Community Marketing Blog

Who's Calling the Shots? (Hint: It's Not You)

In today's marketing world, the innovators are the ones who are setting the pace and dictating which brands will come out on top. Not too long ago, advertising agencies decided what you watched, ate, bought and played with. However, changes to the communication landscape have put the consumer in the driver's seat. 

Winning Strategic Accounts: Permission + Self-selection= Referrals

Smaller  firms need major accounts because large companies are more likely to award multiple contracts year after year. However, getting past the barriers in Fortune 1000-sized companies can be daunting and time-consuming. How about doing something counter-intuitive?

Cold-calling senior executives is discouraged in many key account acquisition strategies.  Yet how do you crack into a Fortune 1000-sized firm who would be a perfect client for you if you have no "natural" network access?

25 Reasons Why Nobody Comments On Your Blog And Posts

By Andrew Ballenthin October 20, 2009 President, Sol Solutions Biography

Connect.Follow.Network.

You are not alone in your quest for more comments. This problem is more of an epidemic than what you might first think. Blogs like “open mike” by retired Executive Chairman Mike Critelli of Pitney Bowes and world electronics giant Hitachi see an average of 0-5 comments a post. If voices for these multi-billion global businesses have these challenges it’s not unreasonable for the rest of us to see similar results.

5 1/2 Things I Am Not Going To Tell You About Social Media

	By Andrew Jenkins October 31, 2009 Volterra Consulting, Founder Biography	Connect.Follow.Network.

There has been so much written and recorded about social media in historic and social media channels.  The coverage in the various blogs and tweets runs the gamut between opportunism and relevance. You’ll find the 3, 5 or 10 things you need to know about twitter etiquette, making the most of twitter, how to drive traffic to you blog, how to get thousands of followers in a matter of days or weeks and, most importantly, how to make money using social media. 

5 Criteria For Qualifying Social Media Consultants

By Andrew Ballenthin October 20, 2009 President, Sol Solutions Biography

Connect.Follow.Network.

Despite having a time line that stretches over a decade it seems that it's only over the past few years that social media consultants and guru's have become popular new job titles. How is one to measure what their level of expertise is if their is no national or internationally standard for measuring quality standards and professional competency?

6 Tips for Creating a Successful Marketing Plan

Writing and implementing a marketing plan is essential for the success of any business. There are many resources available that define the basic elements of a marketing plan such as those provided by SCORE  and the SBA so this article does not attempt to review these elements. Rather, the author seeks to outline 6 tips for creating a successful marketing plan and impress upon the reader the importance of taking the time to plan and monitor your marketing efforts.

An Understated Hero: How LinkedIn Is A Global Village Of Goodwill

By Andrew Ballenthin October 20, 2009 President, Sol Solutions Biography

Connect.Follow.Network.

Free: job posting, surveys, networking, search engine profiling, news posting, supplier and client matching, group discussions and much more. Where? LinkedIn. For who? Over 50 million members. Wow... when you think about it LinkedIn has an online population greater than Australia or Spain all engaging in "free trade". That's a huge amount of commerce with no strings attached.

The Seven Habits of Highly Successful Social Media Practitioners – Seeing Your Way Through ‘The Cloud’

	By Ted Morris October 19, 2009 4ScreenMedia Biography	Connect.Follow.Network.

It’s clearly with respect to Steven Covey’s framework for managing one’s career – The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People that is the focus of this post. You might recall the four quadrants, notably, Covey’s observation that many of us spend too much time with “busy work” and not enough time practicing principle #2 - “beginning with the end in mind”. So here goes:

5 Reasons Why Nobody Comments On Your Blogs and Posts

By Andrew Ballenthin October 14, 2009 President, Sol Solutions Biography

Connect.Follow.Network.

The other day I was surprised to find a number of multi-billion and mega-million dollar companies that did not have much dialog on their blogs while I was doing my book research book on social media monetization. It was quite stirring to see companies that put effort into having a social media presence not having huge engagement. It's not what you would expect right?

A Community of Game Changers

This post is not about social media or marketing. It’s about community.

I have had the pleasure of being a part of an online community of game changers defying outmoded business models and testing new ones.

It began with the sharing of a doctoral thesis and turned into a community of 470+ people from 45 countries sharing ideas and contributing to a book on business models entitled Business Model Generation.