jatiN mahindrA doT coM

Social Media Lessons from the Big Brands: Intuit Edition

A recent survey from E-Consultancy, in association with the Online Marketing Summit, found that most businesses are still only experimenting with social media. With this in mind, it seems worth paying attention to how some big and successful brands use social media in their own strategies. Are you still in the experimentation phase with social media? Tell us about it. One company that is finding...

Plenty of Reasons Email is as Relevant as Ever

Every now and then, there is a discussion about where email stands as social network use becomes the "it" thing. We’ve all heard mutterings like, "email is dead" and "social media is killing email," but it’s just not the case, and there are plenty of reasons why (even if Google thinks it’s time to start over). Do you think email is on the way out? Share...

What’s Next In Social Media Is Now And Mobile

It seems like the one question I inevitably get from people around the country is, “What’s next?” There’s always an implication that they mean, “Which social network is the next Twitter or the next Facebook?” My answer is normally that I don’t know that there will be a next Facebook or Twitter. Sure, there might be, but I see the Web 2.0 boom...

Social Media Makes National Pancake Day Huge for IHOP

IHOP (otherwise known as the International House of Pancakes) is showing off today a great example of harnessing the power of social media for a tremendous marketing opportunity. Today is National Pancake Day according to IHOP (although apparently any day until March 9 is eligible to be called such, depending on where you live and if you celebrate this), and IHOP has used this to lure people in for...

What Inbound Marketing Is And Why You Should Have It

I spend zero dollars marketing my business. “Marketing” in its traditional sense includes advertising, baiting media outlets with press releases and, to paraphrase David Meerman Scott, buy, beg and borrow for leads and attention. The way people find out about my business is through two primary mechanisms: Word-of-Mouth recommendations and finding me through search engine results. Word-of-Mouth,...

How Well Do You Know Your Audience?

I worked with a major consumer product goods company once that insisted that a particular product it offered was to be marketed to men. New to the fold and not afraid to ask the obvious question, I said, “Why not women?” All the market research in the world told them women didn’t like their product. All my personal experience told me they never asked an important audience: women. Image...

Is it OK to Say No to Twitter?

Over the past year or more, you have probably heard your fair share of people telling you that you need to use Twitter if you hope to have business success. It’s true that there are a great many opportunities and potential benefits to using the service, but do you have to use it? Well, that depends. Is Twitter Necessary? Tell us what you think. In a recent interview with WebPronews, SiteLogic’s...

Join Me In Dallas For The 2010 Optimization Summits

One of my strategies for evangelizing social media in 2010 is to speak at events outside the social media bubble. My hope is to help educate business people on the world of social media marketing and social business to widen the appeal and acceptance of what we do and help people become more efficient and effective in their jobs leveraging social tools. I was thrilled, then, to be asked to speak...

Postrank Makes Online Media Relations Easier With Top Blogs Lists

One of the most tedious and frustrating facets of public relations in the new media era is identifying the best blogs to add to an outreach list. Postrank made that task a bit easier when they unveiled Postrank Topics in 2009. Now you could at least get a current snapshot of the top blogs in a given category, though the data considered was limited to a week’s worth of engagement. As a sponsor...

How To Hire A Social Media Agency Or Consultant

I’ve tried to steer clear of the social media guru conversation. I think it’s petty and short-sighted for people to moan and bitch about some up-start blogger or right-out-of-college entrepreneur type claiming to be or help make you a social media expert. No, I don’t think these people are worth the time or money and those who hire them will ultimately understand that, but elevating...

The Importance Of Being Earnest With Your Content

Being earnest, or sincere, in your efforts to provide content to you customers is perhaps your most important task. Until recent years, your “content” was advertisements, flyers, coupons and other promotional materials. Outstanding content today requires a new mindset and intent. You’re not selling your customers with your content, be it that from a blog, an email newsletter or...

One Pixel Of Separation With Twist Image’s Mitch Joel

There are people I’m a fan of and people I am friends with and then there are the rare combinations of people I’m a fan of who I’m lucky enough to be friends with. Mitch Joel is one of them. The author of the recently released Six Pixels of Separation is also the principal of Twist Image, a cutting edge digital marketing shop with offices in Montreal and Toronto. His book is phenomenal...

Five Things We Should All Do In 2010

If you haven’t seen a 2010 prediction post in the last two weeks, welcome back from your coma. If you don’t see a wad of New Year’s resolution posts this week, we hope you come out of yours soon. Nothing against those who have produced such entries. There’s some search and link value to those types of posts this time of year. I guess I just prefer to think of the topics everyone...

Selling Your Product By Selling Someone Else’s

For years now you’ve heard advice from social media evangelists that is counter-intuitive to a traditional marketing approach. Don’t sell first. Relinquish control of your brand to your customers. Take your content to the customers instead of driving all activity to your own website. Build content around your customers, not your brand. On Monday, we looked at an example of a business...

How To Increase Your Business By Relinquishing Control

If you’ve been studying social media, or even half paying attention to it, for the last few years, you’ve heard some truisms proffered that are scary to most business people. One of the most recited is that in order to be successful in social media you must face the fact you no longer have control. But it’s hard to find good examples of companies that have accepted that fact, embraced...