Rich's Blog (34)

Never Slash A Social Media Program Too Soon

There is another side of measurement that people are sometimes afraid to talk about. It can best be described as reverse benchmarking — what happens when companies experiment with social, over focus on numbers, and then prematurely cut programs?

Sometimes they find out months later that their decision was a bad one. And sometimes, not always, it's… Continue

Added by Rich on December 8, 2010 at 10:46am — 4 Comments

Simplifying Messages: Why SWOT Is Not Enough

You've heard the old saying and so have I. You can't compare apples and oranges. Yeah, sure. All that is fine and good, unless you happen to be in business or applying for a job.

In business, being an apple among apples leaves sales to nothing more than random chance. So, to help distinguish people and products, many agencies invest a good deal of time and client money in developing unique selling points. Sometimes they use SWOT.

As a strategic planning method, SWOT can be…

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Added by Rich on March 13, 2010 at 12:28pm — No Comments

How To Improve Your Writing

For all the advantages of the Internet, the acceleration of communication, quantity of communication, and format of communication tends to have consequences. Sometimes quality of the communication is diminished.…

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Added by Rich on February 14, 2010 at 12:31pm — No Comments

RiseSmart Continues To Disrupt Outplacement Services

When RiseSmart first entered the recruiting industry in 2008, it set its sights on a specific niche. One year later, RiseSmart shifted its business model to include outplacement. The difference between the two places presents a case study in disruptive business.

RiseSmart is a provider of Web-enabled outplacement and job search services. The former helps laid-off employees find jobs faster. The latter helps professionals find jobs in the $100k market.

"Our initial thought… Continue

Added by Rich on November 5, 2009 at 1:33pm — No Comments

Are recruiters digging too deep into candidate privacy?

"Recruiters shouldn’t care about that Facebook picture of your beer pong game in college." — Shel Holtz, ABC, principal of Holtz Communication + Technology.

Holtz calls the increasing shift toward total transparency a cultural transition, spurred on by social media. And, as a consequence, "Animal House [by Millennials] behavior really… Continue

Added by Rich on October 30, 2009 at 2:46pm — No Comments

Businesses With Social Media Programs Outperform

Wetpaint and the Altimeter Group released a study today that confirms what seasoned communicators with several years of experience already know. Deep engagement with consumers through social media channels correlates to better financial performance. How much?

Companies engaged in social media grew company revenues by 18 percent over the last 12 months. The least engaged saw revenues sink 6 percent over the same time period.

"The closer any company is to its… Continue

Added by Rich on July 20, 2009 at 11:54am — No Comments

Beta Testers Wanted: Social Media Expert 14.0

For the last several months, Copywrite, Ink. has been working with a former Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity (CADIE) developer on a side project to take social media to the next level. We call it SME 14.0.

That's right. Rather than plod along from Social Media Expert 1.0 to 2.0 then to 3.0, we've leapfrogged right over all those cool and catchy numerals to Social Media Expert 14.0. And, for today only, you too… Continue

Added by Rich on April 1, 2009 at 3:23pm — No Comments

Be Careful What You Believe About Social Media

Eric Clemons, professor of operations and information management at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, drew some fire with his argument that the Internet shatters all forms of advertising. Enough so that he updated his post in an attempt to quell the criticism (or perhaps fan the flames) on TechCrunch, telling people how to properly frame their rebuts, ridiculing them for how they… Continue

Added by Rich on March 29, 2009 at 11:45am — No Comments

You Can Change The World In 90 Days Or Less.

BlogCatalog.com, the premier social network for bloggers, has launched BloggersUnite.org, a new social network that allows members to submit nonprofit events from around the world and work together to promote awareness campaigns, raise funds, and take action.

BloggersUnite.org was developed out of an initiative as the first blogger-driven social awareness campaign on the Internet in 2007. The initial campaign raised funds to buy classroom… Continue

Added by Rich on March 4, 2009 at 2:47pm — No Comments

RiseSmart Marketing Shift May Create Relationships

By Richard Becker, Copywrite, Ink.

Almost one year ago, two companies set out to differentiate themselves from other job search sites within the same niche: TheLadders and RiseSmart. Each wanted to dominate a subscription-based job site niche that focuses on jobs starting at $100k.

However, with the economic downturn, pursuing qualified employers or qualified candidates in a race toward a shrinking middle seemed increasingly… Continue

Added by Rich on February 18, 2009 at 7:42pm — No Comments

How To Use Tweetfeed With Twitter

Twitter, the real-time short messaging service that works over multiple networks and devices, continues to grow exponentially, increasing its membership from 500,000 in Dec. 2007 to 4.43 million in Dec. 2008. Membership is not the only area Twitter has grown. So has the number of tools, including Tweetfeed.

