Persuasive Picks for the week of 05/26/08

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Weezer - Pork and BeansTag Recommendations for Content: Ready to Filter Noise?
Properly tagging your content can go a long way to improving your visibility on the Net. Hutch Carpenter shares his review of four bookmarking and tagging services you can use to boost your “Google-Juice.”

Death of Education and the Dawn of Learning
Here’s a great post on the Servant of Chaos blog that speaks to the way kids communicate in a Web 2.0 world and how the education system needs to catch up. Today’s kids are tomorrow’s employees and customers. Will your business survive if you don’t join the social media/network space?

Charity Auction: Buy Yourself a Social Media Guru
Buy yourself time with one of five social media and online marketing experts as part of this excellent charity auction. The toughest part will be deciding on which guru to bid on with the talents of Chris Brogan, Joseph Jaffe, Aaron Strout, Geoff Livingston and Greg Verdino up for grabs!

Basic Business Blogging Suggestions
Speaking of Chris Brogan, this post he wrote earlier this week provides some nice basic information for companies that are just starting to launch a blog. As usual, Chris’s community of readers are providing great comments to the post, so be sure to read through those as well!

Pork and Beans
I’ll wrap up this week with something entertaining. Here’s a link to the new Weezer video that has been released by the band to promote the new single. The relevance? They included noteable internet “celebrities” in the video which is a sure-fire way to boost it’s potential for going viral.

Persuasive Picks for the week of 05/19/08

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Memorial Day CupcakesMarketing Jobs of the Future
Valeria Maltoni dives into the rapidly changing role of today’s marketer and gives some good incite into where the space is going and the challenges of hiring for marketing positions. She also includes a nice link to my post on SocialMediaToday.com featuring a video of Aaron Strout, VP of New Media for Mzinga (client) speaking about hiring and getting hired in a Web 2.0 world.

10 Green Social Networks You Should Know
With all sorts of people and businesses jumping on the “Go Green” bandwagon, it was only a matter of time until “Green” oriented social networks started popping up. This post lists 10 such sites that will let you connect with fellow environmentally-minded individuals.

5 Quick Tips on Pitching Angel Investors and Venture Capitalists
PerkettPR’s attendance at multiple TechCrunch, TechCockTail and PopSignal events definitely brought to light that there’s certainly no shortage of start-up companies looking for money. This post from Ben Yokosvitz’s Insigator Blog gives some good advice on successful pitching during your fund raising efforts.

Robert Scoble Joins Up with Revision3
There aren’t many details available about Robert Scoble’s newly announced show (called WorkFast.TV) on Revision3, so we’ll just have to wait and see what comes out in the upcoming weeks. However, this post includes an interesting speech from Scoble about his use of Twitter during the recent Chinese Earthquake.

Celebrity tipping point on Seesmic
Video conversation platform Seesmic created a big buzz earlier this week when several celebrities appeared in interviews on the service. Famous names included Harrison Ford, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg to name a few.

Thanks for checking out this week’s Persuasive Picks and for those in the United States – have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Persuasive Picks for the week of 05/12/08

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Why Twitter Matters
As the popularity of Twitter continues to grow, we’re starting to see it gain more mainstream press coverage. This post on BusinessWeek.com by Stephen Baker dives into what the future might hold for the Twitterverse.

Best Social Media Advice From This Site
Chris Brogan compiles some of the best and most informative posts on his site and breaks them up into categories for mass consumption. Enjoy filling your brain with this Social Media feast!

Answers to all of your Groundswell questions
From one information packed pick to another! Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li provide answers to the many Groundswell related questions that came to them from the 700+ people who joined their recent webinar.

SEO Quick Tips
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is generally an area of expertise that can take a good portion of mental bandwidth to master. However, most readers will find value in getting some exposure to the basics. Steve Spalding from the “How to Spilt an Atom” blog posted these SEO Quick Tips that were shared with him by Mark Hager of Knoxville, TN Web Design.

CBS to Acquire CNET for $1.8 Billion
Definitely the most highly “tweeted” acquisition story this week. It should be interesting to see how CNET’s content changes and what plans CBS really has in-store post merger.

Top Time-wasters for Web Workers (And How to Cure Them)
Valuable advice for those (like you) who utilize the web on a daily basis. Just be sure to practice the cures AFTER you finish being distracted by this week’s Persuasive Picks!!

Persuasive Picks for the week of 05/05/08

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How I Increased Page Views on My Forum by 66.7% in a Month
In addition to ProBlogger.com, Darren Rowse also runs Digital-Photography-School.com, a wildly popular digital photography blog. In this post, Darren chronicles his experience in bringing more traffic to his forums by running a prize-based competition. It’s a nice little case-study for those looking for new ways to stimulate activity within their online communities.

Social Media FAQ #5: How Do I Talk to my Executives about Social Media?
Jeremiah Owyang continues his excellent on-going Social Media FAQ series with this post which contains advice on convincing your executive team why social media may be important to your business.

