We all know that social media has been taking the world by storm and everyone is trying to jump on board and be all social media savvy. Many businesses are thinking about implementing or have already executed a social media strategy. If you are one of these businesses, you may want to ask yourself these questions:

• If you already have a strategy in place, is it working for you?
• If you haven’t, are you taking the necessary action to put a strategy in place?

These are just some of the questions you may want to ask yourself before continuing to read this post. If everything is fine and peachy with your social media strategy and you are achieving all of your set objectives then keep on top of your game and keep sifting through all the great ideas to really crush it in 2010.

However, if you are in constant search of social media strategy improvement, then read on.

Here are 5 Easy Steps to a Successful Social Media Strategy: Read More | Comments

Have you ever wondered what makes music, fashion, or even the names of our kids popular? Someone has to stick their head out and introduce crazy ideas like the Crocs. Who really thought that funny looking rubber shoes would sell so well that the company would even go public? They succeeded because of the herd mentality.

Back in the Soviet Union, one of the favourite past times of American tourists was starting line-ups. How it works: two people stand beside a random door and wait for enough people join the line that they can escape unnoticed. People would keep standing in the line for hours not knowing what was going to come from the mystery door. Pretty sad but true. This is a really basic example of a herd. Mark Earls, author of Herd: How to Change Mass Behaviour by Harnessing Our True Nature, in the video below defines a herd as a way of describing how large creatures (humans) interact with each other.

People follow other people’s decisions because it is much easier to do what others are doing other than thinking for themselves. I challenge myself and YOU to be the wolf to lead a bunch of sheep in this society. Be the thermostat and not the thermometer! (More on this soon)

Do you believe  we live in a herd society?

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Thanks for visiting and keep in touch ~ Alex.

Video Credit: StillMotion

When I was in school I used to love learning. This was especially true when my teacher taught with examples or case studies that showed how the theory worked in life. Only then, would the light bulb go on in my head.

And this is exactly why I wanted to dedicate a post to a quick case study to follow up the previous post on “How to Listen On Twitter”, where you learned the basic concepts of using Twitter as your business’s listening tool.

Social Media Case Study: The Travel Agent

My fiancée and I have recently been on a search for a travel agent that specializes in destination weddings. After countless Google and Yellow Pages searches, we found two travel agents that claimed to be destination wedding experts. Long story short, neither walked the talk and actually cared for our business even though it could have been a potential deal worth more than $50 000. How much commission would that be? Regardless of the size of the deal, a business should tend to tend to its customers well. Taking care of your customers will lead to positive word of mouth, overall good reputation and increased revenues. Read More | Comments

Listening is one of the most important elements of any successful businesses. There are hundreds of business books preaching the importance of listening and how to do it effectively. Nevertheless, a great number of businesses have their ears plugged or are trying to listen in the wrong places. However, with the help of new social technologies it is now easier than ever to listen to what your clients are saying about your brand, product, service, experience and even YOU.

People are also offering suggestions and solutions for your business at no cost (your time to listen may cost). In addition, there are millions of potential customers looking for products or services online BUT at the same time are having a hard time finding exactly what they want. Your goal is to help them and add value to their experience.

In comes twitter. With its simplicity, Twitter has become the listener’s tool of choice. With applications such as Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, and Seesmic Desktop listening in on what customers are saying has never been this easy.

At this point you might be asking this question:

“How do I listen on Twitter and how is this going to make me money?”

Read More | Comments

Twitter has finally came out with an official Twitter 101 for Business Guide. The announcement was made on the Twitter blog:

We coordinated with business students and writers to surface some interesting findings, best practices, steps for getting started, and case studies. The results demonstrate how customers are getting value out of Twitter and suggest techniques businesses can employ to enhance that value. While this work was envisioned for businesses, it’s also useful for anyone using Twitter so have a look if you like.

Although the guides arrival is a little late as there are tons of guides, blog posts, presentations, and books already out on Twitter but having a Twitter guide being released from Twitter itself will make the guide more credible and allow regular folks to get a sense of how Twitter can help their business.

The Twitter 101 for Business Guide consists of the following:

• What is Twitter
• Getting started
• Learn the lingo
• Best practices
• Case studies
• Other resources

Find it all here – Twitter 101 for Business Guide.

You can also check out the overview Twitter 101 presentation below: