Wouldn't it be great if you could connect with your ideal clients before they needed your product or service?  And wouldn't it be even more amazing if you knew immediately when something occurred that triggered their need for your service?  Imagine running an appliance repair service and receiving an email any time someone in Read More...

Viral marketing is a hot buzzword these days. It's a simple enough concept - get others to spread your idea and before too long, thanks to the beauty of exponential math ("I told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on, and so on."), you've reached a lot of people.
The challenge is, how Read More...

I'm on a panel tonight at Social Media Club Austin talking about the connection between SEO (search engine optimization) and social media. I'll be focusing on long tail keyword research, an essential core strategy for businesses looking to use social media to bring targeted traffic to their website (which, let's face it, really should Read More...

Yet again, Facebook has demonstrated their utter lack of understanding for personal boundaries and any sense of appropriate privacy. One of the things you can do with Facebook Places that you can't with Foursquare, Gowalla, etc., is check your friends in.
Bad idea. Really bad idea. If I choose to tell the world where I Read More...

Guest post by Auren Hoffman
The Art of the Email Introduction How to introduce two people so that they both benefit
Email introductions are a poorly-understand art and are often done too hastily without careful thought.  Making introductions the right way can be the best way to help two people and create Read More...

Great LinkedIn invitations? Are they really that big a deal? Sure, canned messages are lame, but inviting someone to connect via LinkedIn (or any other social networking site) is just a simple matter of record-keeping. What's wrong with just, "Hey, let's connect?"

That's one way to look at it. But consider this: every communication you Read More...

I want to make a quick plug for two new tools that I've been using.
CompanionLink Software gave me a trial copy of CompanionLink, which synchronizes PIM/CRM data with your phone or other supported desktop applications and web-based services (like Google, Act, Goldmine, etc.).  I use it to sync my iPhone with Act 2009 Premium.  I Read More...

Twitter's security meltdown has done a fantastic job of publicizing how vulnerable a modern, cloud-based startup can be to a determined hacker. 
I have been surprised that in the numerous articles about how to protect yourself against hacking, I have seen very little mention of the powerful technique that we discussed in The Virtual Handshake.  Read More...

By most people's standards, I'm doing very well on Twitter. TwitterGrader currently gives me a score of 100% and has me ranked #265 out of nearly 2 million users it has analyzed.

I'm adding an average of a little over 30 followers per day, and have had days where I've added almost 100 Read More...

I'm not in the practice of being overly critical, and certainly not mean or snarky. But sometimes someone does something so completely, utterly incompetent or misguided that it's worth pointing out, for their own good as well as being an example for the general public.
That happened yesterday. Short version of the story: an established PR Read More...