Cafe Blog Reviews

I know.. a little egotistical right? That’s why I am splitting it down the middle! My top 10 posts from 2009 and my favorite post from the REAL geniuses of social media. Just trying to showcase the more popular (community driven) posts from 2009. I am going to be taking the rest of the week off in the beautiful San Luis Obispo, CA to be with family. I can’t wait to hook back up in 2010! Have a restful and joyous holiday week! My Favorite Posts of 2009 The Magic of Dynamic Pricing from Seth Godin The Four Spheres of Social Media Strategy from Jason F alls 11 Must-Dos for the Serious Blogger from Jay Baer Sometimes, You Need To Fire a Customer by Lorraine Ball So What’s Facebook Good For? from Chris Baggott User Experience is Not A Check Box from Travis Smith Are You An Elephant or a Butterly? from Douglas Karr The Top 100 Twitter Publishing Tools and Services by Brian Solis Becoming a Social Business from Shannon Paul Death of the Brochure and more Verbal Masturbation by Duncan Alne y My Top Posts of 2009 20 Ways to Drive Leads Through Social Media Customers Are People First. Marketers Are Fundamentally Flawed. 10 Ways to Build Trust with Social Media When Should Business Engage in Social Media Balancing Perception and Reality in Social Media 10 Tips to Integrating Social Media with Marketing Is Out Sourcing Social Media Okay? 5 Things I Have Learned as a Generation Y Business Owner The Three E’s of Social Media: Embrace Educate and Empower Twitter Usage Plan for Success

See the rest here:
My Top 20 Posts of 2009

I know. I know. Everyone writes a post like this..blah blah blah. Looking back at the last year… recanting exciting testimonials of accomplishing goals and just being generally… excited! There is nothing wrong with “looking back at the year” posts which is why I am writing this today. I can be a cynic and a little negative but not during the Holiday! Speaking of accomplishing goals… This post is actually number 500 on this blog. Crazy right? 500 posts about everything from Twitter marketing, Liberty Tax girl I almost hit with my car, music , and grammar in blog writing. First off, thanks to everyone who reads, comments, and joins in the overall human think tank known as the Internet. I absolutely love everything about social media and the thought process behind community engagement! I am going to be taking the next week off to be with my family and to recharge for 2010. I thought I would post the top 5 blog posts from 2009 for the next week. Top 4 Things from 2009 We have had a great year over at Brandswag with Brandon Coon , Amy Rowe , Stephen Coley , and Austin Wechter . Thank you to all of our wonderful clients I wrote Twitter Marketing for Dummies (with the help of Erik Deckers and the wonderful staff at Wiley Publishing Finally broke into the top 150 Ad Age Blogs… but it fluctuates all the time. Was humbled to be able to present at Re/Max Indiana Sales Rally, MBO Conference,  and Hoosier Hospitality Conference We are blessed to live and be able to create content and conversation in this age of technology. Remember that. BRING IT ON 2010! And my one prediction: Google is going to buy Twitter. Related articles by Zemanta Making You A Star. With Social Media. (slideshare.net) What The Phoenix Suns Can Teach Your Brand About Using Twitter (socialmediatoday.com) The Marketing Story of 2009 – TWITTER (slideshare.net) Your Online Strategy for 2010 (slideshare.net)

Read more here:
A Look Back at 2009 and One Prediction

Nielsen Shares Top Advertising Trends for 2010Search Engine Marketing (blog)Budgets may be moved away from programs like Google AdWords towards maintaining company social media profiles across twitter and facebook. … addthis_url = 'http2F2Fwordpress2F'; addthis_title = 'Nielsen+Shares+Top+Advertising+Trends+for+2010+23821128blog%29'; addthis_pub = '';

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Nielsen Shares Top Advertising Trends for 2010 – Search Engine Marketing (blog)

