I love social media and love how major brands use their leverage to cross barriers in various mediums. One was Dell (@delloutlet) and how they are blowing away competition online by getting over 3 million dollars in sales just by utilizing twitter. How are they doing this? By giving their followers something unique and actually interacting with them.

Then there is Best Buy (@BestBuy) which I was fan of when I was teen but have since distanced myself due to their joint venture with Geek Squad. Nonetheless when a company goes online I try to give them the benefit of the doubt. However when I saw the image below at Soshable -  I literally LOL’d at Panera this morning:

What do you think – does Best Buy REALLY understand social media marketing?

Throwing Money Away In Business

I remember when I first really got into the web. I loved how people connected – the eRelationships that formed and developed all behind the screen. It was from here that I wanted to get into online marketing and overall media development. Yet, I find it interesting that more businesses are not aware of the internet yet rely heavily on it.

We need to be adaptive to the times and while a business might not ‘understand’ the structure of the net – they use it in their intranet and finding customers themselves.

Why can’t it work in reversal?

How do you want to be found online and what information do you want potential customers to see? The point is a lot of the companies – from small to large – have no clue about this and rather hire someone else to do the work and not try to understand it.

This is your money! This is your business! Why wouldn’t you want to know whats going on?

Be aware and informative. Ask questions and who cares if it’s stupid – yes, there is such a thing as a stupid question – even if you get ridiculed at least you’ll have a direction…and stop wasting money. In all honesty I love it when a client ask questions because it shows that they are really interested  in that project and I’m able to hopefully show them something new.

It’s been a horrible 24 hours. I was in night class when my wife sent me a text to let me know that the king of pop had passed away. I couldn’t believe it – It blew my mind but then again he had a stressful life. One I wouldn’t wish on anyone let alone the three children now left without a father.

Moving forward to the title of the post.

I don’t plan to get into the politics of the legend rather the findings from the whole situation. I had a question – who is profiting from the death of him? Who is utilizing the numerous search’s and tweets? It IS possible and in fact it IS being done.

I did a quick search regarding Michael Jackson’s Death:

Michael Jackson's Death Search

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Wow…really? I couldn’t believe it so I checked out all the Sponsored Links aaaand:

Profit on Michael Jackson Death

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Regardless of the ethical issue of trying to porfit of the man’s death but let’s dig a little deeper shall we?

AdWords and Micheal Jackson's Death

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Pretty interesting isn’t it? I can only estimate at this time that the average CPC will increase over the weekend and when the autobsy results return they will be huge. Why? Well, if you know a popular pop website that runs adsense why not try to get the readers.

What are your thoughts – ethical or just business as usual?

The Ladder of Success

Success like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. However, when a coworker gets promoted over you – you can’t help but feel a little shafted, right?

I ‘m all for competition since it drives the mindset of an entrepreneur.

In being successful you have to determine your own peg.

If you don’t want to run your own business - you don’t have to.

If you don’t want to be involved in climbing the networking ladder – you don’t have to.

Then again, if you complain about being passed over and I hear about it – I will smack you…literally.

*I don’t want to hear. I don’t want to read it*

It’s that same attitude that I heard, almost on a daily basis, from friends as we would contemplate on our futures

“It’s not my fault, it’s my environment. I can’t do anything”

It all starts from within. If you are quick to blame others for you being past over in promotions ask yourself “why”. Look in the mirror and stop looking around at others. The worst thing people can do (myself included) is not take personal responsibility in wanting to achieve more. I’ve passed on projects before and they’ve come back to bite me in the end. Things I’ve learned in the past NOT do when it comes to importance.

Have you been there? Maybe you’ve been the one promoted and heard the whispers in the office.

SEO What? Tweet..uh?

It’s an honest question. I’ve been going to night school for quite some time and yet am astonished by the textbooks and the information they provide. I just shake my head at the author’s – not because they don’t know what they are talking about but that they are saying the same things as all the previous ‘editions’. After reading Seth Godin’s latest blog post entitled Textbook Rant I felt the need to speak out. He hit the nail right on the head.

I recall a few years back when I was working on HipHopRemix and learning about SEO (hands-on) and SEM (again…hands-on) I was in a Marketing course. The instructor broke down our groups and we had to develop a presentation on a specific subject they chose. The group I was in was given “Online Advertising”. HA!

This was a piece of cake…or so I thought.

I looked through the $90+ textbook for any reference…nothing! So, I took what I knew referenced some people in the ‘industry’ and some media kids. BAM! Done. Cue to the end of the presentation and the instructor asking where we got this information.

It wasn’t the book that was for sure.

As I got more in social media marketing I find that more professor’s with high tenure don’t feel that “social media” has any merit whatsoever. They are in an era of ‘cocktail’ parties and work-of-mouth advertising. I’m not saying they are bad people at all. Rather that they don’t see the benefit of it all. Most college’s don’t and that leaves an open door for people like you and me to come in to teach / write / develop / etc these young minds. They are doing social media marketing most of the time and not even knowing it.

What say you – are the college’s behind the times?