Note: This is the third part in an ongoing series. Parts one and two.

By Samuel J. Scott

Social media is all about the “social.” On Twitter, you want to converse not only with influencers and journalists but also with current and potential customers. On LinkedIn, you want to brand both yourself and your company as experts in your particular sector while still participating in group discussions and LinkedIn Answers.

On Facebook, however, the rules have changed. Now, the social-network giant has set its sights on establishing its monetary benefits. (More on that later.)  Read more...

By Samuel J. Scott

Has your company ever put out a job opening for a social-media manager and then received countless resumes for people with experience as community managers – or vice versa? You’re not alone. Many people – and even many businesses – mistakenly think that the two are merely different phrases that mean the same thing.  Read more...

By Daniel Goldstein

Unless you have been living under a digital rock, you probably know the increasing importance of social-media marketing to your business both today and in the future. However, it is important to know that social media is not a panacea – it is not a magic bullet that will get you a quick million dollars in sales in return. If it were, then every business would be successful within weeks of creating a Facebook page or Twitter account.  Read more...

By Samuel J. Scott

If you follow marketing news, you have probably heard of national brands launching large social media campaigns like Kohl’s and Target on Facebook and Radio Shack and Nestle on Twitter. Still, it is very easy to use social media for business even if you just have a local store.

In Boston, where I lived for nine years, one of the most-famous pizzerias is Santarpio’s in the neighborhood of East Boston. If you live in Eastie – as Bostonians call it – and order delivery from somewhere else rather than take-away from Santarpio’s (pictured), your neighbors will think that you are crazy or have bad taste in pizza.  Read more...

By Samuel J. Scott

After Google unveiled first its +1 social-sharing button and then its Google+ social network last year, my colleague Daniel Goldstein predicted that the changes will eventually influence organic-search results. Google, he argued, will increasingly personalize search results based on what an individual searcher has “+1ed” in the past.

Well, that time has arrived. And if your company does not adapt, you will miss out on a tremendous amount of valuable traffic to your website.

On January 10, Google announced its “Search, plus Your World” revamp of its search-result pages:  Read more...

By Samuel J. Scott

A lot of business and marketing is impossible to measure quantitatively but still widely regarded as valuable. Take branding, for example. Companies spend millions on logos, product appearance, communications, and guerilla marketing – among countless other tactics – to ensure that consumers think of a desired connotation when they think of a brand. It’s not a cheap endeavor – it can take years to build a solid brand.  Read more...

By Samuel J. Scott

When I was a kid, I loved “Alf” – an NBC comedy that ran from 1986 to 1990 and was about a lovable, sarcastic space-alien living with a suburban California family. I even had an “Alf” stuffed animal that my mother had bought for me when I was six or so.

So, when I was bored one day, I scanned Facebook pages for TV shows, saw one for “Alf,” and “liked” the page. I had forgotten about the “like” until much later, when I saw this item in my Facebook news-feed earlier today while catching up with the latest news from my friends and family:  Read more...

By Josh Cline

Is every single one of your Facebook and Twitter posts delivering something that your target market will find valuable, or are you posting items in social media just to put something there? The answer will likely determine the future of your social-media marketing efforts.

In a recent Harvard Business Review blog-post, Brian Solis relates how he had once attended a presentation by a Facebook sales-representative and was shocked at his useless recommendation:  Read more...

By Daniel Goldstein

Internet-marketing news breaks each day, if not each hour, so online marketers need to keep abreast of the latest headlines. Here’s what we at The Cline Group found interesting this past week.  Read more...

• Google +1 shares can now appear in your Google+ social-media account. In two prior posts, we addressed how Google +1 will affect SEO and SEM and how Google+ (Google Plus) will affect Facebook and social media in general. Now, Google has announced that people can have their +1s (“likes”) appear in their Google+ account – along with specifying which “circles” will see them. For example, if I like a certain article on social media, I may choose to share it with my “Work” circle and not my “Family” one. (I don’t think Grandma would be interested.) The marketing takeaway: It is becoming increasingly important to incorporate Google +1 and Google+ into your social-media marketing.

By Daniel Goldstein

Google had never been very good at the “social” aspect of the Internet Age. After all, users of platforms including Adwords and Webmaster Tools who have questions are unable to get a customer-service person at Google on the phone.  In an emergency one time, I found the number of Google’s office in Boston and gave them a call. The person who picked up told me – at least in a very polite way – that she could only direct me to the website’s FAQ and support pages.  Read more...