Over at his blog yesterday, Chris Brogan wrote about his admiration for Gary Vaynerchuk. The post sparked quite the discussion in the comments, a lot of it about ROI (return on investment). This stemmed from a quip Gary had made to an event attendee who was asking a few times about the ROI of social media, to which Gary replied, “What’s the ROI of your mother?” A throwaway quip, but one I thought was indicative of why so many people…

Over at Bonsai Interactive Marketing, we’re helping Toronto-based insurance broker The Shepherd Group (TSG) redefine the insurance industry. Led by owner Neil Shepherd, TSG aims to be different from your usual run-of-the-mill insurance company. Traditionally a very stuffy and old boys school industry, Neil wants TSG to lead insurance into a more modern approach. This takes in buying insurance online (still a relative novelty in Canada) to how the insurance industry uses social media and online marketing, to connecting with…

When you start a new adventure, it can be pretty daunting. A new job; a new romance; a new school or college. Online is no different. The first time you join Twitter, it’s like a crazy maze. When you log into Facebook, there’s no quick set-up guide. If you want to start a blog, the choices can be bewildering. Then you look around you, and see others that are seemingly way ahead of you. People that have 50,000 followers on…

Success is a funny thing. It means you’re doing something right, and that people are enjoying your product, service or (possibly more importantly) your knowledge. They’ve joined your tribe and they want to help you grow. Success also means that where you started probably isn’t where you are now – your garage band has moved into a recording studio. Your bills aren’t as daunting and your car starts in the winter. Yet success also brings its own challenges. You outgrow…

A lot of social media purists will tell you that you’re the spawn of the devil if you use automation. To truly use social media properly, you have to “be there” constantly, otherwise you’re just fooling yourself and your connections. Bullshit. Maybe to the purists that are on Twitter and Facebook non-stop, and love to tweet just for the sake of getting influence scores up, automation is evil. After all, they’re on there doing their “thing” all the time, so…

Back in the day, two friends named Balderdash and Hogwash decided they wanted to be seen as really smart. So they decided to share their thinking and position it as Fairly Important Correctionable Tales In Other News (FICTION). Seeing that there was a market for people looking for information, Balderdash and Hogwash decided that their brand of FICTION was just what the world needed. So off they set, taking their words of wisdom with them. For many years, Balderdash and…

Smart businesses know that understanding your audience is key to your overall success. It doesn’t matter if you’re business-to-consumer or business-to-business focused – your audience, and their interaction with you, is what defines how well you meet your goals. Which is why this new report from Exact Target is key reading for any business, small or large. Taking a look at the way different mobile phone users interact with different digital channels like Facebook, Twitter and email, etc, the report…

This is a guest post by Stuart Mills. “Social media is a great way to tell the world what you’re thinking before you’ve had a chance to think about it.” – Chris Pirillo Have you ever heard of that old saying, “You can take the ‘x’ out of the ‘y’, but you can’t take the ‘y’ out of the ‘x’”? It implies to social media a lot. How many people do you know have Facebook? Or Twitter? Or even that…

You’re in business for one reason – to make money. There are many reasons you can be in business, but at the end of the day the key factor across all is making money. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be in business at all – you’d be working at a business (though the reason would still be to make money). So, if you want to make money, why are you so determined to lose it by driving me to your competitors? Why…

As a rule, I generally don’t have book reviews here. I figure there are enough other bloggers that do a far better job than I could, so I pretty much leave the reviews to them. Now and again, though, I’ll take a look at one that I feel is different enough and offers some solid advice for you, whether that be from a business angle; a social media angle; or – in this case – a blogging angle. Of course,…