All the heavy-hitters of the magazine industry were there: the CEOs of Time, Inc., Meredith Corporation, Hearst Corporation, Conde Nast, OPRAH WINFREY herself.  The place:  The Fairmont Hotel in Chicago.  The occasion: The 2010 American Magazine Conference.  The outlook: sunny, without a cloud in the sky or on the horizon.

Amid their panicked media counterparts in the newspaper and broadcast industries, the magazine folks seem to be the only ones smiling.  How can this be?  With the Internet’s minions — social media, bloggers, free digital news sites – descending upon traditional print media and changing the way we receive and consume their news, drying up the once-lucrative print ad sales numbers and slashing news staffs, the members of the magazine industry have taken a different approach than abject despair:  if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. (more…)

The concept of user generated content (UGC) isn’t new, and it’s everywhere you look: forums, blogs, social media platforms, ecommerce sites, review sites, YouTube, etc., and because of the participatory and transparent nature of social media, this content often takes the form of user reviews and customer feedback.  For many companies that are managing their brands online, the tendency might be to post and respond to only favorable feedback and comments, and remove anything negative.

But negative feedback is perhaps the single most underrated opportunity for reputation management the social web has to offer.  Publishing and responding to negative reviews opens the door for several online marketing opportunities, and by deleting them, you might miss the chance to:  (more…)

After missing last week’s chat on social media measurement for marketing campaigns because I was in Las Vegas for the BlogWorld Expo, I eagerly waited for the #smmeasure chat to begin.  This week’s chat focused on measuring word of mouth campaigns.   Thanks to Garry Przyklenk for taking on co-hosting duties last week with my partner in crime, Sysomos’ Community Manager, Sheldon Levine @sysomos.

#smmeasure chat #13 recap

Many social media folks define word of mouth as “viral”, but that’s just one part of one of the most powerful marketing campaigns.  To clarify what word of mouth marketing is, I asked our community.  If you have any questions, tweet @smmeasure without the #smmeasure hashtag.  Take a look at the full transcript. (more…)

I had high expectations for my first visit to BlogWorld Expo, and the show didn’t disappoint – it was an incredible experience.   If you’re like me, you like to plan your days at a conference as meticulously as possible, e.g., meet up with colleagues in the morning, spend a few minutes at the (Marketwire) booth, ten minutes touring the exhibit hall, head to the first session five minutes early to get a good seat, etc.  I’ll tell you this; nothing went as planned because of all the people I met during the conference.

I will be including full recaps of each session that I attended during the conference on my blog at marketingshindig.com, and the recap below covers some key takeaways from my experience at BlogWorld. (more…)

This was an interesting week in the #smmeasure chat. We kicked it off by looking at different ways companies could leverage social media. It wasn’t long, however, before a lot of guests got into into a debate about the use of social media as a customer service/retention tool. The debate went the entire length of the chat, and though we haven’t added that debate coverage to this week’s recap, it was quite interesting, so I invite you to view it in the full transcript of the chat here.

Here’s this week’s recap:

#smmeasure chat #12 recap (more…)

In this week’s #smmeasure chat, we answer social media measurement questions from our growing community.  And, as always, a shoutout to Sysomos’ Community Manager Sheldon Levine @sysomos for co-hosting the chat with me.

#smmeasure chat #11 recap (more…)

Marketers, PR & IR Professionals, Social Media Managers… at our core, we are all communicators and relationship builders. Today, more than ever before, we benefit from having a variety of means with which to engage our target audiences. That said, multi-channel, multi-party conversations bring to the table as many great opportunities as they do risks. And as if that’s not enough to juggle, our universe functions at warp speed, and often, just when we think we’ve mastered one aspect of what we do, the game changes, and we better change — not just to keep up with the game, but to stay one step ahead.

The question for all of us is:  “How”? (more…)

During each weekly #smmeasure chat, we discuss questions and debate over  some of the best practices for measuring social media.  Because the medium is so new, no one has all the right answers yet.  We saw that last week when I took over for Nick Shin, Marketwire’s social media specialist.  We decided to look into the ideas of trust and reputation management via social media.  While the questions led to some lively debate, we came up with no definitive answers. I would highly recommend that you read through the entire transcript to see all the great ideas that were shared. Here’s some of the chat that went on:

#smmeasure chat #10 recap (more…)

Accidental inventions are everywhere. Some of them have enhanced our daily lives for the better: Coca-Cola, Teflon, Velcro, the microwave, Super Glue, the pacemaker — all stumbled-upon inventions. Add to the list: Facebook.

In February 2004, Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, unintentionally created what would become the busiest social networking site in the world less than a decade later, according to Alexa. With over 500 million users (and growing), the site has become so widespread that even Hollywood has taken note and produced a new movie — “The Social Network” — which chronicles the turbulence surrounding the site’s creation. (more…)

As journalists continue to do more in the online space, some may not be aware of certain tactics that apply to how they should write for it. Now, even the media need to know a thing or two about SEO in order to bring more visibility to their work. Yahoo!’s Julie Wildhaber shares her thoughts and insights on how journalists can maximize online tools to stay competitive in a shape-shifting industry. (more…)