Digital Marketing Specialist, Social Media Consultant,
and Tech Geek at Heart

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7 Truths About Social Media Marketing

April 8, 2010

Even though social media isn’t new to many of us, the world is waking up to this new shiny toy. Thanks to books like The New Community Rules, written by yours truly, Engage, Social Media 101, and others, social media marketing is, for the time being, going to still be on people’s minds as they discover this bright and sunny marketing opportunity.

But despite the vastness of opportunities that social media affords, it’s just one channel in a series of many. We should still tackle some realities about social media marketing before you get too excited about its potential.

Social Media is Not a Silver Bullet

Social media is currently all the rage because it’s new. But let’s be honest here. It’s really not that new. In fact, I’ve been offering social media services for 4 years now, well before most even knew about the potential of social media or believed in the promise of the technologies. In other words, if you’re diving in right now, you’re out of luck — you’re a late adopter. Do you know what that means? Without creativity in your marketing plan, its will be a lot harder to make a splash.

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Advice for a New Internet Marketer (or How to Spot Internet Marketing Snake Oil)

March 10, 2010

I met her during my freshman year of college, though she was two years my senior. We’d exchange greetings when we passed in the dormitory hallways. Nine years later, we met again when we were assigned to the same tables at a local luncheon. She told me she worked in Internet Marketing, which I was quite excited to hear given that there was no marketing discipline taught at all in our alma mater.

We started talking about the last few years and our dreams for the years ahead. We then got into the nitty gritty of business. With Internet Marketing, there are many ways to go, from affiliate marketing to SEO to social media to email marketing. What was she doing? Her answer surprised me. Essentially, her focus was SEO, and her daily grind consisted of keyword stuffing clients’ websites.

Anyone who knows a good search engine optimization expert knows that keyword stuffing is not an approved tactic. Perhaps this is a fact that her agency overlooked, so as a good friend, I told her that it would be in her best interest to learn about approved tactics through the many free blogs, to engage in acceptable and informative (though not free) SEO training, and to read the best SEO book/training program (aff). Even though there is a cost for entry for some of the best resources, the solutions were highly worthwhile, I explained.

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How a Small New York City Hotel Put Itself on the Map through Social Media

March 4, 2010

Did you know that New York City offers more opportunities than the standard tourist attractions? Did you know that there are other hotels beyond the Hyatts, the Hiltons, the Omnis, the Sheratons, and the Marriotts of the world in NYC? I know when my parents come to NYC, they go to what’s familiar. When you go to a conference in Manhattan, you probably seek out hotels that you’ve also heard of. Face it, it’s a competitive landscape out there, especially for tourists who flock to familiar names but perhaps do not realize that there are other options in the city. How does one small hotel possibly compete with these hotel franchises? Is it even possible?

We can say that it is. In fact, the Roger Smith Hotel did it quite successfully. Now known as the “social media hotel” of NYC, Roger Smith is attracting a really incredible bunch of people who have raved about the ambiance and the company’s approachability online. I spoke with Brian Simpson, Director of Social Hospitality, for more insights into how social media became an asset for Roger Smith, and I learned some great things. Brian Simpson is a cancer survivor and discovered Twitter in the spring of 2008 when he endured the grueling process of chemotherapy for a period of 7 months. Twitter, he says, “became my way of talking with a community of people.” He explains that “Twitter allowed me to be social without having to be IRL.” After he joined the Roger Smith staff (as Assistant Director of Food & Beverage), he helped spread Roger Smith Hotel’s amazing stories, including three years of archived video, across the social media space.

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Why You Should Have a Secondary Twitter Account

February 16, 2010

As we know, Twitter is an incredibly powerful platform and enables businesses and individuals to build strong relationships with customers and peers. I, too, find that Twitter has been incredibly powerful for me to connect with real life colleagues, readers of Techipedia, family, and everyone in between.

I consider my current @tamar network, though, either quite knowledgeable or clueless and inactive (as in the case of my family — I still love them but they’re not the target audience for my Twitter account, which is rather social-media focused). I’m not sure there’s much “in-between.”

I’m also something of a Twitter purist. My only questionable tweets are actually about business projects (yes, I am NameCheap’s new marketing consultant as Michelle Greer moves onto bigger and better things). I try to limit the types of tweets that I send and keep them professional or relevant to my audience. However, there are times when I actually want to step outside my shell and assume the other parts of my identity I don’t often display under the @tamar persona.

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StumbleUpon Etiquette Guide and Best Practices

January 26, 2010

While not acknowledged or acclaimed by most social media marketing “experts,” StumbleUpon is a fine tool that can bring lots of traffic — both the targeted and untargeted kind — to your website. But with all other social networks, there are rules of engagement that are determined by the community.

Brief Overview of StumbleUpon

Since everyone is mostly raving about Twitter and Facebook as of late, I’m going to briefly define StumbleUpon and explain how it works. More information and tips for usage can be read in The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web. This description of StumbleUpon has been taken from the book:

StumbleUpon [is] a social content discovery engine with bookmarking features. StumbleUpon is different from many other social sites in that it works via a toolbar installation on your browser. Once it gathers personalized information from you (hobbies and interests), you can start surfing with StumbleUpon to find brand new sites that are related to your interests as suggested by other users on the service. The more active you are on StumbleUpon, the more opportunity there is for you to grow your network and expose your own content to more and more StumbleUpon users.

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