Sep 24 2014

Blogging as a State of Mind: Reflections on 10 Years of Blogging

Ten years ago today, I wrote my first blog post, entitled “Blogging as a State of Mind”. I still vividly remember the moment — my palms were sweating as I pressed the “Publish” button on my Typepad blog for the first time. I was excited, but nervous about what was going to happen. What would people think? What if I made a mistake?

What happened was that I became completely transformed by the interactions and relationships of people I’ve met through my blogging and subsequently, social media activities. I’m eternally grateful to everyone who has encouraged, supported, and engaged with me — I have grown and learned so much. [Read more…]

Aug 06 2014

Content Marketing Software: How to Make Smart Choices

If you are involved in any shape or form with content marketing, you know what a big headache it can be for your organization. It extends beyond the Marketing department — Sales can’t get detailed, localized information to salespeople in the field. The social team needs more granular, atomized content produced multiple times a day. Customer service spends excessive time tracking down information to find that it’s outdated. And even HR seeks out relevant content in its battle for top talent. And rarely is there a centralized group that leads a coherent content strategy for the organization.

Against this backdrop is a dynamic, ever-changing landscape of vendors — hundreds of vendors with more emerging every day. [Read more…]

Dec 30 2013

Infographic: State of Social Business 2013 and Outlook for 2014

This past year has been a busy one for me and Brian Solis on the research front. We’ve published the following:

Report on the six stages of social business evolution
Report on the true state of social business in 2013,
An ebook on seven success factors of social business strategy
An image-rich slide deck complete with all the graphs and charts you need to benchmark where you are compared to other social businesses.

[Read more…]

Dec 05 2013

New Report: Social Media Education for Employees

Last year, we asked companies about their top social strategy priorities. The second top response was “Developing Internal Education and Training.” Yet, when we surveyed companies earlier this year, we saw that only 38% had any education program in place, beyond ad hoc efforts.

Over the past few quarters, we identified a number of large companies that have developed social media education for their employees, to learn why and how. We interviewed companies as diverse as ARAMARK, Kaiser Permanente, RadioShack, and more — and learned that social media education helps achieve two key business objectives:

Reduce the risk of social media violations to protect employees and the company, and
Increase employee advocacy and effectiveness, both on and off-domain.

[Read more…]