What is Tweetfeed and why does it add value to Twitter?

Tweetfeed is one of the newer applications that allows people to… Continue

Added by Rich on February 4, 2009 at 3:59pm — No Comments

How Good Is Your Mission Statement?

Many executives lose interest in them. Some communicators dismiss them. And a few people have called for their death. But a mission statement and its various counterparts — purpose, vision, core values — provides a brief description of a company’s purpose and answers why the organization exists for the publics it strives to serve.

As Philip Kotler once put it, the mission statement acts as an invisible hand that guides employees to work independently and yet collectively toward the… Continue

Added by Rich on January 26, 2009 at 4:06pm — 4 Comments

Are You Accepting Temporary As Permanent?

If you are, you and/or your company might be on the bottom of the complacency circle, which tends to impact people and companies on both ends of the spectrum — when things are too good or when things are too bad. The result is the general acceptance of a temporary situation or state of being as if it is permanent, which means you won't be in a better position when times do change.

And they will. They always do. It's the only certainty.…

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Added by Rich on January 8, 2009 at 3:56pm — No Comments

How Many Friends Does It Take To Be An Expert?

In between some satire, there always seems to be some seriousness in conversations about online authority. Some social media participants want to measure this stuff, even if it for the sole purpose of vanity or perhaps selling snake oil.

There is enough of it that Jennifer Leggio lent a near perfect expose entitled "Twitter popularity does not equal business acumen" on ZDNet. The article mentions several reasons that online popularity doesn't equal much of anything. Her hope was to… Continue

Added by Rich on December 30, 2008 at 1:30pm — 2 Comments

Watson Wyatt Study Suggests Hard Times For Employees

Watson Wyatt, a global consulting firm focused on human capital and financial management, found more than one in five companies (23 percent) plan to make layoffs in the next 12 months, with almost two in five (39 percent) reporting that they have already done so.

“All indications are that 2009 will be a difficult year for both companies and ultimately employees,” said Laura Sejen, global director of strategic rewards consulting at Watson Wyatt. “It will be up to employers to find an… Continue

Added by Rich on December 19, 2008 at 10:36am — No Comments

Alexa Changes Algorithm; Readjusts Blog Evaluations

I've never been a big fan of social media measures, but other people like them. "That's the best we have," people tell me.

Alexa, for example, is a longtime favorite for people to gage traffic, despite its obvious and admitted shortcomings. Some bloggers have even taken to using it as a valuation in order to determine ad rates. Maybe not any longer. Alexa changed its algorithm and plenty of people are cheering and weeping. Me, I'm just laughing because I had doubts (and still do)… Continue

Added by Rich on April 17, 2008 at 7:00pm — No Comments

Social Networking Is Changing Fast

While speaking at John Sumser's Las Vegas Recruiting Roadshow, I mentioned how a social network for bloggers, BlogCatalog.com, was working on several applications to help streamline social networks. Last night, they launched SocialStream, which adds portability to social network data in the form of a widget.

Added by Rich on March 5, 2008 at 4:30pm — No Comments

Spam Works Short, But Not Long

By Richard Becker

Forget Facebook and other online advertising models for a minute. Datran Media released a study that says direct-to-consumer e-mail spam works.

More than 82 percent of the marketers surveyed indicated that they plan to increase e-mail marketing this year. That’s a whole lot of e-mails.

Why? As much as everybody complains about e-mail advertising, it seems to work. The… Continue

Added by Rich on February 1, 2008 at 12:27pm — No Comments

Blogs Are Blank Canvases; Web sites are gateways

With so many rules being placed on blogs, I wonder if professional bloggers don't sell themselves short. Maybe the question isn't "why do this or that" but why not. That's what we'll be doing more of 2008. Take a look if your like.

Right here. If you like, you can also connect with me on Linkedin.

Blogs are blank canvases; Web sites are gateways. We're looking for new… Continue

Added by Rich on December 19, 2007 at 1:22pm — 2 Comments

Can Bloggers Learn From Journalists?

While listening to a panel discussion called “Being Opinionated in America” from the University of Berkeley that featured Maureen Dowd and Thomas L. Friedman (available for free download at iTunes), I noted that Friedman was particularly transparent in his approach to writing foreign affairs columns for The New York Times.

Five Points Gleaned From Thomas L. Friedman

• Writes fact-based commentaries that are reasonably objective

• Does not write to make friends and not… Continue

Added by Rich on December 3, 2007 at 9:33pm — No Comments