I’m four pages into this week’s Advertising Age (billed as “The Agency Issue”) and the cover story, How to save the troubled agency-marketer relationship, has a sidebar from Kimberly-Clark CMO Tony Palmer. Second in his list of  the “five pain points in the marketer-agency bond” is the fact that agencies and marketers have not found [...]

So, I just came across this question posted in a LinkedIn Internet Marketing group for everyone to see: “Obviously we use LinkedIn. Why would you use Facebook? Do you use both? Which do you prefer, under what circumstances and why?” I’ll assume this question was rhetorical, posted for the sole purpose of stimulating conversation. Or [...]

Recently there has been a large social media push within the world of marketing. Companies are flocking to Facebook and Twitter trying to interact with their customers where they reside, virtually speaking. They are doing this and doing it for great reasons. They can provide customer service, repair damaged company image, gain useful knowledge about [...]

In case there’s still anyone out there who believes social media/social networking is: a fad for kids for B2C, not B2B instead of a pervasive shift in how all people communicate with each other, now comes yet another eMarketer report, Social Network Ad Spending: 2010 Outlook , that should put those beliefs out to pasture. [...]

As I’ve written about previously, I’m speaking at Blog Indiana this year. I’m very excited about attending this year’s conference. Last year was very imformative and a fantastic experience. I plan to blog here about my experiences at the conference. So, stay tuned for pictures, tweets and more. Check out my latest tweets in the [...]

One of my very favorite tools is a Firefox add-on from Userscripts.org called Twitter Search Results on Google. As the name implies, you enter a search-term in Google and the resulting SERP displays the most recent 5 tweets for that query, giving both real-time Twitter search results and Google results on the same page. You [...]

This past Tuesday I had the opportunity to participate in a social media bootcamp for Tourism industry professionals based in the State of Indiana that took place in Indianapolis at the Eiteljorg Musem. It was an interesting and illuminating event. Jeremy Williams and the great folks over at Visit Indiana has been spearheading some great [...]

I wanted to let everyone know about a great blogging and social media conference taking place next month in Indianapolis called Blog Indiana. I’ll be attending the conference and I’ll speaking about Blogging Platforms. Blog Indiana is a statewide conference featuring the best bloggers from all around Indiana. The goal of the conference is to [...]

One of my colleagues, Rene Ryan, called my attention to a blog post on BusinessBytes, a small business technology blog. The Death of the Elevator Pitch highlights the fact that the “elevator pitch”–the supposedly succinct description of a business offering that marketers could use to entice a prospect when time was tight–is on its last [...]

Below is a great slideshow from Bud Caddell, a strategist at Undercurrent. It makes a strong case for relationship marketing with the ideas that: there is no such thing as a captive audience, and “fans” (not awareness) are the only thing you should be focused on, especially in a recession. In order to be fan-focused, [...]