though, only ONE restaurant in northeast Wisconsin is using Snacksquare — The Pub on Main Street in Green Bay. What about your restaurant? Offering deals to wired travelers is what’s next and I can help you figure it all out…

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My “old post promoter” picked a doozy this time! A year ago, I was quite unhappy with my smartphone choices, but don’t worry — there’s a happy ending that I’ll write later this week after you’ve read parts 1 and 2…

“Wow! What does THIS say about us?

“Smartphones tied with sex as the number one thing that business professionals can not live without in a study from cloud-based business phone system provider, RingCentral. In a survey among RingCentral’s small to medium-sized business customers in the U.S., the importance of the smartphone in daily and business life was reiterated over and over again.

The study, which surveyed nearly 400 customers, showed that smartphones are taking on the defacto role in business communication.

Here are some highlights:

  • Smartphones and intimate relationships tied at 40% for the number one thing respondents can’t live without.
  • 79% of respondents use their smartphones to conduct most business calls, versus an office phone or home phone.
  • 34% use a smartphone more than a computer for business. 7% even said they don’t take their laptops with them when they travel for business if they have a smartphone.
  • 48% of respondents said that at least two-thirds of their phone communication is via smartphone.

None of this data is particularly surprising, except for the shift to using a smartphone as a primary business device. Thanks to platforms like Android (Android) and the iPhone, you really can do a lot of work from your mobile device.” Source: Business Professionals Can’t Live Without Sex or Smartphones [STATS]

Interesting…

Speaking of sex and smartphones or maybe sexy smartphones, I’m going to take this opportunity to rant about the iPhone AND Android phones for a moment. Excuse my language, but they both suck! That’s right — they suck! Why the iPhone? Because #1 it’s a closed system — yeah, there’s an app for that but they must all be approved by Big Brother at Apple — and #2 because AT&T is the worst cellular network in the world!

Android phones, however, are a different issue and I’ll take them up tomorrow…”

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No disagreement from me…


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…on this issue!

“It’s 2009. Every business needs a corporate blog to accompany their corporate website, and every individual needs a personal blog to share their thoughts – or portfolio – with the world.

My advice? Go with WordPress. Then leverage a database of 4,500+ third-party plugins to make it the most robust, cost-effective, Web 2.0 Content Management System you can get.” Source: 31 WordPress Plugins To Enhance Your Blog and Life | The Daily Anchor | Marketing and Advertising Blog

Go to the source and read the entire article — it’s worth it…

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Are you master of your own domain?

No, I’m not talking Seinfeld here. ;-) Do you own your internet domain? I thought I did, but when I purchased it, I made a huge mistake — I got it through Google when I set up Google Apps. Don’t get me wrong — I love Google Apps! What I don’t love is what happens when you purchase a domain through Google while signing up for Google Apps…

When you purchase a domain as part of the signup process, Google assigns the domain to one of 7 different partners on an automated basis and it falls into some automated bit bucket. In reality, the process is like the ‘Hotel California‘ — you know, you can check in any time you want but you can never leave. I recently spent the better part of a month trying to get my corporate domain transferred to GoDaddy — after two failed attempts, I finally became master of my domain a week ago today.

How can you avoid this nightmare? By all means use Google Apps, but purchase your domain through your favorite hosting provider where you will have full control over the domain THEN make the necessary changes from there. Me? I prefer GoDaddy although I have tried HostGator and they have a great product too [although they charge too much for their domains, imho]! If you want corporate emails or your own website and this is all Greek to you, then give me a call and I’ll walk you through it — I’ll help you avoid the same mistake I made…

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