Social media is fun and useful, but it’s not perfect by any stretch. As a digital marketer it’s my job to see social media for what it is, warts and all. Occasionally those warts get under my skin. Here are ten of my social media pet peeves. Peeve numero uno – hyperbole. Everything seems to [...]
Social media and customer service have come together like peanut butter and chocolate did in the old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups commercials. And like the famous candy bar, both are better for it, creating, as the ads once proclaimed, “Two great tastes that taste great together.” According to Mashable and Gartner, social service does matter. [...]
Social media marketers talk a lot these days about “creating buzz”, by which they mean chatter about a brand. Forty years ago a duo named Cheech and Chong talked about creating buzz of the Maui Wowie variety. If you squint hard enough you can connect these two cultural phenomena and draw some lessons from a [...]
Lately I’ve been signing up a lot of corporate clients who have dipped their toes into social media without a ton of planning. You might call this their “experimentation phase”. While testing the waters is a great way to understand the lay of the land (mixed metaphor, but you know what I mean), it’s rarely [...]
I have always fancied myself a bit of a contrarian. In my family you take an opposite viewpoint from everyone else at the dinner table and argue it just for fun. My most infamous contrarian moment happened when I was a teenager. My dad had been hounding me to mow the lawn for days. I [...]
As a teenager I spent a lot of time in the pool at the YMCA. Training to be a lifeguard, teaching and practicing, I reeked of chlorine most of the time. In the summers I did the same at camp. One thing they taught us over and over was to avoid diving into unknown waters. [...]
An appointment with a digital marketer is like an appointment with a medical specialist, minus the waiting room and the stale magazines (we bring our iPads). Digital marketers may have a better bedside manner, but the process is remarkably similar to a doctor’s visit. When you walk in the door you have a problem, an [...]
Smile, You’re On Candid Camera. That’s how Allen Funt started the reality television craze back in 1948. Oh sure, it took a few decades to really catch on, with a Gong Show here and a Dating Game there, but nowadays we’re awash in Big Brother, Survivor, and YouTube viral sensations. Why, you might ask, are [...]
Social media requires a content marketing system My Dad was a military man in the 1960s. As a youngster he trained me there was one way to iron a shirt, make a bed, or shine a pair of shoes – the right way. I remember him showing me how to shovel the driveway by dividing [...]
I may be a pain in the butt, but I’m the guy with the credit card CALGARY, AB, Jul 17, 2012/ Troy Media – Back in the day, I used to love trading software with other nerds, much like kids used to trade hockey cards. “Hey, I’ll swap you this game for that desktop publishing [...]
