As social media changes the way companies communicate with their audiences, there is one thing that we shouldn't forget—Social media marketing is still marketing. The difference is, social media marketing targets audiences online where there is more noise, more competition, and more skepticism as...

24 June, 2008

Other members of the Ignite Social Media team laugh when I rant about Google. "Great technology. Ugly user interface." Google Reader is a great example of that, but now there's a solution to get your RSS feeds served up with some design consideration and...

23 June, 2008

Jim_headshot2 Ok, we're in the home stretch. Today we'll talk about the fifth mistake in our top 5 mistakes in social media marketing series. And, you might think that would be the last one, right? But wait, there's more! We'll close the series shortly with a...

19 June, 2008

I think the hardest thing for a blogger is the moment that the initial newness and excitement wears off. You are faced with what is perhaps one of the hardest realizations: and that is, "I have to keep this going"....

18 June, 2008

Social media is all about sharing, and of course, about conversation. We share ideas, information and tools with like-minded individuals to engage in these conversations. But what are we talking about? Once you enter an online society, you enter a global environment, where you can choose...

18 June, 2008

Our continuing series on social media marketing mistakes moves onto "mistake #4" today. Today's mistake is using social media as a channel instead of a conversation. Since social media tools give us the power to publish, and social networks give us more places to publish, some...

17 June, 2008

In college and high school, I used flash cards, vocabulary lists, and even audio programs on tapes to learn new languages (Spanish in high school, German in college). Each of those tools is helpful in some capacity, but in the end, the quickest way to...

17 June, 2008

I got an email on Friday from Christina at the Advance Guard pitching "Coke Tags" as a new social media marketing effort from the Coca-Cola Company. The whole experience, from pitch to this blog post, provides lessons in social media marketing that all large brands...

16 June, 2008

Plurk is the hot social media property of the last couple weeks. People are joining quickly, writing reviews and debating the relative merits of Twitter (follow me on Twitter here) versus Plurk (follow me on Plurk here). Here's the general summary so far, to save...

12 June, 2008

Since I've started working at a social media agency, I've been a lot more aware of the kind of role social media and other new media plays in other aspects of our society. For instance, I recently watched a great episode of South Park, (one...

12 June, 2008

Before I go further, I just wanted to say that I realize that I often point out companies whose social media efforts fail or fall short. It's a character flaw, I promise. But, I really think it is because every time I take the time...

11 June, 2008