Tech “Doodle Blog”

Posted on June 8, 2015 by Gary R Schirr

View at Medium.com

Check out a new “doodle blog” about the worlds of start-ups, high-tech, and social media. Two of its recent posts are in the top twenty this week for blogs on Medium. This is one:

View at Medium.com

(Disclosure: The blogger is my daughter…)

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

#Blog problems: Blogger’s Block? #Audience not growing?

Posted on June 5, 2015 by Gary R Schirr

A 17-minute SMM lecture on what to do if you encounter the two most common problems after launching a new blog:

  1. Blogger’s Block – I used up all the great article ideas!
  2. Where’s the audience?

My goal is to motivate new bloggers to keep going!!

I appreciate any thoughts on material to add or how to improve this lecture…

Posted in Blogging, Digital Marketing, Higher Education, social media marketing | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Student Blogs – From Moneyball to Cotton Seed Oil. Check them out!

Posted on June 2, 2015 by Gary R Schirr

Yes there are 200 million active blogs in the blogosphere. Never fear – my Digital Marketing class has created 7 fresh new ones to take a look at!

cotton-seedDeb’s Dietary Do’s and Don’ts –  Insight from a concerned consumer about the impact of the food we eat. She has discussed cotton-seed (see pic on left), hybrid corn, diet soda’s and auto-immune disease. And More to come!

Enjoy “Moneyball?” Here are 2 blogs about the business of baseball (sans Brad Pitt):

Cincy BBall

BaseballBryan talks about the Marketing of the national pastime, including social media efforts on Twitter and Snapchat.           America’s Greatest Tradition talks about the front office and business of the sport.

Retirement by Design deals with the key issues of who will be able to retire and when. It also offers advice on planning and saving for retirement.

Heard of the Paleo diet? Sound interesting? Pushing for Paleo discussing the details of the popular diet and  the reasons for the fad.

Expansion in Charlotte – Are you a fan of soccer living in North Carolina or SW Virginia and frustrated that the nearest MLS team is in Columbus, Ohio? This blog is for you!

What does it take to pass the CPA? Another student blog talks about the issues and work involved.

Tech Doodles – Finally I take the liberty of recommending a new tech cartoon blog that happens to be created by my daughter.

EIGHT new blogs – check them out! Return next week to the ones you find interesting!

Posted in social media marketing, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

You can make a good decision… and lose – Ask Pete Carroll

Posted on February 4, 2015 by Gary R Schirr

PetePete Carroll will be long remembered as “the coach who blew Superbowl 49.”

Everyone KNOWS that he should have had “Beast Mode” run for the winning touchdown, but instead:

  • Over-thought it,
  • Tried to be cute, or
  • Favored Wilson over Lynch.

But let’s take a moment and fresh look at: How would a strategic or data-driven manager make the decision to run or pass?

Continue reading →

Posted in social media marketing, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Update: Favorite Social Sites of College Seniors

Posted on January 30, 2015 by Gary R Schirr

The initial survey of my 60 social media marketing students last August (see previous post!) generated some interest, so I thought I would update it for Spring Semester 2015.

Weighted Scores – Favorite and Most Used Social Sites

Continue reading →

Posted in Facebook, Higher Education, LinkedIn, Social Media, social media marketing, Teaching SMM, twitter | Tagged | 1 Comment

Essential Social Platforms for College Seniors

Posted on August 26, 2014 by Gary R Schirr

I like to survey my incoming social media marketing class about their social networks. It is often a learning experience for me: a couple of years ago I learned about two new platforms, Instagram and Pinterest, before they hit a “tipping point” and were in the news. Last January I learned about the popularity of Snapchat and some upcoming sites including Tinder, Whisper and Yik Yak.

Yesterday I surveyed the sixty students, generally seniors majoring in marketing or communications, about which social media sites were important to them. I asked two questions:

  • What are your three most used social media platforms in order, and
  • What ONE social media platform is most important – the one you would keep if you had to have only one?

The weighted scores of the seven social media platforms that drew more than 2 mentions from the 60 participants is shown in the following table. The weighted score was created by giving  a platform three points for every student that ranked them first in “most used”, 2 points for second and one for third. As you can see Instagram edged out Twitter, followed by Facebook and Snapchat.

Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, Content, Facebook, Higher Education, LinkedIn, Social Media, social media marketing, Teaching SMM, twitter | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Extended Posts on LinkedIn

Posted on June 19, 2014 by Gary R Schirr

Have you tried the new extended post feature on LinkedIn? What has been your experience? What are your concerns??

