Susan Does Social

Image: amazon.com Are you reading Guy Kawasaki right now? If you're not, you're missing out. I read a lot , and it's not often that I find a book that I have to stop every page or two and take action, but this is one of those. If you get it on Kindle, it's even better because then you can follow all the links provided (and when I say all the links, there are up to 10 on some pages). For me, this hasn't been a quick read, but I swear there's a takeaway every page or so worth noting. Some of the top tips I've found so far are in the directories and the need for personalization of your blog and Twitter feed. The feeds are helpful keeping a pulse on the news, and the Google tips are great if you're more of a Google person. That's just in the first chapter! As I said, I read a lot, but there were two other books that had an impact recently. They were both personal/professional, but highly beneficial on all fronts. The first is Essentialism by Greg McKe...

Image: localvox.com For the past two hours, I've been completely drawn into the black hole of analytics for marketing, and it's been amazing! I have to admit, my fascination with analytics is probably best described by a word I first heard from  +William Tincup  today: infobesity. So, where have I been on my black hole journey? I've visited... Neil Patel's blog on blogging tools --an outstanding piece if you have a chance Buzzsumo ...but unfortunately it's not free Simply Measured --which is addicting and I think I might run every single free report they offer because they've all been great. You can see that I've been here awhile on Twitter @MueggeMarketing  because the currency is tweets Hello bar --low profile way to get email sign ups or shares. I might have one soon. Moz Open Site Explorer Quick Sprout --another site that provides high-quality graphics and information So, I'm going to indulge my infobesity for a bit more. As G.I. Joe used to say, ...

Image: CRCConline.org If you can write a blog post without revising at least 60 times (and it's more than a paragraph), you're unlike most people. If you can stand in front of people and speak in a compelling way, you're unlike most people.  If you can calmly teach and engage a room full of preschoolers, you're unlike most people.  If you can fix a sink, you're unlike most people.  If you can bake your own cookies, you're unlike most people.  Chances are, there are ways in which you're unlike most people. But, do you realize what you've got? And are you using those unique gifts and talents to their full potential, or do you simply assume that everyone else functions like you do?  You are unlike most people, and that's a really good thing. 

Image: The Huffington Post This evening started with a great post by Bret Starr , the CEO of The Starr Conspiracy and one of the people who got me started in B2B marketing. His post reveals the why behind what he does--the passion for the business. When you work with Bret, you can see that same passion. But, when you think about most B2B sites or white papers (the name itself should give this away), there's little emotion, only facts. Part of that is because we assume that buyers are engaging in the sales process because they have to solve a business problem or that they have to justify the purchase, and the other part is because frankly, most of the products in a B2B transaction are quite complex and it is challenging enough dealing with the facts. But, this is where we stumble. The Harvard Business Review published "When to Sell with Facts and Figures, and When to Appeal to Emotions."  In the article, all the examples are B2C, but the focus is the complex sale--and, tha...

I love PicMonkey . For years, I watched graphic designers play in the magical sandbox of Illustrator, doing precisely what they wanted to images, picking exactly the right CMYK color and making art. Now, I dabbled in Illustrator, and I can do some basic things, but the cost of the program made it prohibitive to bring home and experiment with to go beyond the basics. Enter PicMonkey. Now, I can illustrate text or basic images to my heart's content. But, there's a problem. I am not an art director. Even with PicMonkey, I am not an art director. So, what's a content writer to do? When I was working at agencies, there were the inevitable art director who was forbidden from speaking with clients (and even sending emails) because client interaction was not his or her forte. But, the art directors who rose above, who led the creative element of the company, always managed to find a voice. How? It was hard, but they realized that what they had to say, their ideas and their vision o...