I decided to move the conversation happening over on Facebook (surrounding personal branding) regarding my post on Dan Schwabel’s Personal Branding blog: From Identity to Personality. Be Remembered. ———————————————— Dave Bennett: Dear Social Media Expert, twitterific and facebookish Kyle Lacey, First off let me say that I respect what you’re doing in marketing, you’re pushing the edges of the field, you’re making people money, and you’re (hopefully) doing something that you love. All things I respect and root for in this world. I have some issues, a few philosophical peccadilloes that I need to pick with you and the industry you participate in. So from one double major in philosophy to another (I think I remember you being involved in AU’s philosophy program) let me start my being acerbic and dispensing with pretense. What you call identity and personality seem to really be pretentious self-projections. Don’t get me wrong, they might be really successful self-projections that gain favor, popularity, and a following but they are far from human dignity. What you see as the point of self expression is external recognition. But the self is something internal and independent from what others think of you, if you are basing who you are on how to attract others, then you really are nothing at all. You’re a pretentious clone of perceived likes and dislikes, a customer service invertebrate bending to the latest marketing trends. My issue isn’t really with customer service or with marketing, its with the collusion of these two and personal identity. When in reality your virtual representation is really the most controlled and least personal representation you can come up with. That is something I am ok with, but call it what it is: namely an advertisement, don’t continue to add to the massive amount of illiteracy out there. What I mean is that there are many people who can read, but few who are literate, few who mean what they say and understand what is meant when they read. Don’t add to the misuse of language and self-understanding in your furthering of marketing, viral marketing, etc. Branding myself is the biggest pretense yet, and while successful, crosses into the unethical when it associates the person solely with the symbol. As if a symbol could ever really encompass a person, especially when personal branding doesn’t really represent the person at all but the concoction of personal investment in an idea or product. I guess what I really want to know is: when you leave an emotional response on twitter or facebook, create a following, if your emotional response is raw. If it is independent of your desire for a following. And if it isn’t then is it you or a self-projection of you? A dumbassed question really, but it begs the ethics of human dignity. Where is human dignity in self-branding when self-branding doesn’t allow for unpopular responses? I hate the idea of selling your “self”, because what is sold isn’t “self” but what the customer wants. Call it what it is. Basically, I’m wondering, where do these things fall into twitter and facebook marketing? How does self-branding differ from self-projection? Me/Kyle: Let me first state that the idea “from identity to personality” is loosely based off of a excerpt from Emotional Branding by Marc Gobe. “Identity is descriptive. It is recognition. Personality is about character and charisma. Brand identities are unique and express a point of difference. But this is only the first step. Brand personalities, on the other hand, are special. They have a charismatic character that provokes an emotional response. American airlines has a strong identity, but Virgin airlines as personality.” One other thing to think about in terms of my post: The things I write about are not suppose to based in any type of philosophical nature… it would be like scientist arguing my logic using scientific reasoning. I write and discuss concepts in business communication, period. The post you read and responded to… was merely an idea behind personal branding. I am not arguing the point of self discovery and emotional response in terms of inner angst (or beauty). I am plainly talking about the concepts of a story… the emotional stimulation a customer or client will receive when they connect with something you write or say.. I write what I think because it is reality.. it isn’t steeped in some inner personal conflict or unrealistic interpretation of identity vs personality. It is business plain and simple… I will give more soon. Thank you for your thoughts. I love debating and trying to solve issues in communication! ———————————- What do you think? Is it worth furthering the conversation on this blog?

Original post:
A Philosophical Debate Over Personal Branding

We have been waiting… and by we I mean every social media consultant on the face of the planet… for Twitter to announce business friendly applications and developments . It finally came on Monday with the announcement of the development of what is called Contributors (and other applications). From the Twitter Blog : “The feature we are beta testing is called ‘Contributors’ – it enables users to engage in more authentic conversations with businesses by allowing those organizations to manage multiple contributors to their account. The feature appends the contributor’s username to the tweet byline, making the business to consumer communication more personal; e.g. if @Twitter invites @Biz to tweet on its behalf, then a tweet from @Twitter would include @Biz in the byline so that users know more about the real people behind organizations.” I like the concept but it still is not as revolutionary as it should be (in my humble opinion). I trust that Twitter has some other ideas up their sleeves in regards to businesses truly maximizing the tool. Until then we will stumble… make mistakes… add to many followers… send out the wrong message and get spammed to death by MLM’s and idiots. Until the beta is released to bigger subset of users the opinions… will be varied. Want more information about the Twitter beta? Twitter signals commercial accounts (robbiz1978.blogspot.com) Twitter Runs “Feature Test” For Businesses (centernetworks.com) Twitter Highlights Coming Contributer API (thenextweb.com) BREAKING: Twitter Starts Testing Features for Businesses (mashable.com)

Link:
Twitter Announces Enhanced Business Applications

Do online relationships have the same depth as relationships off line? Can they obtain the same meaningful purpose as your friends you see in day-to-day life? What do you think? I have had some interesting conversations recently with people in the social world about the friendship dynamics between online and off line relationships. I have only been debating this because of the increased time I have been spending on social media platforms over the past few weeks. I have had the opportunity to ‘meet’ some interesting and extremely intellectual people through feeds at Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIN. The problem that exists, for me, is the overwhelming urge to know more… The desire to get deeper into a person’s psyche and actually understand where they are coming from and where they have been. I have had fun debating and yet I am left with this undeniable longing for something more. The sharing of information and idea generation has always been a staple in social media. I started using social media as a way to gain more insight into technology, entrepreneurship, and the overall aspect of viral marketing. What I have found is (while all the information is great) there is a point where a person stops and wants something more from a relationship or an acquaintance. I have had extreme success in meeting people in my area off line whom I had the first interaction online. The relationship factor grows exponentially when you are sharing both online and off line forms of communication.  I know research and data is a prerequisite to have in blog posts pertaining to an opinion. In order to support an idea it is always better to have others opinions to strengthen your own. Unfortunately, I am running off the cuff here and spouting words over a virtual page. When is the right time to want more from an online relationship? Is there a need for it? I love the information super highway sometimes more than the road outside of my house… and that is what bothers me… slightly. How do you strengthen online relationships to the point where you can say they are a friend? Where does a follow or a subscription turn into a relationship? Are we meant to delve deeper? We should be.

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The Dynamics of Online Relationships and Delving Deeper

I had the pleasure of joining the Brandswag staff in hanging out with the guys over at the ForkOut.org Van to chat about CFI . CFI helps with mentoring students in high school academics and in life. I am on the board of CFI and I can tell you first hand that it is an awesome organization. Redwall Live created the ForkOut experience and did an awesome job setting things up. We recorded a webisode with the guys. Make sure you check it out at ForkOut Website . Thanks for having us out Daniel and Darren! Goodluck!

Originally posted here:
2 Guys Live in a Van to Raise Money