Twitter makes me feel a little like Forrest Gump.  Who are all these people and why are they following me!? Read more »

Want a free Event Ticket to Social Media Marketing 2011 Vegas on Jan 12th?

My friend @LewisPoretz on Twitter is offering up an “event” only ticket to the most interesting or compelling story found here:

What 3 words will Focus my posts for 2011?

Hashable is about relationships

Drop Social Media. Make it Relationship Media. What we have here are relationships, of some sort, between people.  Mike Yavonditte and Emily Hickey are great people.  Having met them I went from being a fan of @Hashable to a firm supporter of “them”. This view is shared by many I’ve spoken with (literally, & Skype). Mike reaches out, engages people, DMs them, and follows up. He is what would author Daniel Goleman would call Emotionally Intelligent.  My relationship with Mike and Emily:

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Social Media Clutter?  Really?  Well thanks to Forrester Research for stating the blindingly obvious.  Do you have a Social Media Strategy?  Do you feel like you’re getting results?  Can you measure those results?  Am I coming at you too fast?  Yes…

Whether you like it or not you need a Social Media Strategy.  First, Start with you Business Strategy.  Why?  Your Social Media Strategy needs to be congruent with your overall Business Plan and Marketing Plans.   Click the links to read more about Business Plans, Medieval Marketing, Google’s Guide to SEO, the Top 5 SEO Tips, and Twitter as your Corporate Bumper Sticker.  With your Business Strategy in mind and refreshed on you USP and Tag-line it’s time to go to work!

What makes for a good Social Media Strategy?

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Ok, Social Experiment.  I stumbled across Love a Local Business late in the game!  This is a great marketing tool from Intuit (Quickbooks).  Local businesses register and compete for grants up to $30,000.  They use Social Media to promote themselves and solicit  feedback as to why people love them!

It’s fun with  payoff!    Being a slightly competitive type I decided to enter the fray even though I have no realistic chance of winning because of time constraints.  There are a couple of different ways to vote.  First is through a Map Interface (click through box below) where you find and click on a Business local to you to vote.  The interface is a bit clumsy and awkward.  I was going to vote for a great local business that I visit traveling but the map brought me to my own backyard (scary).

Next is the SMS interface. Pretty simple. You text PhxStrat to 244326 — they ask you for your name, any ole name will do; and then why you love the business! Try it! If you read my posts you already know how fun, creative, inciteful, oops, insightful I am Or read the excerpt of my One Pager (below) for some ideas. You can keep it short. Read more »

Bump is either the hottest great idea I’ve seen in a year or the most misguided and frightening thing since Facebook decided you didn’t really need geo-privacy.   Bump uses your license plate as a Unique ID and can tie it to your cell phone, Twitter, email. and Facebook profile!  So what?  So you drive through the local Starbucks and they capture your license plate while in line and pull up your order history.  Pretty cool right?  Bump promises  local coupons and deals being sent to Drivers.  For example, the local gas station shoots a photo of your license plate and emails you a coupon.  Is that interesting to you?  Or does it sound too much like the movie Minority Report?

How about someone doesn’t like the way you’re driving so they Bump your license plate and call you screaming invectives?  Maybe not so cool if you’re on the receiving end!   Or, someone goes around the parking lot taking screen shots of license plates and then makes a mailing list out of the people at the Phillies game or the  local Sports bar or — you can see where this is going…

Yes, it is voluntary invasion of privacy.  You have to sign up.  But, you can still be “Bumped” even if you do not sign up.  What I mean is this; they will have a screen shot or record of your license plate and make their own notes.  Cute girl, long brown hair, shops at…  And “when” license plate information become available because a 15 year old Bulgarian hacks it into an unofficial add-on to Bump site…

Scary?  Do you really want people taking photos of your license with an iPhone or Droid app?   Do you want the drivers next to you or behind you to flirt through SMS or email?  Worst case, do you want someone to be able to figure out where you live because the Bulgarian kid posted that information into his license plate site?!?!?!  Or even more pragmatic, do you think people are going to wait for a red light to try and capture a license plate number???  How many traffic accidents will be Bump related?  (I can see new gen cars with cameras all around feeding images and profile information to you as you drive.  “Green Toyota Camry is Cynthia your Facebook mafia wars friend.  She likes pizza and Victory Beer. …  Speak 1 to call, 2 to send a message 3 to …”)

Tell me what you think!!!  Meanwhile, I’ve signed up for the Beta of Bump.  I kinda order the same thing at Starbucks and if they give me special % off coupons for being a Bumper…  Seriously, I am going to sign up and check it out.  Call it a secret mission (now public) to see how useful or intrusive this is going to be.  And if you see me on the highway Bump me at PAHNB6833@bump.com.

Networking is critical to success, right?

So Wrong! Networking is totally over-rated! Read more »

SEO is Search Engine Optimization.  How are people going to find you these days?  Yep, Google or Bing/Yahoo…  So it is critically important for you to know how to be found.  As simple as possible you must do On Page and Off Page SEO work.

On-Page SEO means making your Website work for you to be found in the search engines.  Each page in your site needs to be laser focused for the keywords that you want to be found.  This requires a good bit of upfront thinking and strategy.  You will modify your site to be as attractive as possible for the particular keywords that you want the engines to find.

Off –Page SEO is perhaps even more critical than  On-Page.  Part of how a search engine “ranks” a page is based on how many other pages in the world know about it.  This is called “backlinks” and it needs to be done right.  Good quality backlinks done right get your page much higher rankings on the Search Engines.

On-Page Search Engine Optimization Top 5 Things you need to know: Read more »