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That is a familiar image, isn't it? The well-traveled, world-weary suitcase, littered with stickers from places visited from Alaska to Zimbabwe. The trusty suitcase that is lugged from state to state and country to country: it may be battered and bruised, but it serves its owner well as they globe-trot across the world.

I used to be envious of the owners of those suitcases. That image motivated me to have my own beat-up, decorated travel companion to visit far off places with.

I have been living outside of America for almost nine years now. I lived in Sydney, Australia for just under five years...

In today’s digital era, brands are trying everything to stand out from the crowd. With more channels, more users and more campaigns than ever before, breaking through the white noise is becoming even more difficult. There is no special formula, process or social media "expert" that can guarantee success when it comes to these efforts. For Dick’s Sporting Goods, they have found a way.

@DICKS simply asked, “What do you #RunFor?” It seems like a simple enough question. And then you think about it. Running is hard work. It can be painful. There’s rarely a tangible reward at the end of a run. So,...

Over the next several weeks, I will be publishing a series of posts about the basics of social media. These aren’t in any specific order, but if followed they will help you to monitor and respond to your fans and followers effectively. The posts in this series will be:

• Do Not Delete
• Remember, You’re Talking to People
• What’s the Reason for Your Social Media Presence?
• Your Customers are Talking. Listen to Them!

Do Not Delete
You might be tempted to delete negative posts from your Twitter and Facebook feed, but don't do it! It might seem counter intuitive, especially if you have a plethora of negative...

Facebook poses unique opportunities—and challenges—for marketers. It’s an inherently social channel where consumers are open to interacting with brands. But because consumers typically think of Facebook as their “personal” space, marketers have to tread lightly with hard-sell messages.

To complicate this balancing act further, consumers have a variety of reasons for “liking” a brand. Overall, however, consumers’ top reasons for becoming Facebook fans are similar to their reasons for subscribing to email. These statistics from ExactTarget's 2013 Global Executive Summary tell the story:

• For...

Andrea Vahl (@AndreaVahl) wrote a great blog post about How Your Business Can Use the New Facebook Cover Photos. While she goes into much more depth, the two primary items to keep in mind are 1) cover photos may not include more than 20% text, and 2) cover photos are no longer disallowed to incorporate calls to action, websites, or address information.

Marketers should definitely keep #1 in mind to ensure they don’t go through official Facebook reviews like I mentioned in my last blog post. Meanwhile, #2 provides some great new opportunities in taking advantage of your Facebook presence.  Even...

In the month of May, the entire city of Indianapolis is taken over by “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” – The Indianapolis 500. And for one weekend each year, this historic race captures the country’s attention. That short span of attention is the perfect opportunity for the sport to capitalize. In the digital era, the Greatest Spectacle in Racing becomes the greatest spectacle in social media.

In years past, the “500” – a race so famous it can be called by a number – has been criticized for its lack of enthusiasm around the social media arena. For an event this big, with so much attention...

Is your brand on every social media platform under the sun yet mastering engagement in none?

The virtues of having a social media presence are blindingly obvious. After all, what brand wouldn’t want to connect with their customers, build brand reputation and ultimately increase sales? But all too often this desire to engage online gets side-tracked and you find yourself staring down the barrel of multiple social media profiles with no notifications. So how can you optimise your efforts on social media and increase engagement with fans and followers?

Let’s take a look at some best practice...

Facebook has long had Page Policies in place with rules that govern page management and provide legal coverage for Facebook regarding contests and promotions. However, the social media giant is now taking stronger and more proactive steps toward enforcing these guidelines.

The process:

1. If a Page is triggered by the Facebook system, it will be put through a checkpoint until released again.
2. During the checkpoint phase, page management tokens will temporarily expire.
3. Once the Page is released, the same exact page management token will be released and everything should go back to normal.

So, what are...

David Cowling from Socialmedianews.com.au has released his Social media Statistics Report recently and the numbers are interesting.

The ten most popular networks in Australia are as follows:

Google+ was in 11^th position, with approximately 340 000 users.

The key take away from these...

What are you doing with your Facebook presence right now? While many companies are spending big dollars and lots of time on results-driven social media marketing, many others are doing nothing.

Fortunately, there are strategies you can employ to drive results regardless of the time and resources you have on hand. 