The past three weeks I posted a blog article on LinkedIn.

Jeff Bullas, Neal Schaffer and several other people I respect on social media urged experimentation with the new platform. I had had early access for a while, but finally gave it a try when LinkedIn announced that it was available to all.

All three posts have been “re-purposed” articles from my two blogs, SMM 4 Business and Service C0-creation.

I have been pleased with the metrics on the three. In the following table I compare some basic measures for the original posting on WordPress to the re-posting on LinkedIn. The numbers are very favorable and they are all in addition to the original posting.

LI post summariesThe numbers for postings two and three on LinkedIn are probably bolstered by the fact that I hired @kikischirr to make illustrations for them.

My concerns

My concerns are:

  1. Irritating my most loyal followers by multiple postings.
  2. Negative SEO impact as Google allegedly penalizes for multiple postings. (When I Google “Four P’s of Content Marketing” the third organic result is my LinkedIn post and the fifth is the original on WordPress.)

Again:

  • Have YOU tried the new extended post feature on LinkedIn?
  • What has been your experience?
  • What are your concerns??

Posted in Blogging, Content, LinkedIn, Social Media, social media marketing | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

The 10 Principles of Social Media Marketing

Posted on June 17, 2014 by Gary R Schirr

This is the last week of my summer social media marketing class. Seven MBA students, most of whom are working during the day, have gathered together twice a week from 6 to 10 pm to discuss SMM for organizations.

Last session I asked the class to generate “Ten principles of Social Media Marketing” that I could use as a starting point for my next class. These are the 10 they came up with – with very little prompting or comment from their usually talkative professor (they rarely get out early):

  1. Know your organizational culture and voice. Know your audience and community. Speak to the audience with your voice.
  2. Listen. If you do nothing else, listen to what people are saying about your organization, products or services, competitors and environment.
  3. Social media is SOCIAL: Engage your community.
  4. Be patient but measure! Progress takes time but must be monitored.
  5. You can’t be on every social platform: Be on the social platforms that your target audience or community use most.
  6. Be authentic 24/7/52.
  7. Show your passion. Involve your stakeholders.
  8. Be consistent with message, principles and tone.
  9. Produce great targeted content.
  10. Have good manners. If you are angry delay your post or tweet and read it again before posting.

It seems like a good list to me…  but I am likely biased.

Do you think they nailed it?

Are any of their 10 not really necessary?

What is number 11??

 

 

Posted in Blogging, Content, Facebook, Higher Education, Social Media, social media marketing, Teaching SMM | 3 Comments

My Content Marketing II: #Curation, #Contributed + #Branded Content

Posted on June 12, 2014 by Gary R Schirr

In my last post on this site, I noted that Content Marketing goes back two centuries.

In my two previous careers (only going back to the last century) I was a content marketer and salesperson. In the days before blogs and email I folded newsletters, stamped and licked envelopes to get content to a targeted community of bank and other financial traders. I had also started holding seminars and offered to speak at third-party seminars and conferences.

Curating in Asia

When I went to Asia to run an institutional bond and derivatives sales operation I noted that many local desks divided their brokers into two groups: idea brokers and entertainment brokers.

I clearly wanted our desk to be identified as an idea broker as it: (1) fit my personal style, (2) it was more profitable – they paid the same commissions to both, but entertainment brokers had horrendous costs, and (3) I valued my liver and my family. So I stepped up the content activity.

Continue reading →

Posted in Content, Personal Learning Network, Selling, Social influence, Social Media | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

My Careers in Content Marketing

Posted on June 10, 2014 by Gary R Schirr

Content Marketing

Content marketing has been a hot topic in social media and marketing for the past few years. The Google Trends chart shows a dramatic upturn in searches for content marketing since 2011.

But if you look carefully at the chart you can also see that there had been a sustained level of searches by that term from before 2004. Actually it goes back much further than 2004. Content marketing is not new: in fact the origin of content marketing is often traced back two centuries. According to an article on the Content Marketing Institute site, content marketing dates to the launch of The Furrow magazine by John Deer & Company in 1895. Other early practitioners of content marketing included Michelin, Jello, P&G and Sears.

As I noted in a previous post, I had been teaching marketing and social media marketing for several years before a conversation with and an article by Sander Biehn (@sanderbiehn) led me to the realization that I had been a content marketing and content salesperson in my two careers prior to becoming a professor. In this post I will talk about content marketing and selling in pre-social, even pre-web times.

Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, Content, Selling, Social Media, social media marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment