It’s time for a long weekend (sorry Canadians, you got yours last weekend)! YAY!

And so begins summer in Chicago – the best season this city has to offer. And many days of cycling, which means an awkward tan requiring me to always wear sleeves and skirts at least knee length.

I hope you have fun plans for the weekend and will get some sun, some exercise, and some family time. I’m going to plant my vegetable garden and see some movies.

For some weekend viewing and conversation, I give you Gin and Topics. Continue Reading »

Yesterday I had the sheer pleasure of meeting Michael Bowers at the Ohio Growth Summit, a conference he puts on every year for business owners.

I’ve followed him on Twitter for many years so I knew what to expect. But you know when you meet someone and you like them as much, if not more, than you do online?

That’s Mike. Before I actually met him, though, I heard over and over again how well-respected he is in Ohio and, particularly, in Columbus.

That’s putting it mildly. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen a man more well-respected.

As you know, I do a lot of speaking. And I go to a lot of conferences. But I’ve never been to a conference where I was treated better. Continue Reading »

Today’s guest post is written by Susan Young.

Content curation is the hot ticket item in social media and business these days.

Content curators — or editors — find, sort, categorize, and distill the big data and vast amount of content that’s available.

While Google alerts will locate and list stories and articles, and platforms such as Paper.li may work for amateurs,  good content curation requires the human factor — someone with a pulse — to make sense of the collective information chaos.

Content curation is so much more than simply compiling lists and dropping articles, blog posts, and images into pretty templates.

It is a big time business. Continue Reading »

I had a different blog topic in mind today when I read Danny Brown’s, “Being Where YOU Need to Be, Not Where ‘They’ Say You Should.”

He relates a story of a small business owner who went to a conference and the social media expert who spoke advised attendees use all of the social media networks because “you never know where your customer is going to be, so you need to be in all of the places.”

This makes my blood boil. Clearly the speaker does not run a small business or have to make payroll or deal with HR issues or make rain or report to stakeholders. If he or she did, they would never advise this. Continue Reading »

Today’s guest post is written by Mat Powers. 

We never really think about who is behind the social media accounts of our favorite companies. It’s not as if the real Old Spice guy is sending out tweets…

“Collegiate athletes do more than play basketball, they also learn math and kissing techniques that can’t be found in the private sector”

“Can I promise that this new wallpaper will not cause your computer to erupt into flames, helicopters and hotdogs? Nope.”

“A new pad device was just announced. Seems cool, but I doubt it can replace my space helicopter pad as my favorite pad-based belonging.”

…but someone has taken on the personality of the Old Spice famed spokesperson in order to promote their product in an entertaining fashion. Continue Reading »

Four years ago, I was invited to do my very first webinar. It was for Vistage and it launched my speaking career.

I’ll never forget the very first speaking engagement I did for them. It was in Washington, D.C. I was 30 minutes late to the meeting because I got lost and traffic was worse than I expected. Then, when I arrived, they didn’t have a projector or screen. So I had to talk from slides on my laptop.

My “leave-behind” was electronic and I’ll never forget a member saying to me, “You’re smart and you’re nice to look at, but you have to be better prepared. That includes having something with your contact information to actually hand us.”

To say I’ve gotten better is putting it mildly. And you know what? The audience has gotten better, too. Continue Reading »

Today’s guest post is written by Nikki Little. 

Those of us ingrained in the social media world talk a lot about what you should and shouldn’t do in the space.

That’s important knowledge to share, but what happens when someone else makes the mistakes and you’re charged with fixing them?

If you haven’t encountered this already, I bet there will come a time when you have to clean up a company’s online and social media presence.

Maybe it will be a situation like what I just went through with a client where leadership empowered the interns to own social and they created a huge mess (classic example, right?).

Or, maybe the company hired a self-professed “expert” who led them down the completely wrong path in the social world. Continue Reading »

You know how you plan and plan and plan for something so things fall into place one big event at a time and then it never goes that way?

Kind of like when you get married and suddenly you’re also moving to a new city, buying a new house, and starting a new job. Lots of changes at once that, if handled separately, aren’t so overwhelming.

Well, it turns out nothing ever goes according to plan.

We were supposed to launch Spin Sucks Pro last year (still in private beta), then Marketing in the Round was to come out, then my speaking was to pick up so our business development increased substantially, and then we’d create a partnership to give us international capabilities.

Well, it turns out all of that is destined to happen at once instead over a two year period, as planned.

The partnership to give us international capabilities? It’s happening now!

We have created a partnership with Thornley Fallis in order to expand our reach to Canada and the U.K., as well as give us the resources to do video and design and development. Continue Reading »

Today’s guest post is written by Hilary Marsh. 

For your content marketing, you may be wondering what topics to focus on for your website’s home page, as the centerpiece and subject line of your e-newsletter, highlights on Facebook or Twitter, or for your next white paper or blog post.

To find the answer, consider yourself a DJ for your content.

What content will you play for your audience today? How will you mix it up so it’s new and fresh while not overly unusual? How will you know how much they like it?

Think of social media as your club floor, your blog as the radio, and your website as a wedding. Continue Reading »

It’s been an interesting few days in the social media/tech world.

Facebook went public, began trading at $42.05 (and then dropped to it’s original $38) per share, and it’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg got married in a surprise wedding that was supposed to be a celebration of his now wife’s graduation from medical school.

Named the 29th richest man in America, Zuckerberg now shares that fortune with the woman who has been by his side since college.

But both his personal and work lives have simultaneously gotten harder (remember your first year of marriage??). While maintaining majority ownership in the social network, the 28-year-old (and I thought I was hot stuff at 28!) must now answer to Wall Street, which means the $1 billion they made in profit last year must increase. Continue Reading »