Facebook purists will pan this post. They will say that the best way to post to Facebook is to post whatever you’re doing or thinking right now, that “planning” posts is not only insincere but that it undermines the point of Facebook altogether. Their points are valid and noted. Now, let’s talk about reality. Busy people who have their own social media and potentially the social media profiles of sites and companies with which they work need tools. It’s true that the best way to post to Facebook is through the native interfaces – Facebook.com itself and their mobile app. However, there are drawbacks….

Americans crave football and appreciate a positive customer service experience. They pay, on average, about $100 a year for sports programming. Seventy-three percent of U.S. males and 55 percent of females watch football. How do they get their football fix? Sixty percent watch NFL football on television sets, and eight percent catch games on their computers. Twenty-seven percent of Americans watch between six and ten hours of football per week during the NFL season. The cable industry is thriving—it raked in 97.6 billion in revenue last year alone. So, how do consumers feel about the customer…

Google Authorship has been around for a while. It has helped many bloggers and journalists stand out by having their images appear directly in search results next to the articles they publish. It highlights the number of people that have them in their Google+ circles and gives a link to other writings by the author. This is nothing new. Google AuthorRank has been given much speculation for about a year now. The idea is simple – Google will give higher rankings to those who have demonstrated expertise in a particular field. If someone is prolific at writing about a subject and their writing is well…

There’s always a risk when it comes to aggressive advertising and marketing that many are unwilling to take. On television, radio, search, and display ads, there will be those who do not appreciate what you’re putting in front of them. On social, this is greatly amplified because people have the ability to respond. It is nearly impossible to post effective content and make it visible to your target audience on Facebook without running into the occasional hater. In fact, if you’re not getting any negative comments at all, chances are either your message is not business-effective (are you promoting…

It doesn’t matter whether you like Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga. The fact that the #1 and #2 most followed accounts on Twitter are about to flip positions is important for the sustained success of Twitter. The key to understanding why is in the audience. Today’s kids are tomorrow’s adults. One of the biggest reasons that MySpace was beaten out so easily by Facebook a few years ago was because MySpace did not grow its base up and down. It had a niche, the people who were in or just out of high school in the mid 2000s, and did not do enough to appeal to the next generation of young people nor the older people who…

More companies are looking at ways that will enable them to go green with their marketing efforts. However, their motivation isn’t solely driven by the want to improve the environment. These organization realize that the green movement can be good for business. From email communications to social media campaigns, the digital channel has made it easier than ever for companies to conduct their business in a more eco-friendly manner. And perks such as the following benefits are what’s driving change for many of those that have decided to sing a new tune:   Reduced resource consumption…

There has been a lot of discussion about staying relevant on social media, rightfully so. Too many businesses are trying to “fit in” on Facebook and Google+ by posting funny images that they found on any of the various funny picture resources out there. They are not the right venues for such activities from a business perspective. Twitter, however, is. On Twitter, there is less of a differentiation between businesses and individuals. Facebook and Google+ both have pages for businesses that are handled differently from individual profiles. On Twitter, a profile is a profile whether it’s a person,…

We all knew that astrophysicist Neil deGrass Tyson was an intelligent and witty man of science, an advocate for space and scientific exploration, and a generally entertaining guy, but we didn’t know that he had a philosopher’s soul. That is, until now, thanks to Twitter. Not enough people pause… twitter.com/neiltyson/stat… — Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) January 8, 2013   Seeing the beauty that others don’t see is at the heart of poetry. It’s apparently in Tyson’s heart as well. Here it is in full size – click to enlarge. Related articles Neil deGrasse Tyson Answers the Big Enchilada…

The last time I was involved with search engine optimization, Alta Vista was a player. I was working on my own sites and making a killing by taking advantage of the new world of search engines. Yahoo was making its move to the top. Google wasn’t even a word at the time. Flash forward to 2007 and social media became my thing. I was able to drive great traffic with the social news sites and started really getting involved the marketing components in 2008. That’s when JD Rucker and I hooked up and started working the various social angles for clients, but he would always handle the search engine components….

A recent study by AdAge, which has been tracking such things since 2009, shows that there are over 180,000 people on Twitter who claim to be social media mavens, experts, consultants, ninjas, pros, warriors, or some other noun that’s intended to fill you with confidence about their ability to save you from the evil world of Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. This is up from 16k when they first checked. It’s challenging for businesses to keep up. The world of social media offers so much potential, so many options, and has so many people using it every day that the allure to get involved is high, but there…