Last night I received an email from a hotel chain asking me to review a recent stay. I’m a fan of this particular chain, like their properties, and the one I stayed at wasn’t one of their best, so I thought I’d be helpful and answer this survey. Problem is, I never finished. Like to …
Is there a right way to network in social media? I don’t know if there is only one right way, but I’m pretty sure there is at least one wrong way. Let me explain. Over the last week or so I’ve been following a little dust up over in a LinkedIn group I joined. It …
If you’re spending time in the social media space strictly for the joy of conversation, you can skip the rest of this post. BUT if you’re spending time on social networks with the goal of building a tribe of Social Agents that you can activate to grow your business, help a cause you care deeply …
Hiding Some Sort of ‘Proprietary’ Trade Secret? You’re a Fool Do you have a proprietary approach to strategic planning, media planning, brand development or anything else at your agency? Or maybe you have a trademarked, super top-secret-can-only-show-you-during-our-new-business-pitch-meeting process that is proven to make bland brands grow? If you do, you’re not alone. I too remember …
Over the last couple of years I’ve offered up a few thoughts on resolutions your agency should be making to remain competitive in the coming year. Here’s this year’s installment. Continue reading article on AdAge.com >>
...I’ve been lucky enough to have clients for whom I was all in. I lived, breathed and slept their brand, their product and the product category. Continue reading article on AdAge.com >>
...What’s more important for your business right now — creating demand or the desire to demand? If you listen to the social media ROI folks, you’ll hear them beat that demand drum all day and often well into the night. And while I agree with them — ROI is important and you do have to …
What do the AMA, PRSA, IABC and countless other trade groups have in common? They all require volunteers to make them run. For many years now I’ve been a member of the AMA. And like all membership organizations, the value I receive from that membership is directly proportional to the investment I make in it… …
Have you ever thought about how hard it is to sell services? Hotels, banks, law firms, CPAs, software companies, auto repair shops, doctors, hospitals, museums, even schools; they all share an important set of product traits. Each is selling an intangible and/or technically complex service. A service that the consumer can’t touch, experience before hand …
As I’m sitting in Vegas at BlogWorld, I thought I’d share a few ideas on how to get more out of your conference or tradeshow efforts. Mostly, I’m going to give you a few ideas on iPhone apps you may want to consider downloading and a thought about how to be memorable. Because lets face …
I know it’s all PC and cool to say that numbers don’t matter. Number of fans, followers, readers of your blog — none of that matters. It’s all about just writing and sharing great content because that is the core of social media. [dramatic pause while I hug myself] Personally, I disagree. I think it’s …
Last night I had the pleasure of sharing my thoughts around how restaurants can use Social Media to grow their business. I didn’t have much time so the deck was short but the key idea was there. The most powerful marketing tool any restaurant owner has is table hopping — you know when the owner …
On Friday, I had the honor of serving on a WordCampNola Social Media panel with Tiffany Starnes,Damien Lamanna, Robbie Vitrano and moderator Chris Schultz. After the panel, I received a tweet fromPeter Rad asking, to @tommartin #wordcampnola Why do you want your tweets to go to every social site? Why repeat that over and over? Peter had misunderstood a comment I made …
As I showered this morning I couldn’t get the classic Barbra Streisand song, Send in the Clowns, out of my head. Don’t ask. The funny thing was the next image that popped into my head was the heads of Ford, GM and Chrysler sitting in front of Congress being asked about flying private planes to …