The Wax Blog

I love it when experts like Chris Brogan says there’s no such thing as a ’social media expert’ because I’ve always said there’s no such thing as a ‘marketing expert’ either. Or a “public relations expert” for that matter. You might be the most educated, the most experienced ‘expert’ but there’s no way to predict the exact combination of competitive, online, media, and economic environments facing a particular brand, company or author. So when you go about setting your goals, remember that you are probably the best ‘expert’ when it comes to your company and it’s virtually impossible to compare your own results to others…especially where social media is concerned. What other medium is changing as rapidly as this one?

When I help companies set goals for social media I try to get them to identify three different types of goals: 1) quantitative, 2) qualitative, and 3) a special set of goals that you might consider the equivalent of winning the social media lottery. Let’s start with quantitative goals, since those are sometimes the easiest. It would be great if you could comment with examples of some of your goals as well, just to give us an idea of what everyone is shooting for.
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by Susan Long

More than two thirds of businesses have never even considered whether or not they own their market position,  and plenty of those are doing just fine.  So when it is essential to really grab your slice of the market, declare it yours and defend it? Here are a few reasons when considering your market position may be crucial to your success. (more…)

Most social media plans have the same problem  as  most marketing plans – they aren’t “actionable”.  They often do a great job of describing the current state of affairs, customer psychographics, company “brand” …and then the client says “now what?” So I’ve decided to begin a series of posts that will help you create a social media  plan that can become a living document for your personal or business social media activities. In this post, I’ll describe the main components. In the following posts, I’ll explain how to create each component. I’m by no means an expert in social media, but I DO know the components small businesses and entrepreneurs need to create a road map for any promotional activity, online, in traditional media or on the ground.

To being with, let’s start with the basic pieces of the plan – PLEASE pipe in with ideas or areas that you think I may have missed. (more…)

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Over the past couple of weeks I’ve had conversations with clients that have decided social media can do nothing for them. One client comes from a very traditional industry, another from the B2B world. I’ve stopped trying to convince people to engage, it’s just not worth it. Instead I’ve begun to talk to them about building an appropriate digital footprint for their business. Last June I wrote a post on measuring your digital footprint that is still my number one visited post of all time. But I was remiss in writing that post first. Instead, I needed to explain why you really want to plan, manage and measure a digital footprint in the first place…for your business or brand.  And why you should be MORE focused on this aspect of your online presence than on hitting the first page in Google search.

According to Free Dictionary the definition of karma is the total effect of a person’s actions and conduct during the successive phases of the person’s existence, regarded as determining the person’s destiny. Beth Hodgson’s last post about the boomerang effect – what happens when you get even more traffic by sending it to others from your blog -  stirred up some comments about how karma works in the blogosphere. (Thanks Jorgen for kicking that discussion off and I’d love to hear YOUR stories too!) It got me thinking about my clients, and how their attitudes and actions affect the kind of PR results they get. Read on to find out how MUCH karma affects results. (more…)

Harvey Mackay has written six New York Times bestselling books, two of which were named among the top 15 inspirational business books of all time – Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive and Beware The Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt. His latest book, Use Your Head to Get Your Foot in the Door: Job Search Secrets No One Else Will Tell You , was released in February 2010, and immediately made the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller lists.  Harvey is a nationally syndicated columnist and has been named one of the top five speakers in the world by Toastmasters International.  He is chairman of the $100 million MackayMitchell Envelope Company, a company he started in 1960. (more…)

Oh my god we can market in a NEWSPAPER

I’ve been hopping into the internet marketing forums to learn more about SEO for blogs lately. Suddenly I started seeing all these online gurus touting the benefits of making loads of money in “offline marketing”. Huh? (more…)

Because I’ve worked with a pretty wide range of celebrities – from Ralph Nader to Bode Miller -people sometimes call to find out how much it would cost for a celebrity to attend their event, endorse their product or contribute to their non-profit cause.   No matter HOW GREAT your product is, or how important your cause, stars generally don’t do anything for free unless its for their own foundation (or for George Clooney). The good news is that almost any celebrity can  be booked if you have enough money. Here are a few tips for figuring out how to find someone, how much they cost and what the process might be like.

First, find out who reps the star. The easiest way is to buy a subscription to Who Represents an online listing of virtually every celebrity’s agent, publicist and manager.  Although some people like to go through managers first, I always call the agent. Agents are usually straightforward, no BS types who will give you prices and explain the ins and outs of back-end deals and endorsements. (more…)