Avi Hein

Social media is a tool to meet business goals. It’s here to stay but it’s a tool that we all need to know. Social media experts role ought to be to consult in organizations (and marketing departments) how to incorporate it in the way proper to their unique business goals. A social media guru is a marketing manager, customer service director, PR director, etc. It won’t (and shouldn’t) stay a role in its own right. Unfortunately, 8 years after Facebook’s

Gary explains it much better than me. But I’ve said this before: Social Media=The Internet.

Eating your own dogfood is when a company uses the products it makes. Frequently, marketing teams don’t eat their own dogfood when it comes to social media. And the result is often bad strategy. Everyone now seems to be clamoring for “Social media.” “Open up a Facebook page,” they say … even if they don’t know why. Go Viral … even though they are lacking positioning. Social media strategy frequently requires a Groundswell strategy, including: Breaking down silos: operating across

Gary Vaynerchuk has been a social media superstar. Certainly no Luddite, he’s used social media — and most important useful content and real expertise — to real business success, both for his wine business and personal businesses. I first discovered Gary Vaynerchuk three or four years ago, when he was in the early days of Wine Library TV and reviewed some Israeli wine for the first time. Yet, Gary has said that there is a social media bubble. 99.5% of

I hate the word social media. I hate the concept ‘social’ media. I’ve consistently refused to incorporate the word ‘social’ in my job titles. I’m not a social media strategist. I’m a strategist. On this, I disagree with analysts like Altimeter’s Jeremiah Owyang. I also don’t say that I do social media marketing. I don’t.  I do marketing and today, media is social. (Today? When I was 15, half my lifetime ago, I started a nonprofit as a website, which

Gary Vaynerchuk discusses branding and marketing in today’s new age. Pay attention – he hates the word ‘social media’ because media implies broadcasting — but today’s age is conversation!

The social media and networking phenomenon is growing extremely fast in the UK. 85 percent of the population is online; they spend over 6 hours on social media sites every month, nearly 60 percent of them read blogs and 64% have their own profile on a social network. (Source: Mashable)

Mad Men may depict the ad world of the 1960s, but the lessons of this successful AMC show depicting the Madison Avenue world of 50 years ago still has a lot of relevance in today’s digital environment of 2010 and beyond. While Don Draper barely respected the world of the television commercial and certainly couldn’t have imagined Wikipedia or Facebook, there is still a lot we can learn — including the mistakes — from the Sterling Cooper team. Apologies but

The following is a guest post from Natan Gesher and was first posted on his blog Lines Writing Lines and is reprinted with permission of the author. The views expressed are entirely his own. If you’re in the habit of following these things, you’ve by no doubt now read Dan Yoder’s 10 Reasons to Delete Your Facebook Account. I’ve seen it posted in six or seven places in just the past few hours. Unfortunately, it makes less and less sense every

The current disaster in the Gulf states, with the BP oil spill (you know it’s bad when a disaster is named after your company) shows the importance of incorporating social media in your crisis communications plan, and the importance that social media plays in your communication strategy. For the past month, millions of gallons of oil have been flooding into the Gulf as an oil drilling rig, owned by Transocean Ltd on behalf of bp plc, exploded, killed eleven crew