I’ve had my iPhone 4S for less than a year. I was a late comer to the mobile party, but now I don’t think I could survive without it. Convenience is one of the greatest benefits of the iPhone. The accessibility of Siri, e-mail, an iPod, a camera, GPS, mobile apps and websites all in one place is incredibly useful. …
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The Best Kept Secret to Online Success: The Daily Checklist
I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH HOURS IN MY WORK DAY FOR SOCIAL MEDIA! This statement is a lie. You have to decide if it’s important for your business to make time for social media, but it does not have to take 3+ hours a day. I’ve recently discovered that some of the secrets to effective social media marketing isn’t in how …
Leadership Inspires Loyalty
What inspires loyalty in a person? What makes us root for the US Olympians and cheer for “the gold” in each and every event? There are typically two options we have in trying to influence behavior: Manipulation and Inspiration. Many of the choices we make are motivated by fear, shiny objects and such, but only loyalty comes from being inspired. …
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ASSOCIATION LEADERSHIP: HAVE YOU LOST YOUR WHY?
A few years back, I knew I needed to step up my commitment to regular exercise. I decided that what would motivate me to exercise consistently would be to enroll in a class, so I could enjoy the challenge while getting to know some other women with the same goals. As I have gotten to know these ladies over time, …
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Pinterest: 4 Brands Doing it Right
Surely you’ve heard about pinterest, and may even recognize that it could benefit your brand … but still you hesitate, “Is it really worth putting in the time to get our brand on pinterest?” YES. According to All Twitter, the majority of pins on pinterest are repins (meaning your content is continually being shared). Shareaholic states that pinterest’s referral rate is …
The Marketing Persona: 4 Benefits of Using a Persona
I was thinking about how teams prepare to play each other during March Madness. All of them use scouting reports that outline the unique ways a team likes to play. The reports are fairly basic, but some details can stand out for a coach, such as information that a specific player only likes to go to his or her left. …
The Marketing Persona: Building Blocks
The ancient Native American saying “Do not judge a person until you’ve walked two moons in their shoes” captures the thinking behind the marketing persona. Crafting personas requires getting into the heads of our audiences. What keeps them up at night? How do they spend their free time? How do they like to be sold to? What’s their favorite channel …
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The Marketing Persona — A Deeper Look at Your Target Audience
Most of us in marketing communications use terms such as “target markets,” “stakeholders” or “members” to define our audiences. We think we know who they are, but how we connect with audiences has changed significantly in our mobile tech world and we may be struggling to reach them. One problem may be that we haven’t gone deep enough into figuring …
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2012 STRATEGY: WHAT’S YOUR ‘ONE’ WORD?
Chris Brogan does it. So does Mari Smith. Rather than write a post on trends, predictions for the new year or the best of 2011, I’d like to challenge you to simply pick ONE WORD to envision what you’d like to accomplish in this new year. In the past, I was pretty intimidated by the idea of setting goals of …
New Relationship Marketing: Interview With Mari Smith – Part 2
This is our second of two posts from our interview of Mari Smith about her latest book: The New Relationship Marketing. In Part II, we asked Mari these questions: Can you speak to us more about surrounding yourself with the right connections? What are some of the biggest mistakes businesses make today regards social technologies online and offline? Do you …