Ben A. Smith’s Social:IRL events have brought a series of nationally known speakers to cities like Wichita, Kansas City, and Ben’s current hometown of Lawrence, Kansas. I attended the Social Media Customer Service Bootcamp featuring Peter Shankman in Lawrence. Here are a bunch of notes, not particularly smoothed out. Peter Shankman works the crowd The point…
[Small town business is competitive, but we’re also cooperative. That’s why Shelby French’s presentation at the 140 Characters Conference in Central Sierra caught my attention. It’s her job to get local businesses cooperating even though they are nominal competitors. -Becky] Shelby French promotes “coopetition” at the Angels Camp Farmers Market. Being tasked with marketing the…
I’ve lived around here for ages. The last time I climbed to the top of the Glass Mountains, I was probably 10 or 12 years old. I only went back this year because I had friends in from out of town. I wonder, how many people live here, but don’t even know you can hike…
You’ve experimented with social media. You’ve learned the tools. You know what you’re doing now, and you’re pretty comfortable. How can you take it to the next level? A friend and I talked about this exact question this weekend, and I’m sharing the answer with you. The Secret: Stop talking about you. Listen to them,…
You have to break out of your existing limit in some dimension in order to grow. One way to look at your business limits is through the Four P’s of Marketing. (A little rusty? Get the refresher course at The Four P’s of Marketing.) Now break them Draw four big circles on a piece of…
My nephew tries out Deb Brown’sGalaxy Tab. (It works with Flash.) A story with two points. In New York City, I asked my nephew to use my iPad to find restaurants. As he clicked through to the restaurant websites, some rendered well on the iPad, some didn’t. One site didn’t come up at all, just…
Are you ready to attract more buyers? Then be more specific. If you’re offerings are too general, few people can get excited. By trying to appeal to everyone, you’re really not all that appealing to anyone. In New York City, we saw this sign outside a tiny steak place, advertising just “Lunch.” What would you put…
Did you know the photos on your tourism website are actually annoying more people than they are attracting? I hadn’t thought of this, but Andy Hayes explained it, in “Why Photos on your Travel Website Can be a Bad Idea.” I’ll give you the summary here, along with the action plan to fix it. Lovely!…
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