Create Social Media Moments and Memories for Your Audience

Branding, Marketing, Social Media
Look all around you. Everybody is taking pictures everywhere they go. You want to capitalize on this trend. Anything you do as a business or organization needs to be optimized for social media. Your people. Your office. Your content. Your events. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, you want to be making it easy for your connections and customers to share something to do with your brand with their own respective networks. Your fans and followers want to talk about you. They want to amplify everything about you to a wider circle of people. They’re looking for something to capture and disseminate via their own feeds on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and the like. Give them the opportunities. Give them the inspiration. Create social media moments and memories for…
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Immortalizing Your Brand’s Audience on Social Media

Boston Marathon, Branding, Business, Marketing, Social Media
It feels good to be able to run 26.2 miles on any given day, but I was particularly happy to finish the Boston Marathon on April 16, 2018. For starters, this was the 11th time I've run Boston for charity, the fifth time for Christopher's Haven, raising nearly $2,000 this time around for this ridiculously awesome non-profit organization. It was also especially gratifying to be able to go the entire 26.2-mile distance despite such extremely inclement weather conditions. Pouring rain. Stiff headwinds. Cold temperatures. The long, challenging journey from Hopkinton to Boston this year was about as far from a walk in the park as you could imagine. After I crossed the finish line on Boylston Street, I asked one of the volunteers to take my picture, as I wanted…
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Social Media Isn’t Rocket Science

Social Media Isn’t Rocket Science

Branding, Marketing, Social Media
Social media isn’t rocket science. Yup. Using LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and the like is easier than you think IF you make it a priority. But that’s just the problem. Many businesses, organizations, institutions and communities don’t get it. They are still giving short shrift to what they view as an unnecessary, newfangled way of communications. They think social media is a fad or something the cool kids may do, not something they have to make a priority. Think again. Employers should be training their employees TODAY how to use social media on behalf of their brands. Anyone in a leadership position should be immersing themselves NOW in everything to do with these online channels and making sure their constituents are right behind them. Team members are your advocates. Those…
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Music to the Ears of Your Audience on Social Media

Branding, Business, Marketing, Social Media
Bruno Mars and Cardi B. Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett. Florida Georgia Line and Bebe Rexha. Performers in the music world do it all the time. They collaborate. They form partnerships. They join forces to produce music that they know they couldn’t have done on their own. You can do the same thing on social media. Hook up with other brands, businesses and people to produce content that you couldn’t do on your own. Guest post on their blogs and vice versa. Conduct interviews. Barter services. Tag-team projects. Engage with them in some way, shape or form. Mix it up. Put different faces and voices in front of your audience every so often. The results may pleasantly surprise you. Collaboration. It’s music to the ears of your audience on social…
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Use Social Media Like Chloe Kim

Branding, Social Media
Use social media like Chloe Kim. Chloe jumped, twisted, turned, somersaulted and flew her way to a gold medal recently on her snowboard in the women’s halfpipe competition at the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games. But what caught my attention almost as much as her prowess on a snowboard was the fact that she used Twitter during the competition. Yup. Chloe somehow found time to tweet between runs about being “hangry” because she hadn’t finished her breakfast sandwich. Kudos to this snowboarding superstar not just for winning gold, but for showing the world the prevalence, pervasiveness and power of Twitter. Despite the triviality of her tweet, it’s still received over 10,000 RTs and 100,00 likes. Businesses and brands (personal or corporate), that use social media like Chloe are more likely…
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Shouting It Out Loud on Social Media

Branding, Marketing, Social Media
Shout it out loud. That’s what your customers, connections, clients and constituents are doing on social media. They’re amplifying what you have to say about your business to their own personal networks, exponentially increasing the reach of your marketing messages. Are you taking advantage of this opportunity? Are you providing your audience with enough quality content to share on a regular basis? Are you capitalizing on the fact that your fans, followers and friends can help you get the word out about your products and services in today’s day and age? Like it or not, online communities are talking about you. Give them something to rave about. Give them something to share. Give them something to shout from the rooftops that will call more positive attention to your personal or…
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Video Rocks

Video Rocks

Branding, Business, Marketing
People are asking me all the time now about my videos. They're seeing my videos on social media and wondering how I do them. My answer is always the same... Recording my videos is easy. Most of them I shoot by myself with just my mobile phone and a selfie stick. Sometimes my wife, Barbara, helps me shoot them. Nothing fancy. Very low-budget. But well-thought-out. Shooting videos like I do is something I think everyone in marketing, advertising, PR and social media should be doing today. Video rocks. It’s emotional. It’s easy. It’s effective. Video helps you deepen the relationships you have with your connections, constituents, clients and customers.
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10 Boston Hotels Crushing It On Social Media

Boston, Branding, Business, Marketing, Social Media
It may be all the rage, but for a variety of reasons, not every business is cut out for social media. Some will never understand it. Others think it’s a waste of time and money. And finally, there are those who just aren’t the right fit for it. But most marketers would agree that while social media is not for everyone, it is ideal for those who want to engage with their customers and prospects, especially in real time. If that’s where your audience is, time spent on these relatively new online communication channels is more than well worth it. Where else can you put the word out to your constituency without feeling like you’re invading their space? Where else can you capture the attention of such a qualified audience…
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10 Boston Restaurants Crushing it on Twitter

Boston, Branding, Business, Marketing, Restaurants, Social Media
It’s one thing to be able to serve great food. It’s quite another to be able to show off those dishes in words and pictures on Twitter so well that your followers like your tweets almost as much as your eats. That’s the irony of marketing a restaurant in this day and age. As if it’s not enough to be considered one of the best places to go for a bite to eat in town. Now they have to have the popularity on social media to prove it. Okay. Maybe that’s a stretch, but the importance of displaying their menus everywhere people are congregating online today cannot be underestimated. More and more potential customers are stalking their every move not just on the grapevine, but on a bevy of newfangled…
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