Today’s guest post is written by Brankica Underwood. 

If there is one thing you cannot use as an excuse for being unproductive today, it is lack of time.

No, I am not going to magically make your day last 25 hours.

But I will tell you how to get the most out of your day.

With all the technical developments out there, you can make use of the time you would otherwise waste. So if you are blogging or doing any kind of writing, here are some tips on how to get more done. Continue Reading »

Today’s guest post is written by Lisa Gerber.

You may have heard a thing or two lately about CEOs and their communications challenges (cough, Netflix).

Well, MarketMeSuite CEO Tammy Kahn Fennell had the pleasure of sending a slightly different email to their paying customers recently; customers would no longer have to pay for their product.

That’s right! MarketMeSuite (MMS), a premium social media dashboard, is now free.

In a competitive domain, being free is certainly a nice differentiator. The question is, do you get more than you pay for? Let’s hope so. Continue Reading »

I am very flattered and humbled to be asked to write here… especially about privacy, the grand-prize winning idea I submitted for the Spin Sucks 9 Marketing Trends webinar contest.

I view social media as a revolution in interpersonal communication technology. Notice the word marketing is not in that statement. The current platforms were created to connect people to people and, based on current architecture, have enabled marketing to invade our personal space.

Note that no one ever asked us, the people, our thoughts on marketing, privacy, or control of our private communications among friends. When you call someone on the phone are you OK if others listen in? Or read your personal email? No, you would get a gun and fix that problem! Continue Reading »

In honor of the holiday this week, I am going to post articles I’ve written for other publications in order to thank them for their support and drive traffic to their sites.

Today is from AllBusiness.com (with a few changes made from franchising to a small business).

Immensely powerful right now, social media tools are changing the ways businesses communicate with customers and the ways customers communicate with brands. With Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, Google Wave, Wikipedia, Slideshare, FriendFeed, Posterous, Delicious, WordPress, oh my!, it’s hard not to be overwhelmed and wonder how in the world you’re going to keep them all straight, let alone start using them.

But take a step back for one second. I’ll help you get a grip. There are 10 advantages to using social media. It:

1. Provides international exposure
2. Attracts like-minded people
3. Speaks directly to audiences thousands of miles away
4. Helps put out fires
5. Helps start fires
6. Beefs up your knowledge
7. Enhances partnerships
8. Exposes you to different ideas
9. Allows you to test or get feedback
10. Lets you meet and converse with new audiences

As if those reasons weren’t enough, according to the Cone Business in Social Media Study, 93 percent of Americans expect companies they do business with to have a social media presence. And 85 percent believe a company should not only be present, but also interact with its customers via social media.

The one secret about mastering communication that no one ever tells you is you must spend most of your time listening. Great communicators ask a lot of questions. They really listen to what you have to say. They inquire deeply into the answers you provide.

Social media offers another way to engage in conversation. To be a master at social media communication, you must spend most of your time listening.

Please click here to read the article on AllBusiness.com for some free tools to begin listening to what people are saying online about you, your company, your industry, and your competition.

Yesterday morning I moderated a discussion on social media measurement at #SMBChicago. We started the discussion with some of the free tools I blogged about a couple of weeks ago (see it here).

Then we spent some time discussing additional tools. They are as follows:

* su.pr: I personally love this URL shortener because it’s much more accurate than bit.ly, plus it shoots your content into StumbleUpon, which helps with your search engine optimization and search engine marketing.

* Double Click: I don’t know much about Double Click from my own experience, but maybe @earthbelowus can guide you.

* Hootsuite: There is a debate between Hootsuite and TweetDeck for a desktop application. I use TweetDeck, but have been playing with Hootsuite. The only reason I haven’t fully gone Hootsuite is because I have too many groups set up in TweetDeck and it’ll take me a full day to transfer them. But those in the discussion today swear by it!

* TubeMogul @Big_Teeth was telling us he uses this to track video users.

But the biggest take-away was not in the free tools we discussed, but in the five areas that offer the most ROI, measurement, and dollars and cents:

1. Brand awareness: Hard to measure straight to dollars and cents, but you’ll know from siteVOLUME, Google searches, popuri, and other tools whether or not your brand awareness has increased. You’ll also be able to tell from gut, if you’re really paying attention.

2. Thought leadership: You’ll know whether or not this is successful if you’re invited to speak at conferences, on panels, interviewed for stories, or people are linking to your blog/Web site when they publish content. Unless you eventually get paid for these things, it won’t automatically translate to dollars and cents, but everyone wants to work with the popular, smart kid and the more you’re out there, the more business you’ll drive.

3. Prospecting for new business/customers: Create referral networks or (as much as I hate them) affiliate programs to drive business to you. Use social media just like you would a networking event. Go often, network, connect, and find people to work with. This is the best way to drive dollars and cents because new business means added revenue and bigger profits.

4. Recruiting new talent: I’m sorry to headhunters out there, but social media is going to put you out of business. You absolutely can recruit new talent just by being open and transparent about a day in the life of your company, what your culture is like, and what the vision is for the business. You’ll attract people who want to work with you just by being out there.

5. Brand loyalty through engagement: It doesn’t matter what your business is – B2B or B2C – if you’re engaging with your customers, you are creating loyalty. Today people EXPECT to have a personal relationship with the people who work at the companies they buy from, including the CEO. And if people are loyal because they have a personal relationship with you, you can make a mistake, apologize, and not lose the customer.

Thanks to @monicaobrien, @Big_Teeth, @tamcdonald, @julibarcelona, @tektitegroup, @lindantonio, @cgrab34, @earthbelowus, @dockane, @chiarchitecture, and Akanksha Hoskote, for the lively, and informative, discussion!

Do you have additional measurement tools that you use?