Although it is always important to look for trends changing between demographics, be cautious of determining your entire marketing strategy based on a stereotypical view of a group.  Generation Z, made up of children born after 1992, is highly influential but may lead your marketing decisions astray. For example, one view of this market states [ … ]

Google’s Farmer Update (officially called: Panda Update) at the end of February forced a lot of content producing Web properties to take a closer look at their model and how it fit into Google’s new algorithm — aimed at improving quality. Content farms such as howtodothings.com and mahalo.com, both known for churning out poorly written [ … ]

Google’s Farmer Update (officially called: Panda Update) at the end of February forced a lot of content producing Web properties to take a closer look at their model and how it fit into Google’s new algorithm — aimed at improving quality. Content farms such as howtodothings.com and mahalo.com, both known for churning out poorly written [ … ]

Guest Written by Chris Gregoire Every year, I can guarantee a certain discussion happens at my inlaw’s Thanksgiving dinner, between a couple of my sister-in-laws and my wife.  Does this sound familiar to anyone else? “So you want to leave here at 5:00?”“No, I want to get there at 5:00.  We’ll have to leave here [ … ]

For those who do not really understand the concept of guerrilla marketing, here is the definition from Wikipedia: The concept of guerrilla marketing was invented as an unconventional system of promotions that relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget. Typically, guerrilla marketing campaigns are unexpected and unconventional, potentially interactive, and [ … ]

 Twitter exploded on Thursday afternoon, with the trending tweet of GoDaddy CEO.  This was based on a video of Bob Parsons, the CEO of GoDaddy.com shooting a an elephant in Zimbabwe.  Time.com had the highest Top tweet, stating “Shoots an elephant for a good cause. Too bad he’s wrong” with a link to their article. [ … ]

Last night, while watching television, I saw an ad for Old Navy that caught my attention.  I was so used to seeing the Super Mannequins, when a music video came on, I assumed it was for a different product.  Instead, it was Old Navy, completely redoing its current marketing strategy. This alone would not have [ … ]

About once a month or so, an article comes across my desk regarding a company that has put faith in a social media channel and not had overwhelming success.  Not a month can go by without someone handing me or emailing me an article about how even though the Facebook campaign got lots of attention, [ … ]

I remember years ago, before there were smartphones, visiting a doctor’s office, and grabbing a magazine.  I had about 15 minutes of wait time, and although the chair looked like it had some padding, I believe it was simply an elaborate paint job, that gave the appearance of a cushion, when in reality it was [ … ]

I remember years ago, before there were smartphones, visiting a doctor’s office, and grabbing a magazine.  I had about 15 minutes of wait time, and although the chair looked like it had some padding, I believe it was simply an elaborate paint job, that gave the appearance of a cushion, when in reality it was [ … ]

Foursquare, Facebook Places, and GoWalla are great for letting people know where you are, right at that moment, or where you’ve been.  The next generation Geo Social Tools will enable you to know where you are going. There are several new applications out currently that small businesses need to hone in on, sooner rather than [ … ]

According to Bloomberg, Facebook will soon be rolling out a new test service that will allow consumers to buy discounted, one-time offers similar to the services offered by Groupon. Groupon does this via email, which means that it is a one on one conversation between the consumer and Groupon if the customer chooses to take [ … ]

Companies use social media to promote their businesses in several different ways.  Some use it to create customer loyalty, and provide promotions to their customer base.  Some use it to show a more “personal” side to their business, by showing they care about the world around them by offering support to the community.  Others use [ … ]

Do not buy into the hype, and believe for an instant that “Print Ads are dead.” When there are no longer newspapers, magazines, billboards, or paper and ink left in the entire world, print will be dead.  Maybe.  Until then, print is very much alive.  If you think print media is dead, chances are you [ … ]

Pick the item that can have your page shut down on Facebook: Enter everyone that likes your page automatically into a giveaway for a free oil change. Notify your winner by a wall post, saying “Congratulations Mr. Smith, you won a free oil change!” Have people post a status update of “My auto dealer rules!” [ … ]

We often give you advice on this blog, on how to better your social media presence, your SEO, and other marketing ideas. Today, we’re going to give you a different type of advice: Financial! Okay, maybe that’s not entirely true. We did want to share this video that we put together for Webster First Federal [ … ]

Dead? No. Evolving? You betcha. Last week Google launched an upgrade to its search engine, adding social results for users signed in with their Google accounts. In addition to traditional website search results, searchers will start seeing results from their friends on Twitter, Blogger, Flickr, LinkedIn, etc. Where’s Facebook? Facebook won’t give access to its social [ … ]

After you read this blog, type the letters “PRE” into Google today, and see what pops up as suggestions. You will see President’s Day, and President’s Day 2011. Google’s suggestions change based on what people are currently searching for, and so it is a safe bet that if you do the same experiment in June, [ … ]

There are lots of books out there to learn how to build a social media site.  Unfortunately, the majority of them are written for large companies.  It seems like they all start with the same steps: Go, and listen to what is already being said about your company on the social web. Chart what people [ … ]

There is an overwhelming amount of information floating out there in cyberspace regarding how to grow your Facebook page.  A lot of this information is extremely repetitive and mostly common sense.  Of course you want to promote your Facebook page via print material displayed at your location and in your printed ads.  Obviously, you are [ … ]