From the category archives:

Social Media

Why I Joined Empire Avenue

April 7, 2011

The short answer? Because Michael Long told me to do it. What Is Empire Avenue? The simplest way I can explain it is this. Empire Avenue is a social media network valuation tool (like Klout but very different) in a game format, similar to the New York Stock Exchange, played with virtual money. Don’t let [...]

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How To Maximize LinkedIn For Your Small Business – Jason Seiden

March 22, 2011

Ladies and gentlemen, it is day 8 of March Marketing Madness and you are in for a real treat today: Jason Seiden. I’ve been following Jason’s blog Fail Spectacularly (don’t you love the name?) for a while and had the great pleasure of meeting my online buddy IRL a couple of weeks ago.  Jason and [...]

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7 Steps to Creating a Small Business Community on Twitter – Kent Huffman

March 20, 2011

When I pause to think about today’s guest marketing expert, I pinch myself for being lucky enough to know him – Kent Huffman. Kent has been featured in Forbes, is a published author and is a wicked-smart marketing guru. Further, if anyone is qualified to tell us about communities on Twitter, it’s Kent. For the [...]

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Stupid Social Media Questions

March 11, 2011

I used to say, “There’s no such thing as a stupid question.” You know what? I was wrong. There are stupid questions. And when it comes to social media, the stupidity abounds. I was at a South by Southwest event in Austin today and heard someone from a major international corporation talk about how her [...]

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5 Ways to Build Your Twitter Influence

January 21, 2011

Anytime someone uses the phrase “social media guru” it cracks me up because really and truly, it’s not that hard to build a strong following online. You don’t have to be a guru and it certainly doesn’t require 10,000 hours of mastery. You must, however, understand that building influence online is about building relationships. You’re [...]

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Social Media The Gateway Drug

November 15, 2010

I drive some people crazy with all my talk about social media. I know I do and that’s okay. It’s okay because when I am “evangelizing” people about social media, that’s really not the message I’m trying to spread. There is a bigger message, a more urgent message that all business owners need to heed: [...]

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My Blogging Ethical Dilemma

August 23, 2010

I haven’t written a blog post in three weeks. I’ve tried. I’ve sat in front of my computer screen almost every day and attempted to come up with something meaningful, smart and witty. But it didn’t happen. So I decided to stop trying so I could figure out what was going on and I realized [...]

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5 Ways I Won With Twitter

June 1, 2010

I recently did a revenue analysis for 2009 and discovered something. Almost 80% of my revenue from that year can be linked directly back to Twitter. Since my last post, I’ve been asked how I’ve made Twitter work for my business. Honestly, that question makes me uncomfortable because I am not a Twitter expert; I [...]

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5 Reasons You Don’t Need To Cold Call Me

May 24, 2010

Caveat – I believe in relationship- based sales. If that’s not how you work, this post may not be helpful to you. Something extraordinary happened the other day. Someone cold-called me! It was such a shock that I had to think hard about the last time it happened and I realized it had been months. [...]

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March Marketing Madness Featuring Tim Hayden

April 2, 2010

If you don’t know Tim Hayden, you should. I met Tim at South by Southwest Interactive last month at an excellent social media seminar which you can read about here. Tim hosted the event and spoke. After spending some time with him, learning about his vision for the future of social media I knew I [...]

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March Marketing Madness Featuring Kent Huffman

March 29, 2010

Welcome to March Marketing Madness! This week you will have the opportunity to hear from marketing experts around the country via guest blog posts on Sanera. Our first guest blogger is Kent Huffman, and believe me, when it comes to marketing, he knows what he’s talking about. Kent led the global marketing communications team at [...]

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The Next Social Media Revolution

March 15, 2010

Forgive the long post intended for social media geeks like me. There is a second revolution coming in social media. In its early stages, social media was the revolution in and of itself. From a business perspective, social media was about establishing better means of communication and connection with customers. “Find them where they are.” [...]

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You Get What You Pay For

February 1, 2010

Would you pay someone $2.25 for an “authentic” Rolex watch that typically costs $100,000+? Then why do we do this very thing in business? We work with vendors and expect to get a $5,000 product for $800. I understand; money is always tight in small businesses. To survive, we typically look for the best deals [...]

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The Cure For A 2010 Business Hangover

November 30, 2009

Wow. I looked at the calendar today and realized something. There are less than five weeks until 2010. This lit a fire under me! I don’t want to wake up January 1st with a ten page to do list.  I want to celebrate January 1st with my favorite cup of coffee, a filled appointment book, [...]

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I’m OK, You’re OK: Social Media Self-Esteem

November 16, 2009

Just when we thought we’d found our place in the business world and our community and gotten comfortable in our own skin, along came Social Media. Suddenly, it’s time for a high-school flashback. Instead of worrying about making the cheerleader squad or debate team, we’re obsessing over follower and friend counts. Rather than worry if [...]

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Is Honesty The New Authentic

October 5, 2009

How many times have you heard the word “authenticity” in the last seven days? If you are online or went to any of the social media/tech conferences last week, I bet you heard it a bunch. The messages “be yourself”and “be authentic” are the mantras, of social media evangelists. It is the 2.0 way of [...]

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Is Your Picture Worth A Thousand Hits

September 2, 2009

I was on an excellent conference call Monday with Bill Boorman. The topic was, “how to get noticed in social media.” When I was asked what causes me to pay attention to someone on Twitter, my response was “the picture.” I’m not certain that answer went over well; perhaps everyone was expecting something a bit [...]

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Why Not

August 3, 2009

The Power of “Why not?” Who would have thought that two simple words, when phrased as a question could contain so much power. Many courageous people asked themselves this question (most likely in the face of resistance) and the world has not been the same since. Think about these statements and the passion with which [...]

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Tools Twitter And Foundations

July 22, 2009

I had the opportunity to attend the San Antonio Tweet Camp last Saturday. What a great experience! We had people from Austin, Corpus Christi and even Houston attend. If you click on this link, you’ll find expert sessions from Michael Long (aka The Red Recruiter) and more. One of my favorite presenters was Colleen Pence [...]

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Ten Reasons NOT to Use Social Media

July 7, 2009

Are the leaders at your company resistant to using social media? You’re not alone. In fact, it is a trend. Business leaders should be asking legitimate questions about cost of implementation, how to handle the time commitment, what to do if they are in a heavily regulated industry and who should represent them online. Let’s [...]

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