Guest post by Mike Schaffer, social media and online marketing manager at Iostudio.

Despite the incessant buzz in the marketing industry surrounding Foursquare and Facebook Places, I see four major challenges facing location-based services.

For all the hype, only four percent of adults are using these services (not to mention the 84 percent of adults who have no idea what they are). Clearly, not a ton of folks are taking advantage of them, so let’s investigate the main reasons why they haven’t caught fire…yet. Continue Reading »

Last week Daniel Hindin and I had a Twitter brainstorm while I was in LA and he was in our office. While we were talking to one another, because it was publicly, a few of our friends jumped in to help. The idea? A round-up of five blogs, articles, videos, podcasts, or columns from the week that you should read/listen to/view.

We have decided to do the round-up on Fridays because it’s our non- self-serving day as we already discuss reasons you should #FollowFriday someone on Twitter and on their blog. We figure this is another great way to talk about our smart friends around the globe. Continue Reading »

I started following Shelly Kramer on Twitter, gosh, more than a year ago because she is F-U-N-N-Y! One day I get a tweet from her that says, “Do you know Mattie Dietrich?” Um, yes…she’s my sister-in-law. Mattie and Shelly’s daughter, Katherine Meyer, went to college together. And so endeared her to me forever and that is why today’s #FollowFriday is Shelly Kramer and her fabulous blog (that is part personal, part business, and part pure craziness) V3IM.

Shelly is kind of a big deal, though she’d never tell you that herself. She’s on the Forbes list of 30 women entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter, she was named a top small business mom by American Express, and the blog was named by Forbes (it looks as though she and her partner may be paying Forbes – jeez!) as a best social media blog by a woman. Continue Reading »

Guest post by Steve McKee, president of McKee Wallwork Cleveland.

We’ve all heard the expression you are what you eat. As a columnist and author, I’ve come to understand in many ways that you are what you write. But social media has given us an entirely new way of understanding our personal brand image: You are what your followers say you are.

Currently, more than 100 of my Twitter followers have put me on a list – not as many as @ginidietrich(!), but enough to give me a sense of how @WhenGrowthStall is positioned in the Twitterverse. Simply scanning the titles is an enlightening exercise. Continue Reading »

My good friend Angelica Colantuoni asks, “How important is it to unplug? How often do you unplug to refresh?”

My answer is in the video. What say you?

(If you can’t view this in your RSS feed, please click here).

Guest post by Joey Strawn, president of Empty Jar Marketing and blogger at JoeyStrawn.com.

I’m about to take you back to the future of social media. Because the future is here. Now.

Growing up, my favorite movies dealt with how the future would turn out. I would watch and re-watch “Logan’s Run,” “Blade Runner,” “Star Wars,” and of course, “Back to the Future, Part II.” When I was 11, I wanted nothing in the world more than a hoverboard. Continue Reading »

Now that Facebook Places (a location-based tool that is likely going to compete with Foursquare and Gowalla) has been in full force for a few days, have you tried it? It’s kind of a fun little tool, from a personal perspective, and we’ll talk here about the business implications, but I say be cautiously curious.

Several weeks ago, Facebook opened the platform to search engines, which means a few things:

* When someone tags you or your business on Facebook and you don’t already have a page, it creates one for you. Continue Reading »

If you own a business, lead a business, want to own or lead a business someday, or are in sales or business development, then The Fast Growth blog is a must read. And that’s why today’s #FollowFriday is Doug Davidoff.

I met Doug on Twitter more than a year ago and, when he was in Chicago last fall, we met in person. He is great fun – he has a big personality, he’s strongly opinionated (which I love), and he is, by far, one of the smartest people I know (without the ego to go along with it). We quickly became real friends and then decided to work together, as well. Continue Reading »

Guest post by Barry Graubart, vice president, product strategy & business development for Alacra, a leading content technology company.

Facebook announced the launch of Facebook Places, its long-awaited solution for location sharing, a space that’s been driven by upstarts Foursquare and Gowalla.

In its announcement, Facebook indicated that Places was built on three tenets:

Continue Reading »

Last week, Mr. D was in New York visiting friends and, out of the blue, I received a video question from Sabrina, their five year old daughter. She asks me a question about using social media at camp.

Watch her question to me (she’s not old enough yet  to get on Facebook to ask!) and my answer is next.

I’m not patient enough to figure out how to edit two videos together so my apologies to you for having to watch them separately.

(If you’re receiving this via subscription, click here and here for the videos)