Image - Veer

This has been one of those long weeks. Started off promising but really dragged on, maybe it was the rain, maybe it was the boring events on the Olympics, who knows. It just dragged. The end of the week was kind of busy with a Tweet chat set for Vistaprint and the #Soxup for Steve Garfield’s book launch and now it’s only a few more hours until the weekend. So without further ranting, here’s this week’s edition of Five for Friday.

A CMO’s guide to the social media landscape – the title speaks for itself, but it is a nice one-page sheet that you can print out for that executive who is still wondering what the heck a Tweet, Digg or YouTube is. You know you have one up there. The sheet also goes into a color-coded break done of each service in terms of customer communication, brand exposure, traffic to your site and SEO.

Social media needs accountability – a lot has been written about all of the variables in social media and how X is hard and Z, well let’s not discuss Z. There have also been a number of articles written on theories. This piece goes into one word that needs to be in every SM practitioner’s tool belt – accountability.

Think traditional media is on the online ropes? Think again. – This is an interesting piece from Jason Falls that looks into the hard numbers (from compete.com) on popular local blogs compared to the traditional media outlets. The numbers here will surprise you.

A fresh pitch on ‘U’ tube – Tufts University has taken innovation and creativity into their admissions process. Students are now encouraged to send videos in along with their applications about themselves. This concept is especially welcoming for those kids who stink on standardized tests.

Do you know your customers enough to be a social media hit? – This is a great question to draw you into an article. It is also something that companies should consider when jumping in without swimmies on. Perhaps the more interesting concept was in the article’s example of ThinkGeek:

ThinkGeek has separated their Twitter messaging into TWO feeds – one designed to sell stuff (which is hilariously called  @thinkgeekspam and posts updates about products and promotions) and one which posts all sorts of geek trivia and responses to fan questions and comments, called  @thinkgeek.

According to Jamie Grove, the company’s Director of Evil Schemes and Nefarious Plans (i.e. Marketing), ThinkGeek is “all about serving our community. Our social media activities live in our customer retention sphere, not customer acquisition – because the minute it’s in customer acquisition, it changes the nature of the conversation.”

In honor of the Olympics, here’s some U–S–A love

Image - Veer

This has been one of those long weeks. Started off promising but really dragged on, maybe it was the rain, maybe it was the boring events on the Olympics, who knows. It just dragged. The end of the week was kind of busy with a Tweet chat set for Vistaprint and the #Soxup for Steve Garfield’s book launch and now it’s only a few more hours until the weekend. So without further ranting, here’s this week’s edition of Five for Friday.

A CMO’s guide to the social media landscape – the title speaks for itself, but it is a nice one-page sheet that you can print out for that executive who is still wondering what the heck a Tweet, Digg or YouTube is. You know you have one up there. The sheet also goes into a color-coded break done of each service in terms of customer communication, brand exposure, traffic to your site and SEO.

Social media needs accountability – a lot has been written about all of the variables in social media and how X is hard and Z, well let’s not discuss Z. There have also been a number of articles written on theories. This piece goes into one word that needs to be in every SM practitioner’s tool belt – accountability.

Think traditional media is on the online ropes? Think again. – This is an interesting piece from Jason Falls that looks into the hard numbers (from compete.com) on popular local blogs compared to the traditional media outlets. The numbers here will surprise you.

A fresh pitch on ‘U’ tube – Tufts University has taken innovation and creativity into their admissions process. Students are now encouraged to send videos in along with their applications about themselves. This concept is especially welcoming for those kids who stink on standardized tests.

Do you know your customers enough to be a social media hit? – This is a great question to draw you into an article. It is also something that companies should consider when jumping in without swimmies on. Perhaps the more interesting concept was in the article’s example of ThinkGeek:

ThinkGeek has separated their Twitter messaging into TWO feeds – one designed to sell stuff (which is hilariously called  @thinkgeekspam and posts updates about products and promotions) and one which posts all sorts of geek trivia and responses to fan questions and comments, called  @thinkgeek.

According to Jamie Grove, the company’s Director of Evil Schemes and Nefarious Plans (i.e. Marketing), ThinkGeek is “all about serving our community. Our social media activities live in our customer retention sphere, not customer acquisition – because the minute it’s in customer acquisition, it changes the nature of the conversation.”

