The First Three Things I Do Every Morning
By Guest Blogger, Mary Schmidt, Marketing Troubleshooter From my "match your marketing tactics to your (best) customers" fileAdmit it – were you anxiously awaiting this to pop up in your RSS feed?  Are you waiting in breathless anticipation to the next email popping up in your in-box? No? Well, same here. Here’s what I do every morning, first thing in the office: 1. Open up maryschmidt email. Delete several unopened. This even when I know the sender. There are several w

Ways to Measure Social Media using Key Conversation Indicators
Yesterday I helped plan and execute a breakfast event for RAMA, our local Rochester chapter of the AMA (American Marketing Association). Our speaker was David Berkowitz who came to share his insights on ways to measure social media. This is a question that most marketers and business owners are asking since we are now seeing a phenomenal growth from those of all ages engaging online in some form of social media. Not a black and white, easy thing to deliver at this t

On the road to Colorado
OMG! OMG! OMG! WE'RE OFF! Today starts our week long road trip to Colorado. We'll be living near one daughter and one granddaughter (have two of the first but only one of the second). Will try to post and send pics, via the phone as we go along. Many of you know that I have a 17 year old kitty (the Wabby Wibby, herself) who will be riding in the back and

How *NOT* to Ask Someone Whom You Don't Know to Use their Social Juice to Help You
by Guest Blogger, Lena West, Chief of Social Media Strategy at xynoMedia Warning: This blog post is long, but worth it.Last week, on November 8th at 12:26pm, I received a voice mail from Michelle Christie representing a group of local women who were getting together having some sort of event. They called themselves

Researching the Women's Market - What They Leave Out
Raise your hand if you: a. are over 50. b. are happily single; c. weren't born a female; d. aren't a mother; e. aren't heterosexual; f. some combo of a-e. Oops! You're invisible (right along with me and most of my friends.) By Guest Blogger, Mary Schmidt, Marketing Troubleshooter I've designed and conducted quite a bit of market research and analys