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I was outed a few months ago by a fellow “influencer” in the digital space (if you can call me that). I’d committed a mortal sin by his estimation. He was “devastated” and “disappointed.” He did it publicly. He shamed me. I unsubscribed from his newsletter. Never mind I subscribe to his blog via RSS […]

There’s a new all-in-one web tool out there for small businesses and it surfaces a lot of interesting features that can make digital easier. Mind you, it’s not an easy button …  you still have to provide content and use the tool adequately, but it’s a start. Holonis offers an interesting digital content and social management system […]

A friend has a problem with her boss. He feels threatened by her. She’s smarter, more hip to technology and has brought the company substantial business. She’s in line for a big promotion that would likely put her on his level and he hates it. He has no plans to better himself by learning technology […]

My wife turned to me Sunday and said, “I just got an email marketing thing that actually caught my attention.” I love it when she talks nerdy to me. Heh. Apparently Nancy signed up for the email newsletter for a local restaurant she visited last week. On Sunday morning, she received her first email from […]

My cousin Mark and I had dinner last night. He is a nurse educator for a medical supply distributor and wanted to, “pick my brain,” about social media. He’s convinced his boss that social media is a good opportunity for them to connect with their target audiences mostly because their competition isn’t. Because he’s new […]

The first national speaking opportunity I was offered was to spread the word that PR spam was partially the fault of the media database companies, like Cision and Vocus, who were making blogger and media member contact information readily available. The companies responded, strengthening their offerings. But there’s still a lot to be desired. Last […]

My friend Susan Dunlap shot me an email last week and asked the following: Wondering if you have an opinion of Digital Media and Marketing certificate programs. NYU offers one, and the course descriptions look relevant, timely and career-bending (sps.nyu.edu/summerce). Duke offers one, too — a path leading to OMCP certification. Since this is a question […]

The question occasionally comes up, “When are you coming out with a new book?” The answer is not soon. In fact, though I have a few concepts I’ve batted around, I am not working on a new book, nor do I have much interest in doing so. The marketing book landscape is much like the […]

Receiving random gifts in the mail does not suck. Last week, I was the recipient of a six pack of gourmet root beer. Who knew there was such a thing? It was from a company called SharpSpring. They were trying to get my attention to demo their marketing automation software on behalf of Elasticity. The […]

Hootsuite, Tweetdeck and Sprout Social are the three social media management solutions that appear atop the G2Crowd list of solutions for the spring of 2015. These three tools fall into the category of “Leader” according to the upstart review site. The newest rankings and report are based on over 600 user reviews of 14 different […]

The lines between paid and earned media continue to blur. Online influencers and bloggers, unlike traditionally trained media, realize their content and access to their audience is worth money. So when a public relations person reaches out, many more are responding with, “Here’s my fee.” Certainly, there are still many content providers, journalists, bloggers and […]

So Meerkat is the big SXSW rage this year. The service, which allows you to quickly live stream video, then conveniently pushes the video link to your Twitter followers, does have some appeal in our “look at me” society. Instead of rambling on about it in writing, here are some initial thoughts recorded in one […]