Smart Marketing

Quote of the Day

Jay A. Blum, MBA — Fri, 11 May 2012 12:42:42 +0000

“Today’s marketing success comes from self-publishing Web content that people want to share. It’s not about gimmicks. It’s not about paying an agency to interrupt others.” David Meerman Scott, Author, The New Rules of Marketing and PR, from BtoB Magazine, March, 2008

Quote of the Day

Jay A. Blum, MBA — Thu, 10 May 2012 10:31:44 +0000

“SEO is by nature a cross-functional exercise. It involves many different departments, all working together towards a common goal. An SEO initiative severely tests the communication and cooperative capabilities of an organization. It requires Marketing, IT, product managers and often legal to all work together, and the faster they can do this, the more positive the results will be. In the most competitive categories, it’s a full out and ongoing war. The companies that can respond and adapt quickly will win that war. The ones mired in bureaucracy and butt covering will inevitably fail to lead.” ~ Jay A Blum, MBA

Quote of the Day

Jay A. Blum, MBA — Tue, 08 May 2012 14:49:05 +0000

“Marketing takes a day to learn. Unfortunately it takes a lifetime to master” – Phil Kolter

Quote of the Day

Jay A. Blum, MBA — Thu, 03 May 2012 10:44:55 +0000

“I avoid clients for whom advertising is only a marginal factor in their marketing mix. They have an awkward tendency to raid their advertising appropriations whenever they need cash for other purposes.” ~ Jay A. Blum, MBA

Quote of the Day

Jay A. Blum, MBA — Wed, 02 May 2012 10:40:38 +0000

“This may seem simple, but you need to give customers what they want, not what you think they want. And, if you do this, people will keep coming back.” ~ John Ilhan

What is the relationship between social media marketing and search engine optimization?

Jay A. Blum, MBA — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 15:02:25 +0000

For years, the meat of SEO has been backlinks. Similarly, link building on social networks carries the most SEO influence.

Facebook and Twitter pages are publically available, which means search engines like Google and Bing crawl and index them. Further, Google announced in November 2011 that they crawl and index Facebook comments. Though the impact is hard to establish, it is clear that social shares including likes, tweets, and especially +1s carry weight in Google’s ranking algorithm. Having a strong social presence that consistently directs people (and search engines) to you website will help you achieve higher positioning in search engine rankings.

A social media user’s authority can also influence ranking. Search engines look at several aspects of a user’s social media presence to determine social ranking. A link shared by someone with high social authority has a greater influence on ranking than one shared by someone with low social authority.

In addition to influencing page rank, social media has a significant impact on a website’s visibility. Because search engines can crawl social media sites, these sites can appear separate from the brand’s website in search results. This means that potentially, a brand could appear in search results for their website AND their social media profiles, thus taking up more valuable real estate on SERPs.

Content from social media sites can also increase visibility in secondary sections of SERPs (search engine result pages). Original content created on social media sites regularly appears in personalized, time subsections, and social subsections. And, if the searcher is logged into their Google account, content shared or liked by their contacts can appear in several locations on SERPs.

Over the Ocean and to the Links: A Golfer’s Journey – NOW AVAILABLE on Amazon

Jay A. Blum, MBA — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:54:38 +0000

I am proud to announce that the moment we (well at least Jeff and I) have been waiting for has finally arrived. Our book is now available on Amazon and can be purchased by going to: http://amzn.to/rdAFUC

I am humbled by the support we have received and look forward to reading your reviews on Amazon and the book’s Facebook page ( bit.ly/mPrTIn ) after you read it.

Thank you again and enjoy the read.

Jay

How Recruiters Use Social Networks to Screen Candidates

Jay A. Blum, MBA — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 12:09:51 +0000

Mashable’s Erica Swallow wrote a great article yesterday regarding the use of social media as a tool for recruiters.

Social media monitoring service Reppler recently surveyed more than 300 hiring professionals to determine when and how job recruiters are screening job candidates on different social networks.

The study found that more than 90% of recruiters and hiring managers have visited a potential candidate’s profile on a social network as part of the screening process. And a whopping 69% of recruiters have rejected a candidate based on content found on his or her social networking profiles — an almost equal proportion of recruiters (68%), though, have hired a candidate based on his or her presence on those networks.

Check out the infographic below for more results from the survey, including what details on a candidate’s social profile make recruiters tick.

Time to give Congress a PAY CUT

Jay A. Blum, MBA — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 13:40:59 +0000

I know this has nothing to do with marketing, well it kinda does. You see, our elected officials have been marketing to us the necessity of bailing out the banks and major corporations in an effort to save our financial system.

Well, attached is a picture of these same people in action.

Really makes you sick to your stomach doesn’t it? I have a better idea boys and girls.

Time to go back to the day were our elected officials serve their constituents instead of themselves. With all the joblessness and corporate belt-tightening, the teacher salary cuts, and so on, I think it is time to cut the salaries of our elected officials to a mid-level government salary schedule of a GS-12 / Step 10 or $97,000 a year. Still more than 90% of Americans now.

Annual Salary of a Member of Congress = $174,000
(Majority and Minority Leaders make more)
New Salary = $97,000
Savings = $77,000 per year
Times 100 Senators = a savings of $7,700,000
Times 434 Representatives = a savings of $33,418,000

Total Congressional Salary Savings = $41,118,000

I have more than a few friends that are Rotarians and I think their edicts fit in nicely here, not to mention we should all behave in this manner. What you are saying or doing should meet these edicts:

1. Is it the truth?
2. Is it fair to all concerned?
3. Will it build goodwill and better friendships?
4. Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

Most importantly – SERVICE ABOVE SELF

Forget the bailouts of Wall Street, the Banks, and Fortune 100 corporations. Forget the Jobs Bill. How about we take those savings and create a real stimulus package for the people that paid the bills for the organizations that put us in this predicament in the first place, US. Take these salary savings and reduce or eliminate the existing student loan debt of Americans.

What do you say?

Resources:

Picture courtesy of Hassan Bawad: http://www.facebook.com/hassanbawab
GSA Salary Schedule: http://www.opm.gov/oca/11tables/html/dcb.asp
Congressional Salary Information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives#Salaries

Over the Ocean and to the Links: A Golfer’s Journey Soon to be on Amazon’s Shelves

Jay A. Blum, MBA — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 15:53:34 +0000

Hi Everyone,

Would you be kind enough to do me a small (but big) favor?

My book will be available on Amazon shortly and we just developed a Facebook page for the book. As such we could use an extra friend. Please help us and ‘LIKE’ this new page: http://bit.ly/mPrTIn

Thank you very much or the help.

Jay