The market for listening services is rapidly maturing with vendors such as Radian6, Spiral16, Crimson Hexagon, Research.ly, Lithium, Sysomos, and many others improving how businesses monitor consumer conversations and experiences. The wide array of options and capabilities are nothing less than baffling, requiring expert analysis prior to committing any significant investment of finances or organizational resources now and over time. For those seeking top line advice on the differences between many of the top listening vendors, please read this helpful…
What’s the R.O.I.? A Framework for Social Analytics
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” – Albert Einstein Say hello to my little friends, R.O. & I. Yes. Return on investment have become the bane of an entire new media industry. However, avoidance is not the answer. While the question of “what’s the R.O.I. of social media” is difficult to answer, it is necessary as it forces us to dig deeper. The result is maturity. This conversation is important as…
The End of Social Media 1.0
The debut of a series introducing The End of Business as Usual… Follow us on Twitter! Like us on Facebook! Circle us on Google+! I would like to talk about an inflection point in social media that requires pause. I am not suggesting that there will be a social media 2.0 or 3.0 for that matter. Nor do I see the term social media departing our vocabulary any time soon. After all, it was recently added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. …
Reading Between the Lines: An interview about Engage and what’s next
I recently spent some time talking to Sarah Morales of Vertical Measures to discuss the new Engage and we wound up having a fun and in-depth conversation that I felts was also worth sharing with you here. Sarah: This is the updated version of the book that championed, “Engage or Die!” What are the main events in social media that have occurred since the last version? Me: The difference between Engage 1 and Engage 2 is less about events or…
Social Media is not Going to Save Your Business
To truly see opportunities within social media requires viewing the consumer landscape through a different lens… Social media is enjoying yet another gust beneath its wings. Google Plus is rekindling the love affair of social networking among the early adopters and mavens who friended their way to higher Klout scores and also social network fatigue. The numbers of social network users are soaring well past 10 figures. Even celebrities such as Bono, Justin Timberlake, Ashton Kutcher, Lady Gaga et al,…
The Top 10 Marketing Sites for Social Media Marketing Trends
Recently, the Pivot Conference team set out to learn more about the state of social advertising and the future ahead by conducting an industry survey of 230 brand managers, executives, and marketing professionals. We will release the full report during the week of July 25th. Not all of the insights we learned will make it into the final report. However, I will share a few interesting findings as they come up starting with this one… The Top Marketing Sites for…
This is the time to go your own way
I was recently asked to write the foreword for Social Media Geek-to-Geek by Rick & Kathy Schmidt Jamison. I was delighted to help and as always, I requested to publish the foreword here when the book was released. Now that the book is available on Amazon, I’m excited to share the foreword with you here… When I’m asked to research and present success stories and best practices in social media, I often ask a bit more about what it is…
The Number One Least Asked Question in Social Media…Why?
The number one least asked question in social media is also the most important… Asking “why” in all aspects of business and life in general is unexploited. Day in and day out I help businesses understand the opportunity that lies within new media, not because of Twitter or Facebook. I do so because opportunity is pervasive in the hearts and minds of consumers everywhere. We just have yet to really understand for what reason. Report after report, post after post,…
This is a Time for Leaders to Lead not React
If you’re reacting, someone else defines what you’re going to do, rather than defining what people need to do. Your businesses faces great change. This statement is true about customers, competitors, and everyone else affecting market behavior. The question is, what are you going to do about it? Customer engagement, and specifically customer engagement in social media offers many benefits that businesses are starting to uncover, most of it unintentionally. While many champions knew in their gut that social media…
In Social Media, Your Return Represents Your Investment
Sometimes the path of least resistance unwinds into a far more complicated and arduous journey than we anticipated. In times of change, taking the path less traveled, although initially daunting, proves easier and far more rewarding in the long run. Such is true for social media. I read a review about Engage once that read, “Brian Solis takes the fun out of social media.” The author’s point was that the book took an academic approach when the industry could benefit…
