Persuasive Picks For Week Of 6/3/13

many-suited-businessmen-300x168Knowing how to convey tone in your online writing – including blogs, Tweets, Facebook posts, pins, etc. – is to know your business inside and out. SocialMediaToday’s Kylie Robertson asks readers “If your business were a person, what would it look like?”- stressing the importance of personality, because that’s what your company will be perceived as online: a person. Read more about writing with the right tone in mind in Who Does Your Company Sound Like? Finding Your Tone in Social Media Writing

Social media and blogging has gone from being an activity we started just for  fun and pleasure, to a more serious business. If you need to market and monetize your business, personal brand, website or blog to take advantage of the opportunities, then you need the right tools, resources and advice to guide you. But the explosion of websites, apps, tools and resources online is often confusing. Business2Community contributor Jeff Bullas narrows it down to 39 Awesome Tools and Resources for Blogging and Social Media Marketing.

emailA recent survey of more than 1,000 mobile device users found that for the first time ever, email is the primary reason people are using smartphones. What’s more, emails from brands are second only to personal recommendations when it comes to influencing purchasing decisions on mobile devices. What does that mean for marketers? Michael Truby at PRDaily explains Why Email Is A Key Element Of Mobile Marketing and notes a few key factors to keep in mind.

When marketers list the types of content they’re producing, many put a check next to the box titled “webinars.” These online presentations have been used effectively for many years, and the webinar’s popularity has surged with the decline of tradeshows during the recent recession. But Marketing Automation Evangelist Mathew Sweezey points out that Only 16 Percent of B2B Consumers Prefer Live Webinars, and suggests that implementing three essential techniques will help you earn more ROI out of each webinar and increase lead generation significantly. - via ClickZ

Persuasive Picks for week of 10/15/12

The key to being a good consultant of any kind is to ask the right questions, writes Michael Teitelbaum in a recent post at Marketing Trenches, and provides a list of 5 Questions Marketers Need to Ask Prospective Clients to get to the heart of a prospect’s challenges and aspirations - via MarketingProfs.

Visual networks are now changing the rules of engagement and agencies and brands need to find the best ways to measure and understand their customers cultures. Laurent Francois of SocialMediaToday explains How Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr are Blasting Social Media Monitoring tools because there’s a fantastic bias supposing that people express themselves only through words, sentences and syntax.

LinkedIn has rapidly become the number one B2B social networking tool with over 175 million users from around the globe. So why would someone in your target audience choose to do business with you in LinkedIn? Online Marketing veteran and ClickZ contributor Jasmine Sandler says it’s not as easy as one-two-three, but provides some helpful tips on Creating Solid Business Relationships Through LinkedIn.

First impressions matter! Blog readers generally pay attention to the title and the first two paragraphs of any given post, and then decide whether to read the rest. Lydia Di Francesco gives content marketing tips to bring more attention to your posts in 6 Easy Ways To Write Headlines That Get More Clicks on Business2Community.

Persuasive Picks for week of 9/3/12

The balance of power in B2B public relations has shifted. No longer does the media hold all the cards, although they are still important influencers. Fast Company writer Wendy Marx provides some Best Practices In B2B PR to consider as the B2B public relations ecosystem continus to evolve.

B2B marketers have one of the most difficult and underappreciated jobs on the planet. Their mission is to create memorable brands out of some downright “unsexy” products. How do they do it? MarketingProfs‘ Russell Glass explains that the best B2B marketers are successful because they start with building a brand in How the Best B2B Marketers Think Like B2C Marketers: Five Strategies to Emulate.

Using social media correctly is like putting your Rolodex on steroids. Perhaps the best thing about using social media is that it allows you to communicate with all of your contacts at once through status updates. But Melinda F. Emerson at The New York Times warns there are some important lessons to learn and gives some insights on How Not to Pitch Your Business in Social Media.

Are you one of the many marketers who launch their social media programs because they feel they need to and then scramble to understand both how they will make these work and how they will be managed? Online marketing veteran Jasmine Sandler urges you to stop chasing your tail and start Your Social Media Marketing Plan in 5 Easy Steps via ClickZ.

Influencers Who Inspire: VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi

As PR professionals, we’re often asked “who do you know” and “will they take your call?” It’s part of the reason that we started our “Influencers Who Inspire” series - to not only validate those questions but to support and promote the work by influencers that we all admire and follow. And we were stoked when Dean Takahashi of VentureBeat agreed to catch up with us for our next interview.  Dean is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He covers video games, security, chips and a variety of other subjects. Dean previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News, the Wall Street Journal, the Red Herring, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Times Herald. He is the author of two books, Opening the Xbox and The Xbox 360 Uncloaked. You can follow Dean on Twitter at @deantak.

What’s the strangest/most memorable place from which you ever conducted an interview?

I interviewed Steve Ballmer, chief executive of Microsoft, in a car driven by his bodyguards. It was hard to concentrate on asking questions in the moving vehicle.

How do you keep your sense of humor when managing multiple deadlines?

Who has time for humor? Well, I enjoy writing. So that makes a big difference. I consider most of my work to be fun.

What are your interests outside of tech/gaming (hobbies or passions)?

Taking pictures. Traveling. Going to the kids’ sports games. And, I do play games for fun.

You have authored two books. Do you have any others in the works and can you tell us a little bit about them?

I’ve written two long stories that we have turned into eBooks for VentureBeat. We posted these on the Amazon Kindle and Apple App stores. The Complete History of Zynga (so far)  and Xbox: The Making of a Bad Ass Machine.

What is your favorite travel destination and why?

I enjoy my annual trip to Seattle for a game conference. It’s a great city and there are always cool places to see and great places to eat. And good coffee.

What is next for you in 2012?

We’re expanding GamesBeat into a destination site, as the second main property at VentureBeat. We’ve hired our Review Editor, Sebastian Haley, and our Editor in Chief of GamesBeat, Dan “Shoe” Hsu. We have 11 freelance game writers working for us. Now we have to execute on bringing our crowdsource writing team, Bitmob, into GamesBeat and then write as much as we can for rest of the year.

Hopefully we’ll write some more long stories that can be turned into eBooks.

Persuasive Picks for the week of 09/12/11

IBM - MidMarket4 Social Media Lessons SMBs Can Learn From IBM
This SmallBizTrends.com post from Lisa Barone shares four great takeaways for SMBs that came out of a recent interview she conducted with Ed Abrams, IBM’s Vice President of Marketing for Midmarket Business.

Social Media and Content Marketing: A One-Night Stand?
Lee Odden from the TopRank Online Marketing blog guest posts on Clickz.com with this look into why B2B marketers should consider mapping out a social content plan instead of creating and publishing individual, non-cohesive content-based campaigns.

Putting Content in Context
MarketingProf‘s Ann Handley expands on the power of content after an inspiring trip to the recent (and first-ever) Content Marketing World conference in Cleveland. She also includes a great video that opened the event and really puts “content into context.

Re-evaluate b2b social strategy to reach tech buyers
BtoBOnline.com‘s 

Andy’s Answers: How Mattel used social media to build excitement around Hot Wheels’ record-breaking stunt
Toy giant Mattel has been putting a loy of money into social this year and their recent “Fearless at the 500” campaign drew quite a bit of attention both online and off. Andy Sernovitz from Smartblogs.com highlights some of the big ideas behind the campaign. Mattel’s Betsy Burkett and Gretchen de Castellane can be seen recapping the case study here as well: