The secrets of real-time search success

Article Highlights:

• Real-time search gives you the chance to occupy a prominent location on results pages
• Build a strong following on social media sites; your fans will be the ones who end up in the real-time results
• Produce content with an emphasis on keywords

Get valuable info from your under-performing partners, too!

Like a parent focusing and rewarding only the best-behaved children, it can be tempting to focus your communication primarily on your best-performing partners. But, to continue the metaphor, it’s often the misbehaving kids that have the most insightful feedback for parents—feedback that is missed by playing favorites. The moral is that you should establish a partner feedback best practice by looking equally to all partners.

Top Posts 2-7-10

Thanks for reading.  Here are the top posts for last week.

Ignite Your Passion – New eBook

Ignite Your Passion – Interview with April M Williams

Tips for Writing Killer Blog Posts

The Order-Taker or the Solutions Provider: Which One Are You?

4 brilliant augmented reality campaigns

Article Highlights:

• Samsung’s AR execution helps consumers figure out what a TV will look like on the wall
• Home Depot’s AR experience adds a reward to the usually underwhelming gift card
• Esquire’s approach includes forward-thinking fashion integration and enables media buys that incorporate an AR experience

Augmented reality is starting to get interesting. Here are some of the best brand executions that have been done to date.

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Social media: Listen less and sell more

 

Article Highlights:

• In 2009, social media was all about engagement, now it’s all about sales
• The beauty of social media is that it’s a two-way street
• Use your buzz-monitoring tools to find out what people are saying about your brand

Here are some proven best practices to transform your social media programs from a brand-building exercise into a sales-building channel.

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Poise the Partnership for Post-Recession Success

With indicators that the recession is drawing to a close, most businesses are still feeling the financial burden of the past year and a half. However, now is exactly the time for vendors to evaluate their operations in preparation for an economic turnaround.

Emerging platforms you should bookmark (or forget about) in 2010

Article Highlights:

• New platforms and new tools appear with almost stupefying regularity
• But if you’re an ad agency or a brand client, you only want to be on the cutting edge of what’s really ready take off
• There’s wisdom in talking to your peers when determining which technologies you should invest in

Need help separating the hype from the hits? Here is a breakdown of which emerging platforms aren’t quite ready for primetime.

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Tips For Writing Killer Blog Posts

It’s easy to try to sound as though you are the leader to top all leadership when you write your blogs. Here’s a tip: don’t try so hard. Your blogs, just like your new marketing efforts, should be transparent. They need to be honest and come from the heart (or the mind, depending on the subject). Yes, they must reveal something unique, new, or thought provoking. Killer blogs are killer because they keep the reader coming back for more—readers simply can’t get enough of them. But if you’re just starting to blog, here are a few simple tips: keep your blogs short and simple. Incomplete sentences are OK (oh, the horror!). Write what’s on your mind, not the thought that you’ve edited down into correct grammatical form for print (but, please steer clear of typos, and you do need to know a little bit about basic English). Use short words, be clear and concise, and after writing “tight,” go back and edit so that the writing is even tighter. This will allow you to come full circle to the original tip of keeping blogs short and simple. You’re not writing a dissertation, folks, nor bidding for the next Pulitzer. But you are providing ideas and content that should spark emotion and a response (or at the least a ponder) from your audience. As they say at NIKE, “Just Do It!”

 Check out my eBooks and articles more information and “how to” guides.

10 Stages of Social Media Business Integration

At last, 2010 is expected to be the year that social media goes mainstream for business. Full social media integration often happens in stages — it’s an evolutionary process for companies and consumers alike.

Here are the ten most common stages that businesses experience as they travel the road to full social media integration.

The 10 Stages of Social Media Business Integration

Four Ways to Bring Social Media to the Channel

By now, I hope you recognize the unique opportunities offered by social media. Blogs, podcasts, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media tools allow vendors and partners to engage with each other—and with end-users—in a decidedly modern way. But you still may be in the dark about exactly how to set up your social media strategy.