I was recently asked by a reporter from Chain Store Age Magazine if I have any last minute tips for retailers looking to reach people using social media like Facebook and Twitter.  The article will appear in the November issue of the magazine (print and online), but here’s a sneak peak to my blog subscribers: [...]

I get very annoyed with people who ignore the unspoken rules of Twitter.  They aren’t hard…in fact, if anyone has been online for any length of time, s/he should know a few basic rules.  For example, you don’t type in ALL CAPS ALL OF THE TIME because that makes me shrivel up into my virtual [...]

I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of getting Twitter auto-direct messages claiming that I can “get 10,000 followers in 90 days.” That’s BULL! … Here’s my growing list of the Biggest Twitter Spammer – Scammers:

In the wild west of Social media marketing, it seems marketers and online retailers are both scratching their heads asking, “How do we measure our social media marketing efforts?” Internet Retailer Magazine recently interviewed me for an upcoming article in the May 2009 issue, asking me how to monetize Twitter (…for more on that topic, stay tuned in May for my forthcoming eBook, “Banking on Twitter.” If you subscribe to my blog, you’ll receive a FREE copy worth $49.99). My response to Internet Retailer involved explaining that in order to monetize any marketing effort, marketers first need to know how to measure it.

A good friend of mine is a talented artist and photographer who “hates all that networking mumbo-jumbo.”  She’s a purist in the purest sense of the word:  “Art for art’s sake”and all that .  Sadly, however, this doesn’t pay the bills.  At least, not right away, that is. Likewise, one of my followers on Twitter [...]

Speaking of metaphors, I have one for my social world. Response Magazine coined me a ’social butterfly.’ (I’ve always been pretty darned gregarious.) So this series of blogs, as well as my new outlook on social marketing revolves around the amazing butterfly. I am inspired by the thought of changing the way I think and do my job of direct marketing, into an ugly “snake-salesman” type of job, to an elegant, free flying insect that pollinates the flowers that make this world a better place to live in…