eBoot Camp Blog Posts

4 Important Branding Trends From Mashable Connect 2011

I can scarcely remember a time in my professional life when I was as excited about an email as when I received the invitation to Mashable Connect 2011. This invitation-only event brought together 300 of some of the most influential digital leaders across a wide range of industries including marketing, consumer electronics, entertainment and more. This event allowed these thought leaders to make connections and exchange ideas about how brands, organizations and communities are connecting through innovation, social and digital tools.

The takeaways from this event are too many to quantify, but the central theme addressed by every speaker was that not only are big changes occurring in the social media space, but they’re happening at the speed of light.  Below are what I believe are 4 Important Branding Trends highlighted at this powerful event.

The Shift From Control to Collaboration
One of the most significant changes occurring in social media is the shift from control to collaboration.  The most successful marketers are giving up control and turning their consumers into “prosumers”.  These “prosumers” are taking control and driving the direction of the marketing campaigns through the use of social media … READ MORE

How to increase Facebook Engagement

eBoot Campers!

I just got out of a meeting and the agenda was all about Facebook engagement. I had to start by leveling the expectations a bit because getting engagement on Facebook business pages is tough. Why? Well, think about how you navigate Facebook. Typically, we jump on, see what our friends and colleagues are doing and jump off. Following what a business is up is not a top priority. So the odds are stacked against us.

But it’s still worth the effort. Here are three reasons why:

When they comment or ‘like’ your post, that activity shows up on their page and it’s the best way to organically spread your message to other people.
It’s the only way to tell that people are paying attention to your message. When someone responds or ‘likes’ your post, you know they read it. In the offline world, it would be like getting people to pull their cars over and sign your billboard.
You know they are enjoying what you’re posting. If you’re consistently getting engagement with your Facebook posts, people are engaged and like what you’re doing. You’ve also earned the right to occasionally talk about your business. … READ MORE

Cali: Great place to visit!

Sometimes being sick has its advantages. I’ve cancelled all my appointments today and found time to write a blog post. I hope you’ll humor me as I reflect on the craziest week in my professional career. It was my Southern Los Angeles eBoot Camp tour that spanned five days and included four social media workshops and one private consultation. And I learned a lot of lessons about this great part of the world. I’ve listed a few below in case you ever find yourself in Sunny (I never saw a cloud) LA.

1. The 405. This is, by far, the busiest, craziest, fastest, ride I’ve ever been on. And yes, it’s just a freeway. What I learned is in order to a. make it to your destination and b. avoid a complete meltdown which culminates in you reenacting a scene from Falling Down (anyone remember that movie) you must understand the flow of traffic and the time of day. If you’re heading in the ‘Right’ direction, it’s not so bad. Which is the right direction? Best just to ask someone as it depends on where you are and where you are going. If you end know you’re headed into the … READ MORE

Google Analytics – Measuring Your Website So You Can Improve It

A friend of mine used to run a company that showed software developers how to create better software; on time and on budget – not an easy task when you consider the complexities involved in creating computer programs.

The difference, he told me, between organizations that did it right and everybody else was measurement and these companies lived by the mantra, “You can’t improve what you don’t measure“. After all, imagine trying to become a world class sprinter without a stopwatch or a measuring tape!

The same applies to our websites. If we don’t measure what we do on our websites and blogs, we won’t know what to fix, improve or duplicate. Now I know you’re eyes are probably rolling back in your head and you’re wondering how you measure something as complicated as a website. After all, I’m a lawyer, accountant, auto mechanic or baker not a techno-geek.

Don’t worry, our friends at Google have created an extremely useful tool for measuring the effectiveness of our websites. It’s called Google Analytics and it’s free! It’s also … READ MORE

Eight Reasons You Need to be Blogging

Recently I’ve made a committment to blog more consistently. Why, you ask? Well that’s a great question and a great blog topic for this week’s post. There are literally dozens if not hundreds of reasons to blog so, of course, the following list is by no means extensive but these are a few reasons that I blog:

Blogs attract traffic, search engine and human.
Search engines, and the humans who use them, love content. A static website, one whose content changes infrequently, if at all, may be full of content but it quickly becomes old hat. After all, it’s the rare book that you read more than once. Blogging gives you an opportunity to continue to expand your content and reader’s awareness of your expertise on a continuous basis.
It gives people a reason to return to your site on a regular basis.
Would you continue to subscribe to your daily newspaper or RSS feed if every day you opened it up to find the same news as yesterday … READ MORE