For one week every year, industry experts converge to discuss trends, challenges and best practices at SXSW Interactive. The city of Austin, Texas becomes a hub of diverse personalities, perspectives and innovation. We spent our first day speaking with industry thought leaders, soaking in expertise...

15 March, 2015

While Vine is still a relatively new platform, just celebrating its second birthday in January 2015, it’s impossible to ignore the effect the channel has had on pop culture. Terms originated in Vine videos, like “on fleek,” have been used by CEOs of major companies,...

17 February, 2015

Facebook is a media channel, so is Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram etc. It shouldn't be a surprise that the owners of those channels expect to be paid for commercial messaging. After all, ESPN expects payment for advertising on its broadcast, digital and mobile networks; commercial social...

09 January, 2015

Getting Organic Reach From a Content Carousel Approach A natural forest takes from 600 to 1000 years to develop; Shubhendu Sharma can grow one in ten years with a self-sustaining ecosystem.  His approach relies on a careful understanding on the ecosystem along with the interaction of...

23 December, 2014

November no longer simply means the kick-off of the holiday season. It also means it’s time for Movember. The Movember Foundation is a global organization committed to changing the face (literally) of men’s health. Men are challenged to grow their moustaches, and women to support,...

05 November, 2014

What came first, the chicken or the egg? Similar to this old adage, we don’t know who should own a brand’s social presence: public relations or social media marketing? It seems like the answer is right in the question. Truth is, social media marketing was...

20 October, 2014

Happy 3rd Birthday to our favorite yellow-and-white ghost friend! Time flies, but thanks to Ghost Chillah (the Snapchat ghost’s official name), time has become even more fleeting, and moments exist only as long as the small square in the right-hand corner is still lit up...

26 September, 2014

I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself. An article about clickbait deserves an equally clickbaity title. First off, I lied to you, I can’t really beat the algorithm. What I can do is show you how to make sure your articles and links earn the eyes...

28 August, 2014

Your audience is on Facebook and Twitter every day, but your engagement numbers are decreasing. You Google the top social brands you know, and their numbers don’t look like they’re dropping. What’s going on? You may have become part of the 99%. A new study from...

26 August, 2014

I was watching the excellent ESPN documentary Fab Five recently and it reminded me about true disruption. Five freshman players at Michigan, led by Coach Steve Fischer, truly changed the nature of college basketball in ways that can still be seen today. The team broke...

29 July, 2014

The 61st Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity just finished, and the announcement of this year’s Grand Prix winners has set the bar for next year’s hopefuls. Here are a few lessons that can be applied to the world of social media from the premier...

27 June, 2014