Is it true that there are some things you cannot sell online? I was recently visiting with a gentleman who had made some haphazard attempts to sell online. After his short-sighted efforts, he had developed some doubts about marketing his products and services on the Internet. I think this happens to a lot of people who are unfamiliar with online marketing and had a share of online failure. This gave me some interesting thinking points.

I want to help shatter the myth some people hold that their product or service cannot benefit from targeted online exposure and careful branding. I also want to explain how dreadfully wrong it is to assume that your ideal customers cannot be reached here on the Internet.

In 1982 when the world heard that somebody had laced Tylenol products with potassium cyanide, many people were terrified to take a Tylenol for their headache for fear it would kill them. Some caution was in order, for certain. I remember my mother dumping out any Tylenol we had in the house after watching the reports on television. Was it realistic to believe we actually had laced Tylenol in our own home? Probably not, but similar types of unrealistic caution and chaos are still happening every day in social media. Can you imagine how many more people would have been [...]

Should social media be renamed to “friendship media” or does that kill the business?
There is something really bitchy about social media. People tell people how to “do it right” and then a bunch of people hash it out and poke fun at the ones who “screw it up”. It is all just so confusing. Am I supposed to be social or not? What is social? Does social equal personal? Is business anti-personal? Get your thoughts moving and join this discussion of social media.
Here are three important questions to consider about business and personal interactions as they relate to social media.

Are [...]

I know you are expecting it to be snarky, so I will try to avoid letting you down. Yeah, you guessed it, I am writing yet another “Mr. Smarty Pants” article on social media. This time it is about some of the very good reasons for not hiring a social media consultant. Without further delay, I want to introduce Mr. John Lunchbucket of Faxaway Copier Repair to explain some reasons his company didn’t hire a social media consultant.

Number 1 - Obscure Market Audience

“We fix copiers. It would be pretty boring to blog, tweet, and Facebook about that, don’t you think? I doubt anybody could make our business more fun or engaging.”

If that is the attitude you take, Mr Lunchbucket, you are right. You should probably carefully avoid social media. Come to think of it, you may do well to stop marketing your business completely. You wouldn’t want to bore people like the copier repair company in this video:

The particular incident I will explain occurred on Facebook, but can happen anywhere. I read a Facebook status of a person who was contemptuous toward the American judicial system. The person who wrote it was angry about the way the laws of his country work. He had a bone to pick. I suspect that anybody with a parking citation could give some criticism of the court system. Is it perfect? Of course not, but when compared to many nations, it is pretty effective. Whether we adapt our behavior to live within the laws, or not, is our choice, but this [...]