Building Community in the Enterprise
ACDSee Community Manager, Connie Bensen, visits the topic of community in the enterprise by recapping the main points from this week’s Forrester webinar presented by Rob Koplowitz. She provides an excellent summary for those who weren’t able to catch it live.

Make a Professional Podcast on a Minimal Budget
If you’ve considered starting a podcast for your company but have been overwhelmed with the technical aspects, then this post from SocialMediaTrader.com will help ease your anxieties a bit. The whole process is really easier than you would think. Our client Mzinga has been turning out great interview podcasts for a while now. Feel free to check them out at http://www.wearesmarter.com

FaceBook In Reality
I’ll wrap up this week’s set of picks with some humor. If you use Facebook in any capacity, you’ll appreciate the humor in this YouTube video from idiotsofants.com and BBC’s The Wall.

Have a great weekend!

Persuasive Picks for the week of 04/28/08

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20 Must Have Twitter Applications…for now
Once you get up and rolling on Twitter, you’ll begin to discover that there are a large number of third-party tools that take advantage of it’s API and can greatly extend the value of your Twitter experience. The Emerson Direct Marketing Observations blog sites 20 such tools that are worth taking a look at.

Report: Social Media Challenging Traditional Media
Richard MacManus from ReadWriteWeb summarizes some interesting stats on the adoption of social media tools found in the most recent report from Universal McCann. These interesting findings could be useful for marketers to consider when going through the process of developing a social media strategy.

Listening: An Action of Proportions
The process of listening is one of the most important things you can do increase your chances of success before engaging with online communities. Geoff Livingston shares some incites on the topic from the SNCR NewComm Forum, as well as a video clip of Shel Israel who adds to the discussion.

Social Media Identity: Personal vs. Professional
One of the first obstacles that social media newcomers often face is how to (or whether to) separate their personal and professional online identities. This post from the “I’m not actually a geek” blog touches upon the topic and shows how the ties between personal and professional identities change based on the size of your corporate organization.

People Who Like This Weblog May Also Like These Books
Break away from the computer screen with one of Brian Oberkirch’s book suggestions. If you like the content on his blog, then his book suggestions will not disappoint.

Persuasive Picks for the week of 04/21/08

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This week brings five picks on a variety of topics to dive into. Enjoy!

Overcoming key resistence to adopting social media
If your company still hasn’t adopted a social media strategy, then it might be due to one of the reasons listed in this post. However, Shel Holtz lends his expertise to show you why these excuses no longer hold water.

Personal Brand Statement Contest – Win The Full Issue 4
If you haven’t paid for a subscription to Dan Schwabel’s excellent Personal Branding Magazine, then this post will allow you to download a sample of the upcoming issue as well as enter into a contest to win the full version when it comes out.

Video Comments? No Thanks – 5 Reasons They Don’t Work
Earlier this week TechCunch launched the ability to leave video comments on blog posts as an alternative to a traditional text comment – courtesy of the new Seesmic plugin for WordPress. At first, video comments seem to be hip alternative to typing, but in this post, Josh Catone clearly reveals a few downsides to adopting video comments on your blog.

del.icio.us as a PR measurement tool
Andrew Careaga of the Higher Ed Marketing blog gives some incite on a recent experience using the social bookmarking site del.icio.us as a measurement tool when keeping track of media coverage. His advice could also be carried over to similar tools like StumbleUpon, Digg and Reddit.

Seven Types Of Highly Effective Corporate Blogs
In this post, Mitch Joel covers 6 styles of corporate blogs and provides examples of each. Does your company’s blog fall into one of these categories? Or perhaps one of these blog types will inspire you to get one started if your company still hasn’t joined the blogosphere.

Persuasive Picks for the week of 04/14/08

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This week’s picks include some diverse topics like podcasting and viral marketing. Enjoy!

Embrace unsatisfied customers to bolster your brand?
Stephen Shankland posted this great article on the CNET News Blog that was based on discussions during a panel at the Ad:Tech conference earlier this week. Do the people who handle customer complaints and the social network-savvy folks in your company reside in different departments? Check this post out for good examples of why merging these groups together can be a positive change for your company.

“Podcasting 101” on KCBS with Tim Coyne & Lance Anderson
If “Podcasting” is still a foreign word to you, then take a look at this short clip of LA-based podcasters Tim Coyne and Lance Anderson as they help explain the basics during a CBS news TV segment.

BlogPulse: Metrics Based on Conversation
As the search for the “silver bullet” of Social Media/Blog metrics continues, take a peek at this surface level view of BlogPulse as an alternative tool to using Technorati or Google Blog Search.

Groundswell Discussion Forum Now Open
Following the release of his and Charlene Li’s highly anticipated book, “Groundswell,” co-author Josh Bernoff announced the launch of the official discussion forum site in support of the book. Everyone is invited to participate and join in the conversations starting there now.

What I’ve Learned About Viral Marketing in Three Weeks
Diana Huff continues to deliver up useful content for the B2B marketer with this post on the reality of viral marketing and includes links to some useful resources on the topic.

