Look after your contacts; look after your clients; increase your knowledge and never stop learning.

I’ve spoken before about how important it is to know what’s being said about you online. It doesn’t matter if it’s from a PR or branding perspective, or just from a personal point of view – hearing is the first step to responding. If there’s something negative being said, you need to respond and counter where necessary. If it’s positive, you can also respond and just say thanks for the kind words – it certainly won’t hurt to show someone…

From Techcrunch to the Washington Post and beyond, the rumours/semi-rumours of Google buying micro-blogging site Twitter continue. There’s enough already being written on the subject, so I’ll keep this brief. Two words – Gmail and Feedburner. One is Google’s email program and the other’s a blog analytical  tool for stats, readers, clickthroughs, etc. But here’s the thing. According to my Gmail account, it’s still in beta. Despite officially celebrating it’s 5-year anniversary on April 1. Then there’s Feedburner, which was…

This is a guest post from John Haydon. John is a guy of many talents. He’s a teacher, a learner, a singer, a comedian with a very dry wit and one of the nicest guys you could meet. He’s also a damn fine blogger and the Blogger Outreach partner for 12for12k. I’m delighted to have John here today. An ancient Buddhist parable involves a young Zen monk asking his teacher about the difference between Heaven and Hell. His teacher replies,…

I’m a business owner, but I’m also a consumer and a customer. So why am I told what I need instead of being asked what I need, as a customer? Good marketing is all about listening. Where are your listening posts?

We build online armies every day. Our communities are the rocks and the foundations on which everything stands. We support people we’ve never met (and likely never will) simply because we can. Yet as strongly as we and they connect, we do so because of the foundations already behind us. What are your rocks and foundations and how are you keeping them strong?

If you look to the right of this blog and scroll down a little, you’ll see a widget entitled “soundbites”. It’s from my latest home online, Posterous. Perfect for both casual and more serious bloggers, Posterous is based on a pretty funky idea – to make blogging as simple as possible for as many people as possible. You don’t even have to have an account, if you don’t want one – you can email your posts in. Simply send the…

Belief is hope. Ego is the wall that can block that hope. How you scale the wall is up to you.

Market value is a key commodity between businesses and their customers. Word of mouth, both good and bad, is the currency behind the value. What are your customers saying about you?

Market value is a key commodity between businesses and their customers. Word of mouth, both good and bad, is the currency behind the value. What are your customers saying about you?