What do people think of you when they first meet you? What do you think their immediate impression is? If it’s personally, you might not care too much – after all, to each their own, right? But what if you’re a business offering a service – does that change your train of thought? Does the view of the same new face now hold more sway? Even more so, what if your service is one that defines people’s first impressions of…

For many of us, long term vision can be a scary concept. This is understandable, because it usually means that we’re having to put faith in something we’re doing now not showing a return until much later. This could be our businesses; our blogs; or our budding relationship with a new lover. It’s scary, because while we believe in our hearts that everything will work out, often we get impatient for results that we can see now. We want our business to be profitable right away;…

The great thing about blogging is that you get to meet so many smart people. While a post might start the conversation, the comments take it in a whole new direction altogether, and makes a post better for it. As well as blog comments offering the opportunity to read the views of these smart people, they also allow us to check out more of their writing, thanks to plugins like CommentLuv. I’ve discovered some really great bloggers through comments left…

Over on Twitter, Toronto police are using the #RIDE hashtag to counter drunk driving this holiday period. Standing for Reduce Impaired Driving Everywhere, #RIDE aims to educate against drunk driving, and offer alternatives from the Toronto police on getting home safely. You’d think it’s a great use of Twitter, and an important topic to be aware of, especially at this time of year. And it would be – except for the shitdiots that have hijacked the #RIDE hashtag and begun…

So today I opened the Google home page to check my Gmail account, and I was greeted with this funky image: As you can see from the left-hand sidebar, the core products from Google are there for you to access immediately, as opposed to links within your account. Which makes me wonder – could this be  the first steps in Google bringing all their solutions under one integrated offering? If so, it’d really push Google+ into the mainstream and grab…

For me, the best marketing or advertising success stories are exactly that – real stories. People connect with people, and that’s when the magic happens. Sure, brands and products are important – but if you don’t touch that inner emotion that takes a potential customer from intent to the buying trigger, then you won’t get the sale, simple as. Israeli creative agency smoyz clearly understand this, as their recent Facebook campaign for Kleenex shows. The goal was simple – to…

I just wanted to say thank you for reading, commenting and making this blog better. While I may write, you make the magic happen in the comments and social conversations elsewhere – and I’m so grateful for that. Here’s to more of the same in 2012 and beyond – let’s continue to grow together. Personally and professionally, let’s make 2012 the year that we truly come together and make all the real magic happen. In the meantime… this is for…

I was speaking to a friend recently, and we got to chatting about charities and how supporters are almost like investors along the lines of venture capitalists, or stocks and shares guys. Yet these supporters are much more than a standard investor – as  well as donations, they invest time, resources, energy and much more into the charity they believe in. Basically, if you’re a charity, they invest in YOU. But this doesn’t need to be landlocked into charities. There are…

Why do you want to kill your competition (this is a generic you)? Why do you want to put on your size 42 boots, kick them in the sack and then trample them into the dirt? Why do you want them to fail so badly that the only people left they can come to is you? Is your alternative really that much better? Maybe. But if it is, then isn’t it the competition that’s helped make you so much better?…

The following post is an excerpt from my chapter in Danny Iny’s new book, Engagement From Scratch: How Super Community Builders Create a Loyal Audience and How You Can Do the Same. It features lessons in community building and content marketing from the likes of Guy Kawasaki, Brian Clark, Mitch Joel, Kristi Hines, Gini Dietrich and many more. A review of the book will appear later this week. I Would Have Posted Less Frequently I started off writing a blog…