Author Archives 
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Social doesn’t equal service—you need a strategy
Increasingly, companies are turning to social media channels like Twitter to address customer service issues. As a real-time customer touch point, social networks provide a great opportunity to keep a current customer loyal or win over prospective customers by responding quickly to their questions and complaints. However, does that mean a company should or needs… Continue reading
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Get a grip on your content
Every year I go through a spate of cleaning in late December—combing through paperwork and other detritus that’s piled up during the year. I like to purge the old before I start adding anything new. While busily working through the year’s accumulation a couple weeks ago, it occurred to me that this same practice should… Continue reading
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Getting started: Measuring social media
Hardly a day goes by that I don’t come across at least one article, blog post, or newsletter about measuring social media success, in particular ROI. According to a recent eMarketer article, the pressure is on marketers to focus more on gathering solid metrics to gauge social marketing ROI.
Interestingly, while there is some… Continue reading
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Negative reviews: Don’t bury your head in the sand
They’re out there—negative reviews of your company’s products or services. Although you might prefer to look the other way, responding to negative reviews can have a positive impact on your company’s perception among customers. In a recent Maritz Research and evolve24 study, 83 percent of Twitter complainants who received a reply liked or loved that… Continue reading
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Keep customers engaged past the purchase
Part of the marketer’s job is to help identify new customers and to keep existing customers engaged. However, many B2B companies are more focused on the former in an effort to generate sales leads, whereas B2C businesses do a better job of understanding their customers, according to a recent eMarketer article. Although there’s a bigger need… Continue reading
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Want to improve your search ranking? Create content
Often touted as a science because of algorithms and such, SEO at times seems more like an art. You follow the rules or best practices of the day, but the effort doesn’t always yield the desired result—higher ranking in the search engine results pages (SERPs). So, you try another approach. In this way, SEO is… Continue reading
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Social media: It’s all about timing
We all do it. In our efforts to engage with our audience and provide them with quality content, we post what we have, when we have it, to all of our social media outlets without giving a second thought as to timing. You should. Timing your posts and updates to better coincide with a particular… Continue reading
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Content curation: aggregation with a new name?
Content aggregation has been around as long as the Internet. Then it was the likes of AOL and Excite@Home; now it’s Google News, AllTop, and Reddit. But there’s another seemingly similar term that’s floating around with increasing frequency—content curation. The question that keeps popping up is this: Is curation the same as aggregation, just with… Continue reading
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3 corporate blogs that set the standard
Blogs continue to abound as companies realize their value as a marketing tool. Facebook and Twitter may be great for updating your followers (many of whom aren’t necessarily your customers) on your company’s latest news and offers, but blogs excel at supporting key business goals, such as lead generation and brand marketing. According to eMarketer… Continue reading
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Email vs. social media: Sharing habits differ
In a recent post , I stated that email was still a key marketing tool—even in the wake of newer channels like social media. This got me thinking about my email and social media habits as a consumer.
I receive a lot of email (newsletters, promotions, etc.) from a variety of brands. I also follow… Continue reading
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Email still reaches customers
In light of newer, sexier digital marketing media and channels, email may seem passé as a marketing tool these days. However, email remains a key fundamental marketing method because of its ubiquity. You can breathe new life into your email marketing campaigns and increase their effectiveness by integrating other online marketing channels, such… Continue reading
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What’s your Web video strategy?
Given the overwhelming viewership of online video, marketers have a new opportunity. As more and more businesses realize the value of video and its ability to increase brand awareness and drive sales, marketers are responding. Video is also proving an effective way to facilitate conversations that help to win new customers and solidify the relationship with… Continue reading
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Cisco communities: secrets for success
With approximately 500,000 registered customers across its four primary communities—Cisco Developer Network, The Cisco Learning Network, Cisco Support Community, and My Cisco—and community efforts on all major social media channels, Cisco knows a thing or two about sustaining successful B2B communities. And that includes one key tenet: When it comes to starting a B2B community… Continue reading