Persuasive Picks for the week of 04/07/08

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Most of this week’s picks are front the first half of the week do to scheduled travel, but I think we definitely have some winners here!

I Saw The Future Of Social Networking The Other Day
Mike Arrington from TechCrunch.com (like you didn’t know?!) shares some perspective on the future of social networking on mobile devices. Mike has demoed the future and it could involve an iPhone. Make the jump to read more.

Social Media Networking and ROI: How to Maximize Value and Minimize Cost
Maki from the DoshDosh blog breaks down the hot topics of Social Media measurement and ROI. As most in the field will agree, the returns you’ll get out of networking via social media are not direct and immediate. However, Maki shares some ways to maximize your efficiency.

Forrester Marketing Conference Day 1: Understanding Your Customers Through Engagement
Since endless budgets for attending conferences rarely exist, we can be thankful that folks like Jeremiah create posts like this and share the experience virtually with lots of New Media goodness.

My Interview with three 8th Graders on the Future of Social Media
If you still think that your company doesn’t need to start participating on Social Networks, then take a look at this video clip that Jeff Pulver captured during a Social Media Breakfast in Tel Aviv, Israel. These kids are your future customers and employees!

Going viral with YouTube
Jiannis Sotiropoulos of the Pandemic Blog dives head first into how YouTube differs from other social networks in terms of content submission, friends, popularity and going viral.

Persuasive Picks for the Week of 03/31/2008

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Persuasive PicksThis week we bring you six “Persuasive Picks” across 5 different topics. Enjoy!

Seesmic Acquires Popular Twitter AIR Client Twhirl
Seesmic and Twitter fans have a new reason to be giddy. Seesmic’s acquisition of the popular Twhirl Twitter client will bring about the perfect blend of video and Twitter messaging. It will be interesting to see if this merge brings more business use to the current, primarily social use of Seesmic.

How to Come Up with Topics to Write About On Your Blog
Are you a blogging business professional? Do you find it difficult to generate a steady stream of topics to blog about? Uber-blogger Darren Rowse from ProBlogger.net shares a great video demonstrating one of the techniques he uses to generate ongoing blog topic ideas.

Writing Effective Blog Posts
Now that you’ve watched Darren Rowse’s video from our pick above and have your topic to write about, check out this short post on the techniques social media-master Chris Brogan uses to craft his daily posts.

The Ultimate Top Ten List For Small Business
Lela Davidson from the Business Pundit blog compiles a great list of links to “Top Ten” lists for small business. The linked topics include “Top Ten Marketing Blogs,” “Top Ten Best Presentations Ever,” and “Ten Tips For Time Management in a Multitasking World.”

Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Facebook
Guy Kawasaki taps “I’m on Facebook – Now What???” co-author Jesse Stay for a list of ten Facebook power tips. There are many good nuggets here if you’ve been hesitant to use Facebook for social networking as a business professional.

How to Deal with Internal Stakeholders
Forrester’s Jeremiah Owyang continues to pump out amazing posts and this one is no exception. In this post, he shares many tips on how to leverage the power of your company’s stakeholders (internal customers) to maximize your social media and web strategy efforts.

Thats all for this week. As always, let us know what you think and happy reading!

Persuasive Picks for the Week of 03/24/08

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There were a lot of juicy bits to choose from this week. Here are a few that made our Persuasive Picks:

A Successful MySpace Social Media Campaign
While not all businesses will find MySpace to be suitable platform for their Social Media campaigns, those who might will find inspiration in this post on the Social Media Optimization blog. It details the success that Disney had during its recent campaign to promote its “Step Up” movie franchise.

15 Reasons Why Blogging Matters More Than Ever
If Mitch Joel’s Six Pixels of Separation Blog and Podcast aren’t on the top of your reading and listening lists each week, then you should take some time to work them to the top of your list. This week he touches upon why blogging still matters. While its a topic that has been beaten to death on hundreds of blogs already, Mitch’s points are all very relevant and are presented in a thoughtful way that keep the material fresh.

The Ready, Fire, Aim, Reload Strategy for Social Media Success
Brian Clark from Copyblogger touches upon a new a new style of thinking that should be understood when adapting to the process of creating content for your site’s visitors.

Case Study: Dissecting the Dell Regeneration Graffiti Facebook Campaign
Forrester’s Jeremiah Owyang analyzes Dell’s recent Regeneration Graffiti campaign on Facebook and shows that sometimes letting go and letting the community drive the “campaign bus” can yield very positive results.

The Beauty, Secrets and Utility of Twitter for Business
Social Media Strategy Consultant, B.L Ochman shares her experiences and love for Twitter and how it fits into her daily ritual as a favorite business tool.

Turning radicals into revolutionaries: the key to kick-starting your social strategy
More good nuggets from the Forrester camp this week with this post by Charlene Li who taps more content from her upcoming book Groundswell. This time Charlene speaks towards harnessing the power of your most passionate employees to lead the charge in engaging your customers online.