Quick’n'Dirty 96: Facebook Shows My Wife I Searched for Nude Photos of Scarlett Johansonn

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What a difference a week off makes for the Q’n'D! Both Aaron and Kyle came back to show 96 ready to rumble, and it was obvious by the amount of information we dished out in this episode. Perhaps it was the fact that Aaron was on the road and not in the famous Q’n'D studios in Austin, but the show was loose from the get-go, with as much ‘quick’ as there was ‘dirty’.

Why even waste time, let’s get right to the show and hear the boys discuss:

1. Amazon Kindle Fire: Pretender or Contender?
2. Facebook Shows My Wife I Searched for Scarlett Johansonn’s Breasts
3. Google Analytics FINALLY Introduces Real-Time Stats and Premium Services
4. NASA Invites Twitter Followers To Mars

Quick’n'Dirty 95: Facebook Shows My Wife I Searched for Nude Photos of Scarlett Johansonn

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Quick’n'Dirty 93: DR4WARD Interview | Marketing in Academia

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This week we had one of our most interesting guests in Dr. William J. Ward, a.k.a DR4WARD, who is a Professor of Practice of Social Media at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. Aaron and myself took up nearly the entire episode talking with DR4WARD, covering a large range of topics including:

• The continued evolution and growth marketing as an academic pursuit.
• How to provide real-world experience to students in a school setting, as well as how DR4WARD himself keeps abreast of what is actually happening outside of the university walls.
• The need for all students to participate in marketing courses, outside of their actual majors, to understand the impact of multimedia within their lives.

Episode 93: DR4WARD Interview | Marketing in Academia

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Quick’n'Dirty 91: Buddy Media, Tech Trends, Social Media Critique, and LinkedIn Mobile

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Episode 91 Recap

We are on quite a tear on the Q’n'D, for several weeks in a row both Aaron and myself have been live, on the phone, together. And this week we not only had some great conversation about a variety of topics, but we had a great guest. Check out the recap below and make sure to subscribe/download through iTunes. We went long again this week, so if you listen to only the BlogTalkRadio feed you’ll only get 30 minutes of a great 45 minutes plus. Onto the recap: 1) McKinsey Quarterly: Clouds, big data, and smart assets: Ten tech-enabled business trends to watchIf you don’t subscribe to McKinsey’s research reports I’d encourage you to do so as fast as humanely possible. On a regular basis they are publishing some of the smartest and informative research available on SEO, social, technology, business, and more. This particular report goes through the top tech trends that are ongoing right now. Aaron and myself started out this episode of the Q’n'D discussing some interesting tidbits including:

• Facebook used 300,000 users to translate their site into 70 languages.
• 70% of respondents (Fortune 1000 executives) say their companies created value through web communities in the last year.
• There has become an “Internet of Things”, a system of hyper-networked devices that range from your computer and mobile phone, to your car and home appliances.
• This ultra networked world has changed the way businesses do work, or “social business models”, where you now push to organize around a critical task rather than mold to imposed constraints.

The noise this week was loud, with new product announcements, products ending, and some search company buying a mobile company with a lot of patents. Within all this noise you might not have heard about Buddy Media securing $54M in series D funding. Why is this important? Because Buddy Media helps big brands build better presences on social networks, and measure its impact in this landscape. Joe Ciarallo, Buddy Media Director of Communications joined us on the cast to discuss the funding and what companies should be thinking about when it comes to managing their social network presence. Joe, a former colleague of mine, described what Buddy Media provides, the intersection of technology and one-on-one services, and how Buddy is preparing for but taking a wait-and-see approach to Google+. Listen to our full interview with Joe Ciarallo of Buddy Media.

3) Diminishing Critique In the Social Sphere?

Near the end of our conversation with Joe, when we started talking about the “mad rush towards Google+” both Aaron and myself were reminded of this terrific post from Rich Harris, “Why Social Media Books and Breaking News Don’t Mix”. Read the post and Rich’s well balanced critique of the recently announced book from Chris Brogan on how businesses can use Google+. Beyond the debate on whether we should even be talking about Google+ books at this point (we discuss in the cast), both Aaron and I discussed how well Rich framed the conversation, providing constructive criticism and sparking actual discussion without being inflammatory. This is an art that is seemingly disappearing in today’s hyper networked world; the ability or want to actually critique each other. Listen to the discussion now and weigh in.

4) LinkedIn Goes HTML 5 With New App

And just like that LinkedIn is back on top of the conversation with an incredible new mobile app built in HTML 5. We discuss the application, what it means, how it works, what it needs, and more. Listen now and enjoy it all.

