Shortly after creating a social networking profile, professionals often move immediately to joining groups hosted by Facebook, LinkedIn or other networking sites. To leverage the power of groups, it’s important to set your expectations before joining. I received a suggestion from LinkedIn this morning, “Jerry, join these 4 groups we’ve recommended for you.” I reviewed the four groups and determined LinkedIn’s selections were logical, but not strategic. The  suggestions involved groups whose members were either professional colleagues or peers. Great opportunity if my goal was to keep an eye on those who market similar services. Lousy idea if my goal was to connect with those who buy my services. If you want to leverage your investment in social networking groups, stop marketing to your peers. Here are some tips for making sense of social networking groups. Define Your Goal – are you trying to get in front of qualified prospects, build credibility

If everyone used commonsense to build and publish websites, we wouldn’t need Jakob Nielsen’s insights. The true value of his reports comes from his delivery of why social media usability is important. I’ve paid hundreds for his reports, but not this time, this one is free. If you are serious about making technology work, I recommend you download “Streams, Walls, and Feeds”.

Years ago I impressed prospects with the marketing catchphrase “I’ve read the manual so you don’t have to.” The idea that they could ask me a quick question instead of going to school convinced many of my loyal customers to not only start a consulting engagement, but continue a successful business relationship, most for more than a decade. That was then, this is now. I received a call the other day requesting help with three tasks, making changes to an eCommerce installation, a question about how to sort an Excel workbook, and ideas about developing an online product strategy. I wish I could say we focused on the most important (product strategy), but instead we worked on the urgent (editing the product setting). The application training got outsourced to local support. I’m sorry, I just can no longer do it all. In fact, I shouldn’t even try. Both my Board

I recently endured a public spat between a Facebook Group member and the Group admin. The member had been reminded about the policy of no self promotion, then promptly published a post announcing her departure from publishing to the group. I could almost see The scene in A League of Their Own where Tom Hanks laments, “There’s no crying in Baseball”. People started taking sides, followed by posts contained cordial respect, all the while reinforcing friendships and entrenched positions. Meanwhile, the issue of self-promotion on Social Networks got very little ink. Lots of heat, zero illumination. I’m baffled why we have all the technology we need, but can’t seem to make it work. The challenge of Facebook seems to be, how to get business leaders to accept the idea that there are different types of digital marketing.You simply can’t engage in self promotion. There are three arenas for digital marketing: Paid

Own a smartphone or iPad? Great! Welcome to the marvelous mobile marketplace. But before you congratulation yourself on having a brilliant strategy, consider this. It takes more than a hardware purchase, or a new app to create an effective strategy, it requires an intimate knowledge of flow

Facebook users awoke this month to a completely new page layout. And it wasn’t an April’s Fool joke. The New Timeline format was announced last September. Many folks had already made the switch on their personal profiles. Business and organization pages were forced to switch on March 31. The overwhelming reaction has been frustration, confusion and despair. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the change, don’t give up, just go back to school. I recommend you consider a History class, your own history. Last week I attended a 30-minute webinar sponsored by Hubspot and Facebook. The key to the new layout is to record your organization’s history. When were you founded? What were the important milestones along the way that lead to your success? What innovative breakthroughs are you experiencing right now? The four part series, broadcast monthly, will explore how to leverage the new format. I really like the 30 minute

Remember waking up Easter morning to the sight of a big basket of candy? And there, right in the middle was a brightly colored box with a clear window framing a giant chocolate bunny. You were filled with wonder as you tore open the box, carefully slide the bunny out and bit into… a HOLLOW chocolate bunny! QR (Quick Response) marketing codes produce almost the same response. The idea of quickly connecting mobile users to your valuable offer looks great on the outside, then  you find out it’s just another hollow digital marketing ploy. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the technology but the implementation that kills this novel marketing idea. Developed to eliminate the need for mobile prospects to type your web address, QR codes have become the ‘one size-fits-most solution’ for marketers who are looking for something new to lure buyers to their valuable offers. The effectiveness of

I’m basking in the afterglow of the first annual Listening Room Festival, founded by singer, songwriter, promoter, Fran Snyder. The festival brought dozens of artist/entrepreneurs to living rooms across St. Petersburg, Florida. A highlight for me was the workshops for those in the music business. One of the best tips, presented by Carey Murdock, was using MailChimp as an email broadcast platform. Don’t let the funny name keep you from checking out this serious email solution. MailChimp is the only provider I’ve found that has figured out how to deliver your precious email marketing to a mobile audience. For those of you who struggle to publish a monthly newsletter, MailChimp provides templates that automatically include your blog-based newsletter content without having to cut and paste, format and repeat. You don’t even need to schedule publication. As you build your campaign you can chose to broadcast daily, weekly or once a month.

For the very first time, the people of Samoa were the first, not the last, to celebrate the New Year. All it took was moving the country to the other side of the International Date Line. On a day when most of us resolve to quit smoking or lose a few pounds, Samoans have already achieved their new year resolution, they moved their entire country! The change places them back in the neighborhood with their trading partners, Australia and New Zealand. It means birthdays, aniversaries and other events will be celebrated on the same day by extended families. By sharing the same workweek between neighboring businesses, productivity should soar. What is most remarkable about the change is not that everyone agreed to throw away the last Friday of the year, or the challenge of contracts coming due on the missing day. I’m amazed that it took so long to make the change.

Thank goodness Thanksgiving is over. Now all we have to do is get through the rest of the holiday season. Don’t get me wrong, I love Thanksgiving, too much actually. I tend to eat everything in sight as if I’m going to miss something or there won’t be enough turkey for leftovers. It’s like those holiday buffets where everyone scrambles to be first in line, thinking the food is going to run out. We pile our plates to the ceiling because we don’t want to miss anything. Try as we might, we still end up wasting food. After all is said and done, we ask, why wasn’t I more sensible? It reminds me of Social Networking which is a lot like all those buffets you are going to encounter this holiday season. So let me offer you a gift to help you get through your holiday feasts and help you navigate Social