We’ve been asked over and over again by small business owners whether or not they should get involved with this recent social media marketing frenzy. The answer is always the same: Yes, and for several important reasons. Let me begin by stating that social media marketing is becoming a necessity for all types of businesses. It’s no longer a question of whether or not to get involved with the game, but “how” to get involved.  The University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business tracked the relationship between social media and small businesses and found that the technology adoption rates in the U.S. have doubled in the past ye

  I don’t talk about social media tools very much anymore. Before I started my own agency, I had a lot more time to read about shiny new objects, but it was one of the things that I cut out very quickly when my time suddenly became much more valuable than it once was. I don’t think I’m alone there. It’s not that I totally ignore the space now. I’m just much more judicious about what tools I try, use, review or even talk about. The litmus test is that they have to make my life easier. Otherwise, they’re just more noise. A few months back, a guy named Mike Potter emailed me out of the blue and asked if he could sho

From Web-Strategist Chris Brogan, who continues to dazzle us with his thoughtful and helpful social media blog posts (I recommend subscribing to him) lists out “50 Ways Marketers Can use Social Media to Improve Their Marketing“. In twitter, Jon Burg suggests the lists could be segmented to further help understanding, I recommenced doing this by the 5 social computing objectives we’ve found at Forrester. I’ve taken Chris’s exact list, but have segmented it into the five objectives.  This way, you’re not randomly choosing tactics without first having a goal in mind.  Of course, the first thing to do is to first understand