Category: Strategy

  • Understanding and Evaluating Google+

    Are there “right” and “wrong” ways to use Google+? There are right and wrong ways to use any tool. You can, for example, use a jackhammer to tenderize a steak. The result might be different, but if you’re especially skilled with it, it might work. Ultimately, the tool is theoretically capable of performing the action…

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  • Disclaimers, cautionary tales, and warnings

    Adele McAlear noted with surprise that I endorse the use of TweetAdder, mentioning on Twitter that most of their promotional stuff encourages practices that I don’t endorse and in some cases explicitly oppose. She’s right, which begs the question, why do I endorse it? TweetAdder does what I want it to do, which is maintain…

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  • Building Your Digital Content Marketing Ladder

    In order to reach the goals you’ve set for yourself as a company, as a marketer, as a brand, you need a way to get to them, a path that helps you understand what you should be doing next. Rather than just do stuff haphazardly or because everyone else is doing it, take a few…

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  • How to beat social media lock-in

    Mark Zuckerberg, at yesterday’s Facebook event, announced to the world that the metric that matters to him is sharing, not raw numbers of users. The words coming out of his mouth certainly don’t match the actions of his company. Consider the recent move to block the Facebook Friend Export extension for Google Chrome. Don’t believe…

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  • How to distill content curation for real impact

    How do you cope with the flood of information that swamps your inbox, blog reader, and mobile device every day? How do you find and isolate all the good stuff, separate the wheat from the chaff, and use the information you’re receiving to actually move the needle? The same way that you get the good…

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  • Social media now directly influences search rankings

    In a recent stunning article, SEOMoz highlighted that Google’s search results are now being adjusted on a per-person basis depending on the searcher’s social connections. If you follow me on Twitter and then search for email marketing, Blue Sky Factory will rank higher than it would if you didn’t follow me on Twitter, because I…

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  • Anatomy of a book launch

    On Monday, June 13, I launched my new book, Marketing White Belt: Basics for Digital Marketers, with a series of campaigns. I thought I’d share what was done and what the net effects were. Obviously, first I had to write and publish the book. I went with the Kindle and Nook platforms because very little…

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  • Grab my new book, Marketing White Belt

    Have you had people ask you how to get started in digital marketing? Are you working with social media practitioners who lack a firm grounding in the basics of marketing? I’m pleased to announce my first book, Marketing White Belt: Basics for the Digital Marketer, is available right now in the Amazon store and at…

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  • Do Auto-DMs Work?

    Some people love them, some people hate them (rather like popups, right?). But the question isn’t whether or not you like them, the question is, do they work for generating any kind of traffic or attention? The answer is… let’s test! You see, as much as I may have an opinion on any given marketing…

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  • The nuances of strategy

    One of the topics discussed at the recent MARCOM forum which there was great confusion about was the entire concept of marketing strategy. Marketers are genuinely confused at this point about strategy from a company perspective vs. strategy for specific marketing objectives. Are they the same? Yes and no. The reason there’s so much confusion…

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