Archive for December, 2009
A Tale of Two Coffee Vendors: Content vs. Conversation
This is a tale of two coffee vendors who used different social media strategies. Coffee Vendor A focused exclusively on relationships and conversation. Coffee Vendor B focused on content as a catalyst for conversation.
Coffee Vendor A: Amy’s Story
Coffee Vendor A (let’s call her Amy) has a magnetic personality. Amy is a natural extrovert and lives for “the [...]
B2B Social Media: A Resource Guide
I had the pleasure of moderating a B2B social media panel this week. BMA Carolinas hosted the event, which featured marketing and PR veterans Lisa Hoffmann of Duke Energy, Brandon Uttley of Wray Ward, and Corey Creed of Hippo Internet Marketing. Check out the conversation here.
One takeaway stood out: Charlotte’s B2B marketers are hungry to [...]
7 Ways to Get Back in the Marketing Saddle
December is when many entrepreneurs finally turn their attention to marketing. If you slashed your advertising budget in 2009, you’re probably planning (cautiously) to get back in the marketing saddle in 2010. Here are 7 ways to reinvigorate your marketing in 2010:
Create a Marketing Calendar
Remember “Failure to plan is planning to fail?” Yep, still true. Bust [...]
Content Marketing Gives Social Media Substance
Most of the chatter about social media focuses on conversation and relationship-building. These are important pieces of social media, but they’re not the entirety of social media.
To borrow from physics, if conversations are the motion (kinetics) of social media, content is surely the “stuff” in motion — the substance that propels conversation.
As a business owner, [...]
Foursquare’s Marketing Potential
Foursquare is the hottest “next big thing” in social networking and social media. I believe Foursquare has tons of potential for marketing, and we’re just beginning to see that potential.
To summarize, Foursquare users “check in” when they visit locations around town. Points are awarded for various activities — checking in, making multiple stops in a [...]
How Twitter Lists on Tweetdeck Changed My Strategy
Has Twitter Lists changed your “Who do I follow?” strategy?
When Twitter rolled out its Lists feature a month ago, I wasn’t excited: One more place to sort and categorize people, no added value. But when Tweetdeck (my Twitter client of choice) integrated Twitter Lists recently, that changed.
Tweetdeck Groups: A Helpful But Imperfect Filter
Until now, I’ve used [...]
Obama’s Afghanistan Speech as Word Clouds
Did CNN hear President Obama’s Afghanistan speech the same way as the rest of us?
Two word clouds — one from CNN, one created by PR Professor Barbara Nixon using Wordle — show very different interpretations of the speech.
Here’s the word cloud Professor Nixon created using the full transcript of the president’s speech (click the image to [...]
Scott Hepburn is a veteran PR and marketing professional. He blogs here about marketing, PR, advertising, journalism and social media.