My sincerest apologies on the long delay between posts. It is one part summer, one part new job. Oh and one part World Of Warcraft! I wont lie-WOW is super fun. But mostly summer and getting situated at a new gig. Alas, here is a new post. First off, yes I have left Sokolove Law in favor of the award winning confines of EDR and commonground in particular.The Sokolove experience was amazing because of the people who reside within those walls. I can say with absolute certainty that the people of Sokolove are not ambulance chasers, but people who truly help others in need of legal help. And there are alot of them! It was very eye opening and I am happy for my time there. Especially because they are on a path with their SEO strategy that will serve them well for years to come. I was thrilled to be a key part of the strategy that put the organization on that path to success.

As for commonground, right out of the gate we:

1. Launched Reputation Management complete with some swell icons and empowering points structure.
2. Created a Social Media presence in over 40 social channels, with an eye on sharing and listening at the outset.
3. Brought the Twitter conversation into commonground via Environmental and Real Estate focused  Hastags with Tweetizen
4. Created the #IOilSpill campaign with Jeff Cutler- an environmental and commercial real estate long term perspective of the BP Oil Spill

http://commonground.edrnet.com/resources/35d0c29799/summary

All in all, it EDR has been a fantastic move for me thus far. Great people! Full of challenges! Massive opportunity! I will be sure to share lessons learned as I go. Come to think of it, I have a few SEO thoughts to share in the coming weeks. For now, please be sure to follow @JeffCutler and his #IOilSpill insights.

1. AdGooRoo – A fantastic (but expensive) tool that offers competitive insights on SEO Keyword rankings, SEM intelligence on your business and your competitors. They are working on analytics solution that is in beta form.
2. Objective Marketer – A solid tool that I sue for advance tweeting. I don’t do much of it, but on occasion it is nice to fire something off if I know I am unavailable. This solution os a great tool for enterprise organizations just engaging socially. Solid engagement analytics included.
3. bit.ly – I haven’t mentioned a URL shortener on my blog. Now I have. The click analytics is fantastic and everyone should use it to track which posts are resonating. Then do more of what resonates.
4. Flowtown- Flowtown allows you to take email addresses and determine in which social networks they are active. Very slick when you need to segment your audience.It is also a huge plus for researching where your brand will better resonate. BI- lots of it.
5. Authority Labs – This is more of an SEO tool. It is a simple rank monitoring service.  You can easily track and analyze your keyword ranking and performance on Google, Yahoo! and Bing. You can also use it, in correlation with Google Keyword Tool, to identify low hanging fruit keywords that you can rank on based on content generation.

If there are some new tools you would like to share, leave it in the comments. If you are the new tool? Tells us about you and get yourself the in-links. Hope everyone is having a great kick off to the summer. Let’s Go Mets!

In April, the civilian labor force participation rate increased by 0.3% to 65.2 percent, as the size of the labor force rose by 805,000. Since December, the participation rate has increased by 0.6 percentage point. The employment-population ratio rose to 58.8 percent over the month and has increased by 0.6 percentage point since December. So what does this have to do with media consumption? It means people are going back to work, this is a good thing, but everything is relative.

A proven fact, an economic up tick creates disposable income. It is during these times when the middle class has extra income, that they invest in gadgets. During the Clinton years, the MP3 technology changed music consumption.  Remember the Metallica’s war on Napster?  To date the music industry has changed drastically due to the introduction of MP3 technology – namely the iPod. History repeats itself right?

Most American’s are gadget mongers and love toys. Look at the thriving Best Buy business as proof. The economy will make a full recovery sometime over the next 36 months.  Coincide the recovery with the iPad and we are sitting on the verge of a major shift in media consumption. Live TV as we know it will evolve from broadcasting at set times to releasing at set times. With that, the ability to watch on the consumer’s time is going to take precedence with younger generations to begin with. Eventually, the older demo will follow suit.  Look at Facebook as a an adoption case study for older demographics. The change in consumption is going to make the commercial advertising model that TV employs today null and void. The iPad is a game changer and once a Hulu app is available– game- set –match! Same with DVR functionality, even if television continues to broadcast, most consumers will start taping and fast forward through commercials. Come to think of it, I am a prime example of this. I never watch live television unless it is a sporting event. Alas, I digress. The iPad is a tool that makes consuming media easier than ever thought possible (they probably will make an app for you to watch your DVR), this will make the need for product placement that much more prevalent in TV. Did you see the episode on Modern Family where Phil Dunphy was having a birthday on the same day the iPad was coming out? There is the template for TV advertising in the coming years.