1. Good
   Passive List Growth: Create a new Facebook Tab where Facebook users can sign up to receive your email campaigns. You won’t see a hockey-stick growth curve on Day 1, but this is a super easy, cost-effective way to increase email subscriptions and improve results in the email...

As a marketer, it's your job to keep up with new technologies that can help drive your business forward. With social media, it can be a challenge to keep up with the changing landscape that includes Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Tumblr, Reddit, Flickr, and more every day!

And what's worse, most social media teams are still very small. Even some of the largest brands in the world have surprisingly small and very busy teams. From our experience, the most successful brands focus on one or two networks that best suit their audience. Let's look at the 2012 Edison Survey Data and summary...

Want some advice on how to deal with those complainers on Facebook and Twitter? I recently wrote an article for Marketing Profs on this very topic!

For every complaint expressed, studies indicate that more than 25 go unregistered. Rather than complain, the vast majority of those dissatisfied customers simply take their business elsewhere. And the millions (or billions) of lost revenue are rarely recovered. But for those who do complain, there is no one right way to respond because every situation is unique. Instead, it's important to look at different complainer personas and react accordingly.

So...

Hashtags have been used in various social media channels for years. Many chat sites have used hashtags for years but Twitter was the first mainstream social network to use the hashtag in August 2007. Google+, Pinterest and Instagram have since followed suit, making the hastag ubiquitous with social media. Now, news of Facebook looking to introduce hashtags has surfaced.

This means that marketers will be able to use a common hashtag across social networks and plug into real-time events and conversations on Facebook, as they do with Twitter today. It will also make it much easier to categorise...

This month, Facebook announced that it would prioritize comments based on their quality and relevancy. This means that the most active and popular comments will appear at the top of all posts, allowing marketers and community managers to respond to the most engaged users.

As a Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer (PMD), we will have access to the API so that we can support this new feature in SocialEngage. The product team is thinking through user experience scenarios to ensure you have the best experience when the API is finally released.

The algorithm seems really interesting. Essentially,...

In the digital industry, it’s easy to talk about the fall of traditional advertising. While these sources certainly aren’t disappearing forever as many like to suggest, they are most certainly evolving. The Associated Press has long been linked with the print industry. The nonprofit news agency that has worked to fill newspapers is now adapting to the new digital world. In an ironic twist, this longtime print powerhouse is now asking: Are You Adapting?

This video points to the 2012 London Olympics as the tipping point in the sporting world’s digital evolution. We may not have noticed it while...

It’s March, and we know what that means. It’s time for some Madness. Teams around the country have started punching their tickets to the tournament and several more will do so throughout this week/weekend before the final field is announced Sunday evening. It’s a time of year when college basketball captures the imagination of the country, brackets are filled out, brackets are busted, and fans everywhere are tuning in to witness shining moments.

For many fans, that means watching more than one game at a time. Whether that happens at a sports bar, your home, at work (I would never), or just...

As we continue to see shifts in the way consumers access online content, Facebook is optimizing viewers' mobile experience with its latest UI update. Facebook made an announcement on Thursday regarding one pivotal feature, the News Feed. Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook would be making a “substantial redesign” of the News Feed, starting with a new look and feel.

The News Feed provides users with the most relevant content based on algorithms. This change will not alter any of those algorithms. Instead, the redesign will focus on more visuals and bigger links to articles—making it easier to see...

Interactive marketing isn't for everyone. Today's marketers are like modern space explorers: boldly going where few consumers have gone before, setting up new accounts on uncharted social networks, establishing a brand "colony" there, and then attempting to develop a flourishing digital civilization.

Facebook is one of these digital "settlements" that is now successfully inhabited by large numbers of both consumers and marketers. It's a great channel for experiementing, delivering entertaining messages, and trying out new strategies. But do consumers and marketers behave the same on Facebook?...

Organisations have been using social media for a long time now. The focus seems to be on pushing content out to the audience and expecting them to consume. But how often do you consume the content that your customers are sending to you and act on it?

Conversocial recently released some data stating that “88% of consumers are less likely to buy from companies ignoring social complaints” and that “90% of upset customers can be retained with great social customer service.” You can see the details here.

This is occurring due to the focus on marketing in the social space. Traditionally, Facebook...