Following up on my previous post about the ROI of social media, perhaps it’s worth explaining what social media is.

Social media is not so new. Even the technology is new and major social networks have been on for close to a decade. Facebook only started in 2004. Twitter in 2006. Blogger in 1999 and bought by Google in 2003, and WordPress also was first released in 2003. College seniors that opened up a Facebook profile in 2004 are now your 27- year old workers. Moreover, humans have been social since the first caveman shared pictures on the cave walls.  Read more...

Many people ask: “What is the ROI – return on investment – of social media?” Usually, they get two answers:  Read more...

1. Some people – usually those who ended up engaged in social media because they are young, use Twitter, Facebook, Flickr or whatever other channel in their personal life, but don’t work in marketing or strategic communications – respond that there is no ROI in social media. Those people – far too common in the fast growing field of social media – do businesses a disservice. Besides being wrong, this keeps busineses from hiring a firm that understands marketing. After all, why should a business invest in something without ROI?

Social Media doesn’t just sell technology (although Dell claims that they’ve made over $1 million in sales due to their Twitter presence), or shoes (although Zappos has also been raking in the big bucks), but it also saves lives and does good.

Whether it’s a religious organization, charity fundraising campaign, or trade group, or promoting democracy, social media does good.

If you’ve been paying attention, social media has been recently saving lives in Haiti and promoting democracy in China and Iran. Ben Parr of Mashable has a new story posted on CNN about the social web.  Read more...

Print is not the only platform today. Platforms have changed. Newspapers and journals are now online. That mean that your marketing and public relations efforts have to change. What worked in 2001 didn’t work in 2004. What worked in 2001 doesn’t work in 2010.

Here are some interesting statistics showing how the world has changed in the past few years:  Read more...

This video has been going on a lot over the past year – and previous versions for even longer — but it shows the enduring power of how the Internet and social media have changed the way we live and communicate.

It also emphasizes that “social media” is more than just having a Facebook page of Twitter account. It’s not the thing to do for fun, it’s the way we communicate in 2010.

Some facts:  Read more...

Since I recently received certification as an Inbound Marketing Certified Professional, as well as certification as a technical writer, the topic of how Inbound Marketing principles relate to technical documentation in the Web 2.0 age has been on my mind a lot lately.

What is Inbound Marketing? According to Answers.com:

Inbound marketing is a style of marketing that focuses on getting found by customers. This sense is related to relationship marketing and Seth Godin’s idea of permission marketing. David Meerman Scott recommends that marketers “publish their way in” (via blogs etc.)  Read more...