Community Marketing Blog

Are You A Top Social Media / Marketing Blogger?

By Andrew Ballenthin October 20, 2009 President, Sol Solutions Biography

Connect.Follow.Network.

Blog-Off II is here and we're searching for the best social media and marketing experts who know how to command top online social media and marketing performance. Would you like to know how well you rank compared to other marketing and social media bloggers? Would you like to be independently recognized as a thought leader? If the answer is yes, enter Blog-Off II, it's a contest for professionals who meet and exceed the standards they set for their clients and employers in online leadership.

5 Reasons Why You Need To Delete Your Facebook Fan Page.

This past Friday I helped out at Terri Holley’s Social Media Soiree. The people who attended the event came around to different stations on varying social media and asked their questions about said social media. I manned a battle station on business blogging. The event was great, and I found that everyone was asking me great questions.

Even though I was primarily talking about business blogging, Facebook Fan Pages invariably came up. And, while I’m happy to explain Facebook Fan pages and answer questions, strategically, I recommended that people should delete their Fan pages.

Crowdsourcing: Spoils of a Pyrrhic Victory

By Ted Morris October 28, 2009 4ScreenMedia Biography

Connect.Follow.Network.

Call it the Vegemite effect but you have to wonder when you read press and blog statements such as “…one of the biggest ever crowdsource fails” or “the creative industry embraces crowdsourcing”, (emphasis mine).

25 Reasons Why Nobody Comments On Your Blog And Posts

By Andrew Ballenthin October 20, 2009 President, Sol Solutions Biography

Connect.Follow.Network.

You are not alone in your quest for more comments. This problem is more of an epidemic than what you might first think. Blogs like “open mike” by retired Executive Chairman Mike Critelli of Pitney Bowes and world electronics giant Hitachi see an average of 0-5 comments a post. If voices for these multi-billion global businesses have these challenges it’s not unreasonable for the rest of us to see similar results.

5 1/2 Things I Am Not Going To Tell You About Social Media

	By Andrew Jenkins October 31, 2009 Volterra Consulting, Founder Biography	Connect.Follow.Network.

There has been so much written and recorded about social media in historic and social media channels.  The coverage in the various blogs and tweets runs the gamut between opportunism and relevance. You’ll find the 3, 5 or 10 things you need to know about twitter etiquette, making the most of twitter, how to drive traffic to you blog, how to get thousands of followers in a matter of days or weeks and, most importantly, how to make money using social media. 

Online Brand Mentions: Choose the Best Places for B2C2C Engagement

	By Ted Morris October 28, 2009 4ScreenMedia Biography	Connect.Follow.Network.

I  was recently intrigued by a blog post from a notable social media monitoring company. The post was about the rationale for brand engagement and the issues related to responding to online brand mentions. As I understood it, one of the main assumptions was that consumers only wish to speak to other consumers online about their respective brand experiences.

5 Criteria For Qualifying Social Media Consultants

By Andrew Ballenthin October 20, 2009 President, Sol Solutions Biography

Connect.Follow.Network.

Despite having a time line that stretches over a decade it seems that it's only over the past few years that social media consultants and guru's have become popular new job titles. How is one to measure what their level of expertise is if their is no national or internationally standard for measuring quality standards and professional competency?

6 Tips for Creating a Successful Marketing Plan

Writing and implementing a marketing plan is essential for the success of any business. There are many resources available that define the basic elements of a marketing plan such as those provided by SCORE  and the SBA so this article does not attempt to review these elements. Rather, the author seeks to outline 6 tips for creating a successful marketing plan and impress upon the reader the importance of taking the time to plan and monitor your marketing efforts.

Social Networking for the “Too Young To Retire (TYTR)” Generation

Chances are that you know someone who is “Too Young To Retire (TYTR)” and by extension, may be considered, “Too Old To be Hired (TOTH)”. This unenviable but common status has the capacity of becoming more common as long as the economy is stalling.

Plenty of reasons for people being at this stage and age is a symptom, the key reason is our ever increasing dependency on technology and the rate of technological evolution. The direct consequences is judging present and future employees for their mastery of technology, hence associating youth with newer skills and making life experience redundant at an ever-increasing rate.

An Understated Hero: How LinkedIn Is A Global Village Of Goodwill

By Andrew Ballenthin October 20, 2009 President, Sol Solutions Biography

Connect.Follow.Network.

Free: job posting, surveys, networking, search engine profiling, news posting, supplier and client matching, group discussions and much more. Where? LinkedIn. For who? Over 50 million members. Wow... when you think about it LinkedIn has an online population greater than Australia or Spain all engaging in "free trade". That's a huge amount of commerce with no strings attached.

The Seven Habits of Highly Successful Social Media Practitioners – Seeing Your Way Through ‘The Cloud’

	By Ted Morris October 19, 2009 4ScreenMedia Biography	Connect.Follow.Network.

It’s clearly with respect to Steven Covey’s framework for managing one’s career – The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People that is the focus of this post. You might recall the four quadrants, notably, Covey’s observation that many of us spend too much time with “busy work” and not enough time practicing principle #2 - “beginning with the end in mind”. So here goes: