How Did I End Up in Europe… Attending The Next Web Conference… And Why?? I’m writing this post from a hotel room in Amsterdam, after having attended The Next Web Europe Conference. These are questions or thoughts that keep running through my head. As I walked through the airport, hopped on a train, checked into the hotel, roamed the streets of a foreign city, they kept returning. They are like small rapids in a fast moving stream, places where my thoughts continue to be interrupted by questions that I cannot, I should say could not answer. Until now. McKeating Solutions is a very newly formed adventure. It is the culmination of six years of searching for myself, my happiness and my sandbox. Ever since graduating from college, I’ve been trying to find my place, my drive, and my success. I could probably take that…
Why Is It Important to Take the Time to Empower: Your Employees? Your Customers? Your Ambassadors? People are smart, and can generally figure things out for themselves right? When you work for a company, or use it’s products you generally have a good idea of why you do these things and what it means for your life. No one is disputing or arguing that consumers are intelligent, or that your employees understand why their job is important. No one can argue that ambassadors have an affiliation for the brand that they are promoting. So why am I writing this post? Dilution Every person that engages with your brand, whether they are an employee, a customer or an ambassador, brings with them different experiences, different frames of references, even different vocabularies. So it is natural that they would all describe their understanding of your brand, the reasons they like…
Seriously, though, Auto Direct Messages on Twitter need to die. It might sound like I’m being a bit harsh, or going on a Twitter rant about the number of auto DMs or Direct Messages that I receive…but when you are on Twitter as much as a marketing professional and community growth manager is on Twitter, and connecting with new people every day, they get really freaking annoying. Really professional adjectives there, I know. But it is that frustrating. Emotions of a twenty something startup marketer aside, there are legitimate reasons for not liking this once innovative tool. When the automatic direct message, or Auto DM first appeared on Twitter, it was cool! It was an innovative growth hacking tool that made it easier for marketers and brands on Twitter to reach out and engage their brand new followers, so that they did not have to worry…
Starting a Business is one Wild Ride! Congratulations on your idea. Starting a business is one crazy but enjoyable ride! The Idea! First you need the idea, that spark of inspiration. This is the idea behind the business, the one that will drive you and all of the hard work that lies ahead of you. This idea can be one that has been in the back of your mind for a while, or one that’s just jumped right out at you! (I’m willing to bet that even if it seems like it’s a new idea, it’s one your subconscious has been working on for a little while now). Take time with this idea, nurture it and refine it. Add to it. Question it and strengthen it. Whisper it to those around you, and gather their reactions. Even a negative reaction or…
Influencer Outreach On Social… Is it worth it? The answer is yes…if you put the time in and do it effectively. Influencer outreach campaigns are tricky things. It’s easy to get excited and want to jump right in, but blanketing Twitter or any other social media platform with requests and invites might not be the best strategy. It helps to put some time in before you begin your influencer outreach strategy to narrow down the types of people to whom you’d like to reach. To be effective with your influencer outreach strategy, follow the steps below: Do your research Are you looking for bloggers for example? There are a lot of bloggers on Twitter, so setting things like types of blogs or number of followers to help narrow down the number of profiles that you are going to reach out to. Remember that…
When it comes to providing customer service on social media – my opinion is “All for One” The other day I went onto Twitter to get some customer service help with a minor issue that I was experiencing. When I tweeted the company, they sent me over their customer support twitter handle. Now their reason may have been the volume of customer support requests but I couldn’t help but to hear Jay Baer’s voice in the back of my head… “Hug your haters!” it called to me. Yea, you can hug your haters on a stand a lone customer support channel but there are a few reasons why I don’t think that this a best practice: One, create a channel that attracts negativity around your brand. Two, you miss out on the opportunity for all of your customers and…
So go ahead and indulge yourself! You deserve to be happy! Productivity and success can so easily become addictive. With every little taste, we crave more. Eventually we get so consumed by our desire to get one more thing done or to accomplish that next thing that our professional lives slowly overtake our personal. What happens to our hobbies, those little things that we enjoy, that provide us happiness? They get left behind. Every time that this has happened in my life, something happened. I didn’t know it at the time, but looking back at my collective experiences, I’ve noticed one immediate change. The minute that my passions, my hobbies were set aside for the pursuit of something else, my mood shifted. In that moment, stress began to build, and with no hobbies, there was no release. When you don’t leave time for what…
Starts with a blank page. Hey! Thanks for dropping by. I’m so thankful to have the opportunity to carve out my little corner of the web, to build a place where I can share my thoughts and experiences on marketing, living a creative life and going for goals. I am starting a brand new chapter of my life, and sitting in front of me is a stark white, blank page. I’m scared, excited, giddy as all get up and totally paralyzed. The world is my oyster right now and I can’t decide if I want to place it on a shelf or string it on a necklace! Let me back up a bit. I had the pleasure and the joy of graduating from college with a degree in marketing and public relations from Duquesne University in 2010…yea, the year when the market…