Episode 91: Buddy Media, Tech Trends, Social Media Critique, and LinkedIn Mobile

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Power of Video: Vimeo for Business Debuts

Video is powerful for any business. The ability to visually tell a story has obvious attractive elements for consumers, users, buyers, and other businesses. And this is before we even start to pontificate on the SEO value of video on a website. The problem, for a long time, has been that mid-size businesses have been at the beck and call of YouTube. Sure, YouTube allows you to do minimal modification of their site, to reflect your business. But at the end of the day their video compression is horrible, and recommending that someone embed a YouTube video onto a site is like suggesting they build it all in Flash.

Two years ago an angel came down from the video heavens and introduce me to Vimeo, since that time this has been my default video service for our corporate account. The reasons were simple:

• True 1080i resolution for our videos.
• Audio compression that avoided serious distortion.
• Easy interface.
• Ability to create personal URLs to videos.
• Open embedding features to tailor to your needs.

The only thing that truly bothered me was that Vimeo didn’t have a few functions I wanted in a “business” account, including:

• Branding capabilities so I can extend our brand to viewers throughout their experience.
• Flexibility to use other players, but still host my videos on their site.
• Allow for private review of videos prior to their publishing.
• Fully customizable company page to point people to that is professional looking and branded.

Content Isn’t King. Perception Is King.

As if my wish was their command, this all came true this week as Vimeo PRO was announced to the public. Check out all the details about what PRO can get you and your business, I’m here to remind you that video is one of the most important tools in your marketing, yet most businesses treat it like an afterthought. Oh sure, maybe they are spending money on cameras, production, and editing. And then they upload it to YouTube, and it looks like it was done by an amateur. They embed it on a page, with zero branding, and they are proud that they have created more content, since, well you know, content is king!

I’m here to tell you, content is not king. Content is the court, they are the ones doing the work, they make the kingdom flow. Perception is king. Perception is what makes people believe you are king, not just that you were born as a king, but you are a KING. Well, you can create all the great video content in the world, but if you serve it up poorly you have killed your perception, nobody believes your king.

When video sites offer business-class services, they can make you look like a king. Don’t trust your kingdom to a brand name and a promise, make sure you figure out exactly what they are offering first.

Don’t Forget Your Old Friend, LinkedIn

The buzz is strong right now around Google+ (or G+, or just + if you are really cool). The debate rages, typically in meta fashion, whether G+ is the “Facebook Killer” or the “Twitter Killer”. While that debate can be saved for another post, and quite honestly for a future time when the dust has settled, you simply don’t see anyone question the survivability of LinkedIn.

Certainly the viability and virility of LinkedIn is constantly up for debate. Just look at the lack of engagement in LinkedIn Groups, or go to the LinkedIn stream and tell me how many “conversations” you see taking place. Sadly LinkedIn has not been as “social” as the other social networks, but that doesn’t mean you can just toss it in the garbage like four-day old shrimp (again, a story for another time). LinkedIn remains the dominant business network, shedding aside weak assaults from players like Plaxo, BranchOut, and most recently Viadeo.

Networking Drives Business

The fact is LinkedIn is still a very powerful tool when it comes to finding powerful business connections, companies on the rise, tech news, and more. The past few weeks, as G+ has been grabbing much of my attention, I’ve decided at the same time to devote more time to LinkedIn. My quest was simple, start engaging more on the network, make stronger connections, and ramp up the group conversations I monitor for our company. Here are five things I’m doing now on a daily basis on LinkedIn to make this happen:

1. Sharing “news” through the iPhone app. It is super easy to go through the most read/shared news within your network and share the articles, comment on others news, and create conversations. I’ve linked this to my Twitter account, in order to expand the conversation.
2. Updating connections from past jobs. For a long time I lost connections from previous jobs, not only was that frustrating because many of these folks were friends, but it was dumb business. Each day now I spend a few minutes in the early morning combing through the “Former Colleagues” section and reconnecting with folks who know my work and vice versa.
3. Building our corporate presence. In my B2B marketing role we use LinkedIn Groups to communicate with IT personnel throughout the world. But your company page on LinkedIn is also an important venue. On that page you can put up product and service descriptions, jobs, integrate your corporate Twitter feed, and even check out some analytics. This is a locale that people will go to who are looking at your company after a meeting with a sales person or an interview. Make sure it represents you well.
4. Finding gold in alumni groups. Just like with reconnecting with former colleagues, make sure you’re looking at former classmates and other alumnae. Of course you are going to do that with your college/university, but don’t forget high school. You may have not seen or even talked with many of these folks for decades, but now that guy you played football with is the SVP at a potential customer. Boom.
5. Optimize your profile. LinkedIn is not just about finding a job, it’s connecting with business people and businesses…for, well, um, business. Therefore treat your profile like your homepage and make sure you optimize. Fortunately LinkedIn is providing a bunch of new tools that help you “auto” optimize by asking you a series of questions. This will help fill out your profile, and will help ensure you are found.

Now don’t worry about that new found relationship with G+, but you must not forget that social network that has been there for you through thick and thin. Here are a few more LinkedIn tips and tricks and go ahead and add me to your network.