If you grew up in the late 80s or 90s, there’s a good chance you encountered many of these problems. 1. Your younger brother cut the tags off your favorite Beanie Babies. If you were anything like me, you hoarded Beanie Babies in the late 90s. I kept all the tags on and even bought trader magazines that told me exactly what each beanie baby was worth. I was convinced that I would be able...
6 Creative Ways To Use Snapchat
Did you know? Every minute 104,000 pictures are shared on Snapchat. To be honest, I didn’t realize just how big Snapchat had gotten, until I saw this stat and investigated this new social phenomenon further myself. Admittedly, I was conditioned to blow off Snapchat as just another way for those young kids to share selfies and sexts. While there is certainly some of that, the whole premise...
The Biggest Problem Plaguing Many Online Communities (and why I hate Match.com)
For anybody who has been following me for awhile on Twitter, you have probably seen one of my rants about my experience on online dating sites. Sifting through one crappy dating profile after another gets old really fast. Then, sprinkle in dozens of creepy messages from guys, who are old enough to be father, and it’s enough to make me question my decision to jump on Match in the first place...
Three Must-Read Books For All Community Managers
With just about every “social media guru” getting a book deal these days, it can be hard to filter out the business awesome from the marketing duds. In the past few months, I’ve been on a quest to read and devour the best of the best business books. From community management tips to social media best practices and digital analytics, here are three of my absolute must-reads...
Three Early Career Lessons From Legends of The Hidden Temple
How Young Pros Can Piece Together Their Own “Shrine of the Silver Monkey?” The first few years after graduating from college can be a daunting time for anyone. It’s a time of defining (sometimes scary) life decisions. Job searching, navigating that all important first job, and maybe moving to a new city and finding new friends. Each of us handles this unsettling time a little...
The Future Of Content Marketing
When Scott Monty, Gary Vaynerchuk and C.C. Chapman, three of the best and brightest minds of our industry (people who I respect to an umpteenth most degree), get into a Twitter debate on the future of content marketing, you better believe I would be paying attention. If you haven’t already, I would highly recommend reading their full exchanges. Here’s Gary’s second video. And, I...
My No BS Advice For 2013 College Grads
Here’s a dirty little secret. Your college degree doesn’t matter. It’s just a piece of paper that you spent thousands- if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition money- to get after walking across that big shiny stage. Your college classes, college major and that shiny piece of paper with your name on it (ie. diploma) don’t define you. Anyone can learn how to...
What Makes A Great Conference?
I’ve always had two views of conferences. They are either really good for networking and getting the pulse for the community or they are focused on actionable takeaways with insightful examples. I have never seen a conference master both really well. Until I went to Userconf in NYC last week. For those who aren’t aware, Userconf is a conference entirely around customer support...
Is The “Social Media Kool-Aid” Running Out?
Will 2013 be the year social media pros stop drinking the kool-aid? I recently read a great post from John Trader on PR Breakfast Club on this very topic. John(@john_trader1) wrote: “2013 is the year that we start to think about the unique qualities that define our own markets and how we can leverage industry advice based on custom metrics that drive meaningful analytics instead of a knee...
QR Codes: The Biggest Missed Opportunity?
When’s the last time you scanned a QR Code? I’m guessing for many of you, it’s probably been at least a few months. For many marketers, advertisers and PR pros, QR codes were (and in some cases still are) the shiny object that was supposed to help bridge the offline and online world. It sounds perfect. For example, X ad agency creates an ad outside a local mall. Then, people...