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 »

It’s been a busy week in the PR/marketing/social world!

On Monday, Facebook bought Instagram for $1B. That’s billion. With a “B.”

On Tuesday, LinkedIn announced they’re rolling out some new features.

And yesterday, Google+ launched a new design that looks scarily similar to Facebook.

All three changes are exciting for marketers, but are driving fear in the hearts of most users. Is it because we truly don’t like change or is all of this really bad?

Let’s take a look at each and you can decide. Continue Reading »

I’m on a plane again, which means I have takeoff and landing time to catch up on reading.

In the bundle I packed with me this trip is the April issue of Inc. (you’re welcome, Margie…now you don’t have to read this one either).

In the “Crunching the Numbers” section, they take a look at how many of us use Google to find local businesses.

What do you think is the number?

I think you’ll be surprised.

Only 14% said they do every day…and 24% said never. Continue Reading »

This post is running concurrently on Future Comms.

On Facebook just after the first of the year, Paul Sutton posted something about not understanding what the big deal is about Pinterest.

It won’t be a surprise to you that I commented. I said something about how he was off his rocker (except I think I was a bit more nice than that).

So he challenged me to a duel.

I’m not at all competitive (hahahaha!!) so I accepted.

See what you think! Continue Reading »

I’m not going to lie. I’m obsessed with Pinterest. I blame my sister. She’s an enabler.

Since its launch, I’ve been a big proponent of it. It’s, in a sense, an online scrapbook. You find images and videos you like and “pin” them to your online boards.

For instance, I have “must make,” “winter training,” “books worth reading,” “gift ideas,” and more that feed my creativity. But the best part? The “what do you want for dinner” discussion has left our house. Now we just look at the “must make” board and decide very quickly what’s for dinner.

Something like 84 percent of us are visual learners. Pinterest feeds that in a big way.

I’ll admit I avoided it for a long time. I knew there were business applications for it, especially if you sell something visual such as clothes, food, or jewelry, but I knew once I got on there, I’d have to quickly attend rehab. I was right. Continue Reading »

It’s Facebook question of the week time (clap, clap, clap)!

This week I have a very special surprise for you…a guest appearance by none other than the rock hot Jayme Soulati.

She was in Chicago and I met her for lunch, with the condition that she do a video with me. We had soup, sammiches, and shared a cupcake…while flirting with the super cute waiter.

And the cute waiter is the reason we’re giddy at the beginning of the video. He charmed the pants off of Jayme (not literally) and even offered to shoot the video for us (we declined). Continue Reading »

It’s Facebook question of the week time (clap, clap, clap)!

This week, I have a little contest for you. During the video, I show you the view from my hotel room.

The first person to correctly guess where I am will receive a free copy of No Bullshit Social Media by Jason Falls and Erik Deckers.

And, as an extra bonus, if you not only name the city, but the exact hotel where I’m staying, you’ll win an Arment Dietrich Rabbit wine opener.

No cheating. And my team is not allowed to participate. Or tell anyone where I am.

I repeat. NO. CHEATING.

On to the question at hand. Continue Reading »

Welcome back to the real world! I hope everyone had a really good Thanksgiving weekend.

To start the last 20 work days of the year, I thought now was a good time to discuss trends for next year.

This will get you started on planning and getting everything ready to launch the year on January 2.

I’ve written the eight social media trends you  need to pay attention to for next year.

But, before we get started, we’re going to let you choose the ninth trend, just like we did last year, for the chance to win two seats to the trends webinar.

The contest information is at the end of the post. Continue Reading »

It’s Facebook question of the week time and, this week, I managed to get a video recorded.

I don’t know about you, but I missed you guys!

This week’s question comes from Steve Birkett, who you may know as Above the Static, which is his Twitter handle.

He writes at Above the Static and for 12Most and is an Us Guys member. Continue Reading »

It’s Facebook question of the week time (clap, clap, clap)!

Unfortunately, I have had zero time to scan the questions and record a video.

You may be asking yourself why I have time to type a blog post and not record a video. It’s because I’m still in my PJs…and a portion of this blog post was already in my drafts folder.

So we’re going to talk TweetUps today. And I’ll be back on schedule next week. Continue Reading »