So why the post? Well below I put together a graphic that shows marketing in 2010 from a birds eye view. A major chunk of traditional marketing is about to change due to advances in technology and economic consumption. So the question begs to be asked, is your brand planning ahead and investing in Social Media and Organic search to compensate? Are you researching how to penetrate the market using TV in a future state? Or is it business as usual? OR- do you think I am full of hot air? Let’s check back in 36 months and see if we have moved from talking about Modern Family in favor of “Modern Marketing” with the iPad as the catalysts.

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Reputation management is the process of tracking an entity’s actions and other entities’ opinions about those actions; reporting on those actions and opinions; and reacting to that report creating a feedback loop. All entities involved are generally people, but that need not always be the case. Other examples of entities include animals, businesses, or even locations or materials. The tracking and reporting may range from word-of-mouth to statistical analysis of thousands of data points.

Historically marketers have used Reputation Management to monitor negative sentiment in Social Media channels by creating and optimizing content around keywords that would move negative sentiment off of page one in Google.  Smart- right? It also allows the company to address that same negative sentiment and document a case study of success. Make the naysayer happy! Good stuff and smart as well.

That was the past, today Reputation Management is a must for any brand swimming in Social Media channels. Here is why! I have tried to tag and #hastag alot of keywords I am interested in being found for.  Sure enough, some of the organic keyword traffic this blog is receiving comes from social channels, as well as those tagged keywords from Google.  I don’t link build,  so that direct Google traffic (attached to a specific  keyword) is a direct byproduct of tagging my content and Google finding the correlation to my Social reputation.

Since Google started indexing tweets, I have seen Twitter pages and even individual tweets I have posted  start appearing within Google search results. Same with ReTweets (RT) of me, or of my valued Twitter peeps! The result has been more referral traffic and the direct connecting of the dots to SEO.

What I outlined above is a way you can show ROI in relation to Social Media. If you are not engaging socially, you might want to reconsider.  Social Media now has a direct quantifiable relationship to SEO with a pivot point named Reputation Management.
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18-49 finals (repeats in gray; previous weeks in parentheses):
6.5 (6.7) (5.9) (6.8) (6.7) (6.7) (7.2) (6.8) (7.5) (8.5) (8.7) (7.0) (9.5) (7.8) (9.5) (9.9)(10.1)(—-) American Idol (Wed)
6.2 (6.9) (6.9) (7.1) (7.3) (7.7) (8.4) (8.1) (8.2) (8.6) (9.0)(9.2)(10.1) (9.0)(9.0)(10.1)(11.8)(—-) American Idol (Tue)
4.9 (5.2) (5.3) (5.6) (—-) (—–) (—-) (—-) (2.9) (—-) (—-) (—–) (—-) (—–) (—-) (—–) (—-) (1.3) Glee
4.6 (3.6) (4.1) (5.1) (2.2) (3.5) (5.2) (3.9) (5.9) (5.9) (3.3) (3.6) (6.0) (5.4) (4.0) (5.3) (5.7) (3.5) Big Bang Theory
4.1 (4.4) (4.8) (4.9) (5.1) (5.6) (6.4) (—-) (—–) (—-) (—-) (—–) (—-) (—-) (—-) (—-) (—–) (—-) Dancing With The Stars (Mon)
4.1 (4.1) (3.6) (3.8) (3.8) (3.5) (3.4) (—-) (3.6) (3.8) (3.7) (3.9) (4.5) (—–) (—-) (—-) (—-) (—-) Survivor
4.0 (1.8) (3.7) (3.9) (3.9) (4.1) (4.0) (3.9) (4.2) (4.1) (4.6) (4.5) (5.0) (5.5) (1.4) (—-) (—-) (—-) Lost

