I have to admit, Facebook is doing something I can really get behind.

They want to lower the number of people who die each year waiting for an organ donation.

What? Facebook, the social network? Yes, indeedy.

More than 114,000 people in the United States, and millions more around the globe, are waiting for a donated organ that will save their lives.

Many of those people – an average of 18 people per day – will die waiting, because there simply aren’t enough organ donors to meet the need. Continue Reading »

Today’s guest post is written by Justin Graves. 

Yes, they have something in common!

As anyone who watches any television at all has surely noticed, the new “Mad Men” season has finally started.

It’s easy to understand the show’s appeal: It gives the viewer what appears to be an inside look at the creative muscle and oversized egos that launched advertising into the business it is today.

While the advent of the Internet and social media has certainly democratized brand building, it’s also introduced a wealth of unknowns into the equation.

Given my background in analytics, I sometimes wonder how social listening and analytics might have been used by these ad men (mostly men back in those days) to better their campaigns and save potentially damaging ones from the fire of public assault. Continue Reading »

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

The web is dead!

I guess all those business owners who’ve told me all these years that their customer doesn’t use the web were right. I really hate being wrong. It rarely happens.

Yet here we are. What are we going to do?

I discovered this disturbing news as I’ve been reading about the Facebook purchase of Instagram. You know, the $1 billion purchase they made of a company with only 12 employees and no revenue? Yeah, that one. Continue Reading »

Today’s guest post is written by Neal Schaffer.

Despite having preceded Twitter and Facebook in the social media space, LinkedIn, which was launched in 2003, has so far been unable to capture a larger share of social media users.

Many call LinkedIn the “black sheep” or the underdog of social media.

Social media demographic statistics show us Linkedin only has 150 million registered users, way below the nearly one billion Facebook users or Twitter with more than 400 million users.

See this excellent infographic for full details.

It’s also said only half of those LinkedIn users are actually active on the site.

Why is this the case? Let us take a closer look – and then ponder the question why we should care and how to use this to our advantage. Continue Reading »

It’s the end of April. How did this happen?

I feel like we were just here talking about kicking butt and taking names this year and we’re already a third of the way through it.

Today also marks the day of Mark Schaefer’s Social Slam in Knoxville. By the time you read this, I will have already kicked the day off with the very first keynote about Marketing in the Round.

And, because it’s really early in the morning right now and I’d like to rehearse one more time before I go on stage, I give you Gin and Topics. Continue Reading »

Please allow me to introduce you to Mr. D aka World’s Most Patient Man aka love of my life (well, he competes with Jack Bauer for that title).

It is Kelly’s birthday today. Because he’s not on any of the social networks (bane of my existence), it doesn’t make much sense to #FollowFriday him. But I thought it’d be fun to wish him a happy day anyway.

Kelly and I met 13 years ago in a dance club in Kansas City. He likes to say I picked him up on the dance floor. I’m sure there is some semblance of truth to that story (OK – I did). But I had a boyfriend and he had just gotten out of a relationship and so we became friends. Continue Reading »

Today’s guest post is written by Jeff Hunt. 

We just conducted a study which found companies who fully embrace social engagement have four times more business success than less-engaged companies.

Four times.

The study also found, in the most socially engaged companies, the chief executive officer and other C-suite executives are the vital advocates for change to make social engagement possible – and profitable.

But how do you help a CEO who doesn’t “get” social engagement get it? Continue Reading »

When I speak to CEO organizations, I typically run through a series of quick slides that show where technology is right at this moment.

For instance: There were 107 trillion emails sent last year, Facebook is at more than 900 million users, Pinterest is closing in on 15 million users, and there are three billion videos streamed on YouTube every day.

I do this to show how many people are using the web, to preempt the “My customer doesn’t use the Internet” conversation (yes, I still hear that).

But the stat I want to talk about today is the number of blogs on the Internet. According to Technorati, there are 158 million blogs floating around, which is partly why I’m so surprised to keep reading that blogging is dead. Continue Reading »

Today’s guest post is written by Jay Pinkert.

The founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, hypothesized that two conflicting desires motivate human behavior: Eros (the life drive) and Thanatos (the death drive).

Were he alive today, Freud undoubtedly would add a third: Viros (the drive to create viral videos).

Marketers experience Viros more acutely than other people because they have to manage not only their own drive to capture Internet lightning in a bottle, but also their clients’ drive to do the same.

No matter the ROI of viral video is notoriously unpredictable and ephemeral, even if the video is a hit. The heart wants what it wants, and now it wants trending topics on Twitter, YouTube hits, and Facebook shares. Continue Reading »

I’ve spent all week at 35,000 feet (thank heaven for GoGo Inflight!) so I’m very grateful it’s Friday and I’ll be home in my own bed tonight.

PLUS, my high school bud, Mike Koehler (aka MK), is going to be at my house when I get home AND Michael Schechter (aka Shrek) is coming over for my homemade lasagna on Sunday night.

So I’m very much looking forward to the weekend and hanging out with my boys.

And, to start the weekend off right, I give you Gin and Topics. Perhaps you can even follow Shashi Bellamkonda’s lead and pour yourself a gin and topic while you watch and read. Continue Reading »