Marketing Talk

I asked, you answered! Here are the posts I’ll be writing in August!

8/1: The beauty of birthdays: Credit to Nancy Davis

8/2: A Day in the life of Margie: Credit to Brian Rice

8/3: Balancing Life, Work & everything else: Credit to Tanya Lavoie

8/4: Giving What You Get: Credit to Ellen Cagnassola

8/5: How Clayman Advertising has changed over the years: Credit to Lou Imbriano

8/6: A challenging cooking experiment: Credit to Jim F

[Read more…] about What August will look like at margie’s blog

If you’ve ever seen the movie Zoolander, you know that there aren’t too many profound moments in the film. However, sometimes events in life can make silly things seem profound. Case in point – my observations on how Google Plus is being adopted by the masses.

So in the movie Zoolander (scooting back a bit), Derek Zoolander, played by Ben Stiller, has been at the top of the male modeling industry for years. One of his big claims to fame is all of his “looks.” In fact, he even makes a calendar that features each of his looks. Of course, each look is just the same facial expression, and all the facial expression consists of is slightly pursed lips and a look that tries to be seductive. Nobody seems to notice this, though, until the very end, when villain Mugatu (played by Will Ferrell) says something along the lines of, “Oh my God! Does no one see that he just has one look? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!”

That sense of exasperation is how I am feeling about Google+ right now.

People have said that Google+ is a Facebook killer, an email killer, or a Twitter killer. To me, having talked about engagement for the last million years, Google+ is best poised to destroy all of the remnants of the idea of engaging online to grow your business.

I know, that’s kind of a sharp claim, so let me delineate some things, and then you can feel free to point me in the right direction 🙂

[Read more…] about Google Plus: In which I feel like I’m taking crazy pills

This is not a real post and I’m not even going to pretend it is, so let’s just get right on down to brass tacks, shall we?

Oh, that’s me. OK, so, I’m forking over my blog to YOU in August.

Let me explain.

I want you to put in the comments something you’d like me to write a post about. It could be a topic, a movie, a musician, or some other sort of prompt. I will choose 31 of your ideas, and those will be my posts next month. You’ll get mentioned, of course, when I get to your post.

Why am I doing this? Well, three reasons, really.

1. I am very very close to 100 subscribers here on ye ole blog, and I might even get there by August 1st. I want to thank you for that!

2. I believe my Engagement Series will also be done by August 1st, so my desire to think up topics will be used up for awhile

3. And as for 3, well, I’ll be honest. I am so overwhelmed with how good so many people in this space have been to me this month that I feel like few things could be more fun than working on a project with you all.

So start leaving your ideas here. I’ll leave entries open till Monday and then I’ll announce on Tuesday what August will look like here.

Sound good? I hope so! 🙂

When I first started blogging and tweeting, I thought the game was pretty simple. You write stuff, and then if people like it, you get retweeted. Of course the reality, as you learn over time, is that the whole process is an awful lot more complicated than that. There are a million (and one) details that you need to know, and unfortunately, these are the things that people often don’t tell you. People like to write blog posts about the big important (and fun) stuff like writing great headlines and also creating content that might be interesting.

Well, today is your lucky day, because I feel like blogging about some of those silly little details that just might be holding your blog back!

[Read more…] about 10 little details that might be holding your blog back

Mark Twain recounts an interesting little sidebar story about a friend of his. This friend was a preacher and was on his way to church when he was handed a note. The note said that General Sickles, who had been this man’s mentor and great friend, had passed away (this turned out to be false). The preacher was shaken, but of course he had to continue on. His sermon for the day was on the “begats.” Moses begat so and so who begat so and so. Given his state of mind, the preacher was not able to hold his voice steady and occasionally tears rolled down his cheeks. Of course, the congregation had no idea what the preacher had just learned. To them, it was an absolute mystery why this man, who could maintain a straight and even tone when giving much more emotional sermons, was so distraught over the darned “begats.”

From a different perspective, of course, the preacher’s behavior makes all the sense in the world.

[Read more…] about Perspective Should Be The New Social Media Buzz Word

A few days ago we talked about how you could use a blog site to help make the world a better place. Today we’re going to chat about how to use Twitter in the same way. A lot of people still think of Twitter as “that site where people talk about what they ate for dinner.” It’s true that not everyone uses Twitter in what we might call “meaningful” ways, but there is a huge opportunity for value. Here are 25 of my ideas on this topic.

[Read more…] about 25 ways to use Twitter to improve the world