photo from The Small Object
I have been talking with a lot of bloggers lately that are interested in working with brands but aren’t so sure about how to go about it. Since I come from the other side and help brands find partners online (bloggers, communities, events, etc) I have some good tips for you when you are ready to actually ask a someone to work with you. Here they come:
1) Make a list of people you’d want to work with. This can and should be your dream list. …

(This is Part 2 of my Realtors Series)
Since my last realtor post I’ve been on more real estate sites than I care to admit in hopes of helping some of my new realtor friends with their social media presence online.  I wanted to get a good idea of what the typical realtor has in terms of content because in your brand, your content is really, really important.  Your audience is online, on Facebook, sending pictures of homes they might buy, and judging you by your site and by your picture.   …

I happened to be in Las Vegas last week for a horse show and while I was steadily losing money one night at the casino I was thinking about how people can fit paid media into their social media campaigns better.  I had to think of that because if I didn’t I would notice that at one point the guy next to me won $150 on a penny slot and the lady two machines down won $900.  I would look down as they won and say “hey, that’s great!” and …

I used to watch Cribs.  Remember that show?  Everyone kind of liked it because you’d follow people like Mariah Carey around her house and she’d show us things like a diamond encrusted toilet or whatever she had in her house that we didn’t.  It was a great because a lot of people like to peek into other people’s lives.  Just think of all the people that go to open houses with no intention of buying a house.  Just look at how much time I spend on Craigslist for no reason.
Anyway, …

photo credit: dieyoungforeverpretty
Philidelphia Cream Cheese has been extremely active in the social media world lately.  They launched a large outreach about 6 months ago in which they sent out Philly recipe books and encouraged  people to make something and write them back about it.  I got the recipe book but the outreach was really close to Christmas, I got busy,  I’m not a great cook, and I prefer my cream cheese loaded on a bagel with nothing cooked about it.  I doubt they wanted that recipe…. it’s pretty easy.
Anyway, Philly …

Photo credit: LeahisGone
I hate that I have to tell clients this. I’d love to just sit at my computer and forward ‘Best Practices’ articles to all of my clients and contacts and have them instantly achieve social media bliss. Best practices are short nuggets of goodness that can actually be accomplished in a day or even over a long lunch with your laptop.
But social media best practices are bullshit.
I’m sorry, they just are. I know that a lot of people write really amazing top 10 lists and …

photo credit: craftster.org
Saturday Night finds me sitting at a  bar where a friend of mine works.  I had decided that regaling him with my story about seeing Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Science of Sleep) interviewed at SXSW could not in fact wait until some time when he wasn’t working.  You can see his Q&A about movies here.  Unfortunately, there were a whole bunch of people at the bar that were really drunk already taking up all of his time (they had been there since 3PM or …

photo credit: Bill’s Music Blog
I got to my hotel the third night of SXSW Interactive exhausted, drained, voice half gone, and dumped my huge purse out on the bed to see what was so damn heavy that my entire shoulder was numb from carrying it. In my purse were 9 Zone Bars.  NINE Zone Bars.  I had them because Zone Perfect had street teams giving away goods on every corner.  They were aggressive and made sure everyone had product in their hands.  Aside from the slight insult that Zone …

The last night I was in San Diego for the OMS conference I’m sitting with a table full of people and we are tired and burnt out so we are giggling like 6 year olds about how many times we’ve been told to “listen” as part of a social media plan that day.  The conversation went something like:
“Hey, have you thought about listening to social media?”
“yeah….. that is a good idea!  Or maybe, before that I should listen first!  hahaha!”
It was literally about 20 minutes of pure immaturity which you’ll …

Every time I come to a conference I a: meet some really cool people and b: learn something.  Of course, I did meet some cool people, wait you should meet them too.  Here’s a few:@jennylemmons@jaybaer@leeodden@ToddlissI haven’t found the rest on Twitter yet.  Which leads me to my newest brilliant plan that everyone’s Twitter handle should hover in the air above their head so I can find them easily.  Someone should get working on that……Anyway, on my panel yesterday afternoon we were asked what the biggest social media waste of time …