In honor of the Olympics, here’s some U–S–A love

Image - Veer

This has been one of those long weeks. Started off promising but really dragged on, maybe it was the rain, maybe it was the boring events on the Olympics, who knows. It just dragged. The end of the week was kind of busy with a Tweet chat set for Vistaprint and the #Soxup for Steve Garfield’s book launch and now it’s only a few more hours until the weekend. So without further ranting, here’s this week’s edition of Five for Friday.

A CMO’s guide to the social media landscape – the title speaks for itself, but it is a nice one-page sheet that you can print out for that executive who is still wondering what the heck a Tweet, Digg or YouTube is. You know you have one up there. The sheet also goes into a color-coded break done of each service in terms of customer communication, brand exposure, traffic to your site and SEO.

Social media needs accountability – a lot has been written about all of the variables in social media and how X is hard and Z, well let’s not discuss Z. There have also been a number of articles written on theories. This piece goes into one word that needs to be in every SM practitioner’s tool belt – accountability.

Think traditional media is on the online ropes? Think again. – This is an interesting piece from Jason Falls that looks into the hard numbers (from compete.com) on popular local blogs compared to the traditional media outlets. The numbers here will surprise you.

A fresh pitch on ‘U’ tube – Tufts University has taken innovation and creativity into their admissions process. Students are now encouraged to send videos in along with their applications about themselves. This concept is especially welcoming for those kids who stink on standardized tests.

Do you know your customers enough to be a social media hit? – This is a great question to draw you into an article. It is also something that companies should consider when jumping in without swimmies on. Perhaps the more interesting concept was in the article’s example of ThinkGeek:

ThinkGeek has separated their Twitter messaging into TWO feeds – one designed to sell stuff (which is hilariously called  @thinkgeekspam and posts updates about products and promotions) and one which posts all sorts of geek trivia and responses to fan questions and comments, called  @thinkgeek.

According to Jamie Grove, the company’s Director of Evil Schemes and Nefarious Plans (i.e. Marketing), ThinkGeek is “all about serving our community. Our social media activities live in our customer retention sphere, not customer acquisition – because the minute it’s in customer acquisition, it changes the nature of the conversation.”

In honor of the Olympics, here’s some U–S–A love

Image - Veer

This has been one of those long weeks. Started off promising but really dragged on, maybe it was the rain, maybe it was the boring events on the Olympics, who knows. It just dragged. The end of the week was kind of busy with a Tweet chat set for Vistaprint and the #Soxup for Steve Garfield’s book launch and now it’s only a few more hours until the weekend. So without further ranting, here’s this week’s edition of Five for Friday.

A CMO’s guide to the social media landscape – the title speaks for itself, but it is a nice one-page sheet that you can print out for that executive who is still wondering what the heck a Tweet, Digg or YouTube is. You know you have one up there. The sheet also goes into a color-coded break done of each service in terms of customer communication, brand exposure, traffic to your site and SEO.

Social media needs accountability – a lot has been written about all of the variables in social media and how X is hard and Z, well let’s not discuss Z. There have also been a number of articles written on theories. This piece goes into one word that needs to be in every SM practitioner’s tool belt – accountability.

Think traditional media is on the online ropes? Think again. – This is an interesting piece from Jason Falls that looks into the hard numbers (from compete.com) on popular local blogs compared to the traditional media outlets. The numbers here will surprise you.

A fresh pitch on ‘U’ tube – Tufts University has taken innovation and creativity into their admissions process. Students are now encouraged to send videos in along with their applications about themselves. This concept is especially welcoming for those kids who stink on standardized tests.

Do you know your customers enough to be a social media hit? – This is a great question to draw you into an article. It is also something that companies should consider when jumping in without swimmies on. Perhaps the more interesting concept was in the article’s example of ThinkGeek:

ThinkGeek has separated their Twitter messaging into TWO feeds – one designed to sell stuff (which is hilariously called  @thinkgeekspam and posts updates about products and promotions) and one which posts all sorts of geek trivia and responses to fan questions and comments, called  @thinkgeek.

According to Jamie Grove, the company’s Director of Evil Schemes and Nefarious Plans (i.e. Marketing), ThinkGeek is “all about serving our community. Our social media activities live in our customer retention sphere, not customer acquisition – because the minute it’s in customer acquisition, it changes the nature of the conversation.”

In honor of the Olympics, here’s some U–S–A love