This is the highest rated SNL since 2008, just before Obama was elected President.  So why was it a success and an important win for Social Media? Because if you listen to your customers and react to their requests, you and your business will win. After the Super Bowl people were stoked by Betty White’s appearance in a Snickers commercial. So much so, they started to petition SNL to have her appear as a host on Facebook, Twitter and other social channels. The results?  Viewership ahead of the largest shows on television. The lesson learned? Brands should:

1. Listen
2. React
3. Plan
4. Execute
5. Win!

Kudos to Lorne Michaels and the SNL staff for really letting a serendipitous and fun show play out for all of us including- Betty White herself.  Her reaction at the end of the show was magic.

Here is my favorite clip of the night:

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The addition of geography to keyword and #hashtag search has allowed users to dive even further and businesses are able to derive even more:

1. Business Intelligence
2. Competitive Analysis
3. Direct To Consumer Marketing

In the coming months look for Foursquare to start segmenting industries even further. Also, rural America does not have much of a presence on Foursquare, so they might have to seed some content there. Ultimately, the day might come where you will be able to search for the most random of items or service based on your current location- and find it. I think it is safe say that Foursquare is pushing niche and the Geo makes traveling, moving or simply knowing your surroundings, that much easier.

I am sure there are other business drivers I missed. Feel free to bolt on your business drivers for Foursquare in the comments.



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TORONTO — Chris Bosh is asking his Twitter followers to help decide his NBA future.

The five-time All-Star posted two messages to his almost 96,000 followers Friday night, ending a week of silence with a post that read: “Been wanting to ask. Where should I go next season and why?”

About an hour later, Bosh posted a second message that read: “Ok… Let me rephrase the question. Should I stay or should I go?”

Bosh is expected to opt out of the final year of his contract with the Toronto Raptors, leaving more than $17 million on the table, in order to join a free agent class that could also include LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Amare Stoudemire.

The seven-year veteran averaged career-highs with 24 points and 10.8 rebounds this year.

Here is my take:

1. First off, if I was a young millionaire- I would do the same thing. The many know much better then Chris does- lets be honest! The masses cant be wrong and majority will no doubt guide him in the right direction.
2. Secondly- I wish more companies would make 80+ million dollar decisions and ask the customers first! Maybe Chris is a CEO in the making?
3. Lastly- Chris this is my plea for you to sign with the Celtics. Garnett, you, Rondo and Pierce equal a Championship in 2011. Plus, Boston is a basketball city. You will love it here. Just ask Paul, Russell, Havlicek, Cousy, Heinsohn, Ainge, McHale and Bird. If you want the best chance to win, come to Boston. Rondo will feed you plenty of easy buckets!

An interesting headline that proves the social aspect of business is here to stay and then some.

I really like this one.

Thanks to Socialnomics and @equalman for doing a fantastic job. And to the chap that is in his first job post college- keep plugging buddy. You have 40+ more years of work. There will be many more challenges – seize the moment and kill it! I hope these help!

I will be doing a Betty White blog post this week. Stay tuned!

Click image to visit the site

The YazTalk site is also is taking an “educate before you take legal action” approach to legal marketing.  I cannot share any data points legally,  but I can say Social Media has been effective at extending the Sokolove brand.

Click image to visit the site

I am happy to speak further about these sites offline.

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The last item on the list, YazTalk is a site I spent a majority of the first 3 months of employment on.  It has been said it is “very progressive” for the law industry in that it is Social Media driven, complete with a Community Manager.  Is it working- yes! But sadly I cant share much other then to say that educating those who have a personal injury prior to them  taking legal action simply works. Social Media is a fantastic education vehicle for this process.

Lastly, my peers have done a great job at creating a cause around getting Asbestos banned. Check out Ban Asbestos Now campaign.

I wish there was actual data I could share, but alas I cant. However, I am working on a post about more social media and SEO gadgets. So be looking for that soon! Happy spring everyone!

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