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causes LinkedIn social capital exchange social media socialmedia

Chuck Hester and the Pay it Forward Chronicles

I profiled Chuck Hester of iContact in this piece about using Live Connections to Leverage Virtual Connections back in February. Now Chuck is taking his experiences with LinkedIn and writing a book on  “Linking In to Pay it Forward: Changing the Value Proposition in Social Media.”  His blog has one neat idea today:

THE PAY IT FORWARD CHRONICLES: The Small Good, A New Book and A Busy Fall

First the Small Good. A concept that I first ran across earlier this year as I listened to a podcast. Here’s the basic premise:

Someone has a need, an issue, a problem. They come to you for help. From your prospective it takes little effort to help this person – maybe a referral to a tax attorney you know or a tip on how to get better publicity for your company.

To the person your helping, it’s HUGE! You have saved them time, money, worry – whatever that may be.

My Small Good for the day is letting you know about this. I hope it provides you good value and something to think about.

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blogging social media socialmedia

My latest post at Inc.Com – on Smart Blogging Strategies

Start Up

After a recent post about the value of blogging, I got a few requests to go deeper into strategies for maximizing the effectiveness of blogging. I’ve thought about effective blogging for a long time, so I have quite a bit to say on the topic—too much for a single blog post. So consider this part one of a multi-part series on the topic.

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blogging marketing social media social networks socialmedia

A different perspective on Social Media Marketing

Joe Marchese of Media Post writes up a panel we were on last week at MWM. I enjoyed meeting him and getting his perspective, as well as that of Doug Atkins at Meetup.com, and David Birnbaum, CEO of Takkle.com.

Online Spin » Blog Archive » A Different Perspective On Social Media Marketing

Last week I was invited by Dr. Augustine Fou, senior vice president/digital strategist, MRM Worldwide, to speak to a great group at MRM in an inter-agency meeting focusing on understanding social media’s implications for the agency business.

Some good discussion over there in the comments, too.

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social media socialmedia socialmediaclub

Social Media Club Forms Interim Board

I’m proud to announce that Social Media Club has started a re-formation, and I’ve joined the interim board, along with 42 practitioners of Social Media from the Enterprise, Consumer, Public Relations, B2B, Academic and Education, and Communication fields.

In this release, the new board acknowledges “our core mission will remain the same: promotion of media literacy; support of industry standards efforts such as Creative Commons licensing, Microformats, Data Portability and OpenID; discussion and promotion of ethical behavior; and sharing our knowledge among our members and the industry community at large.”

I’ve been part of this train from the start, and it is an honor to serve with some great practitioners who I can learn from and with whom I can share my experience. SMC NY will re-convene this Fall, possibly in conjunction with a Special Interest Group or meetup, so I’m interested in your feedback about that, and what you’d like to learn when we do so. And if you’re interested in volunteering to help that effort, please get in touch.


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blogging facebook LinkedIn marketing social media social networks socialmedia

My article in the NY Enterprise Report – Networking 2.0

July’s issue of NY Enterprise Report features an article I wrote, entitled Networking 2.0. In this piece, I describe how several firms are using LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to reach customers, save time, and close sales.

Cut from the piece was my interview with Kevin Lee, Executive Chairman and co-Founder of DidIt.com, an online marketing firm. Lee uses LinkedIn answers to help him form ideas for his weekly column in ClickZ.com as well as researching business ideas, including looking for consultative expertise. He posts questions, researching issues, and gathering expertise from throughout his network.

LinkedIn also has a facility for passing on job postings.  Lee’s firm hired several people this way, both from referrals and direct respondents to the listings. Since he’s got around 4000 direct connections, his postings get a wide dispersal.  Another advantage of using Linkedin over other Job sites has been that the “hit” rate on resumes is greater – fewer bad resumes to weed out. “You can also can see both their resume and their LinkedIn profile to compare them to make sure the person isn’t ‘tuning’ their resume too much for you.”

Lee is also interested to see who’s endorsed them, and might follow up if he knows an endorser. If the person had an endorsement with a fairly senior executive, that may be more valuable than what the endorsement said – Lee figures the existence of an executive’s endorsement is indicative of a person’s ability to create relationships.

I also interviewed author Shel Horowitz, who has written 7 books, including Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers. Not surprisingly, he’s found some very valuable ways to use Facebook, as well as Plaxo’s Pulse connection service, and Social Networks CollectiveX and Ning. His constant posting and cultivation of his social networks have lead him to a guest spot on a business radio show, discussions with a European meeting planner about speaking at his marketing conference in France and even an invitation to consider starting an East Coast office for a well-respected West Coast PR firm.

Networking 2.0 is the new reality. As I note in my article, “There’s no denying that face-to-face networking is still a powerful way to meet and connect with potential clients. But online social networking is becoming more and more useful for doing these same things and more.” How do you leverage both the online and in person networks you have to do business? Comments are open below.