@BasilPuglisi

Content & Strategy, Powered by Factics & AI, Since 2009

Business

3 Tips to Effectively Market Your Real Estate Website

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The key to marketing a real estate website is in knowing what your prospects are searching for, what sites they frequent, and how they use the web to communicate and gather information. Consider the following 3 tips to effectively market your real estate website:

Proper Domain Selection

The first step is choosing a domain name that will either capitalize on your brand name or target web searchers based on keywords. If you already have an established brand that is locally recognized you’ll want to make it easier for existing clients and prospects to find your site by registering a domain name that contains the name of your agency.
On the other hand, if you’re able to get your hands on a rare, yet highly valuable geo-targeted domain name (i.e. – FloridaRealEstate.com) then this option should be considered over all. Some firms choose to register multiple domains in order to maximise search traffic.

Competitive Analysis and Keyword Optimization

A great way to figure out what keywords you should be targeting in your site content and marketing efforts is to utilize keyword research tools and services like:

  • Google Adwords Keyword Suggestion Tool
  • Keyword Discovery
  • Wordtracker
  • Spyfu
  • Compete.com Analytics

All of the above resources will help you determine which keywords your competitors are using to generate the most traffic. Once you’ve built a list of keywords you can focus on outdoing the competition by publishing more content and contributing genuinely useful information. In addition to filling your real estate website with quality content, you should also start focusing on becoming a thought leader in your industry by spreading your outreach around the web through…

Blogging and Networking

Investors, property buyers, and other agents use the web to build their contacts and educate themselves on a regular basis. Research the leading real estate blogs and attempt to establish your own authoritative presence by becoming a reputable guest author.
As a real estate professional you’ve probably heard the phrase “It’s not what you know, it’s WHO you know that matters.”  With the ability to quickly contact ideal buyers and accommodate the needs of a large network of sellers you can maximise your yearly commissions by increasing the volume of transactions you facilitate.
Start by joining Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Learn the ins and outs of social networking, and consider the advantages of outsourcing the management of your campaigns to professionals that can optimize your output.
Joseph Tollett is a real estate professional and experienced blogger who currently conducts research for IronMonk Solutions, a well-known SEO firm with headquarters in New York. Click here to read their blog.
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Making Money With Your Webinar- Structure Your Content in Five Easy Steps!

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So, you finally decided to try out a webinar to make money. By now, you probably have an idea as to the type of webinar that you would like to make money from. Perhaps you have a pre-recorded webinar on your computer with a teaching or sermon that you would like to share with the world. Perhaps you recorded a how to get a full body workout in only ten minutes or conducted a teaching session on how to thrive in a stagnant economy.
It’s exciting that you’ve selected your topic of interest! The ideas that you have are indeed limitless, and the webinars that you could create are now within your grasp. You want your customers to come to you so that you can answer their needs. Every business fills a need, every customer has a need waiting to be filled. How will you go about filling this need with your webinar?

Dynamics of Content

First and foremost, you’ll want to understand the dynamics of your content and how it brings life or death to your webinar. Content answers the question of how to get your webinar off the ground. It also creates a hunger for the products and services that you have to offer. I don’t just go to any place to get my pizza fix. I go to a specific place because I know that I like the content of their pizza and the way that they make it. In the same way, your attendees are coming to your webinar for the content that you have to offer and the way that you offer it.
If you haven’t already created a webinar, you’ll want to decide on the software to hold a web conference first. Once you’ve finalized the software, you can begin to put the pieces of your webinar’s content together by following these five simple steps to ensure that your content meets the mark and your subscribers leave the session happy that they purchased your webinar!

1.) Know your audience.

  • If you’re lecturing NASA scientists, you can pretty much skip the fluff and beef up the content with more analysis and scientific research findings.
  • If you’re creating a session geared for Girl Scouts, you’ll want to include more things that they can relate to.

2.) Decide on your approach.

  • Do you want the audience to sit through the entire session or do you want to include short quizzes and test sections?
  • Do you want to be more informational and provide a lot of data or conversational and more relaxed? Which approach fits your audience better? Can you customize it to fit their needs?
  • Once you know what style approach you will be using, it is much easier to create a consistent webinar that exudes professionalism. There are many, many bad webinars out there that could easily be avoided if the webinars had only been consistent in their approach from start to finish.

3.) Structure your time well.

  • If you told your audience that you would be discussing XYZ in the webinar, make sure you don’t gloss over XYZ and skip over to ZZZ. I’ve seen this happen too many times and have been completely disappointed when this happens. Not only do I feel cheated out of my time, but I feel betrayed by the bait-and-switch method that seems to run rampant.
  • If it takes ten minutes to explain a key area, do not take more than that time to explain it. You want to engage your audience and keep them at the edge of their seats wanting more!

4.) Groom your content.

  • Are some areas too wordy and others lacking in content? Take time to comb through your presentation and cut out the clutter while beefing up the lean parts.
  • Does your outline convey your actual content? We often think that we have everything perfectly compiled only to discover that a key element was never included. A scan between your actual content (webinar) and your outline will help you get that 1:1 match.
  • Do your images and illustrations match up with your topic?

5.) Is your content engaging to your audience?

  • If I am going to sit down and watch a webinar that I paid decent money for, I must be looking for specific content that will help fill my needs.
  • Have you created the content that adequately satisfies my need (ie, my need to learn how to sew from your created webinar)?

The above are a great starting point when beginning to look into creating a webinar that has lasting results. No only will you come across as more professional, but you will also service a niche group that could potentially return time and time again.

Benjamin Baker is addicted to writing! He is a research hound and fills hard to find searches. He enjoys playing his guitar and spends his free time camping and fishing. He recently discovered www.webconferenceclassroom.com and is starting his own webinar mini-series on how to fish. He is happily married and is the father of 3 growing (and busy) teenagers. He lives in Denver, Colorado with his wife and kids.

What is Inbound Marketing? [Internship]

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            Inbound marketing is a way of making yourself or your company easy to find and drawing people to your website by producing content that appeals to your visitors. The term “inbound marketing” was coined in 2005 by HubSpot’s Brian Halligan because he believed that traditional marketing was becoming less effective. Inbound marketing includes content like blogs, enewsletters, and the social media network. Inbound marketing is far more favored by businesses than outbound marketing. Outbound marketing includes content such as spam, telemarketing, and fliers.
            The whole concept of inbound marketing is to get the customers to find you, instead of you reaching out to them. It can be broken down into five stages. One, attract traffic; two, convert visitors to leads; three, convert leads to sales; four, turn customers into repeat higher margin customers; and five, analyze for continuous improvement. A company can attract traffic to their website by blogging, for example. Updating your blog more frequently will attract more visitors to your website and revenue traffic. Announce your website via email, and across the social media networks like Google+ and Twitter to garnish social and search traffic. Email everyone you know about your new website, lead with content and the word will travel. Share it on your social media websites. Include keywords that will draw your targeted audience in. Then, you want to make sure that the material on your page is what the visitor is looking for. Your goal is to make the visitor a customer. After your visitor becomes a customer, make sure they will come back by sending them an enewsletter and keep your page updated with things that will attract them to buy again. After you went through the four steps of the process, you want to analyze everything that you have done and make sure you are doing everything you can to satisfy your visitors, followers, customers.
            In order to make inbound marketing completely effective, you want to give your customers your marketing information, and a little something else. This provides a value above and beyond what they are looking for, which creates a value to the customer experience. For example, if you’re a gardening or landscaping company, write a little side story about your home garden and how you personally take care of it in the newsletter. The three key phases are “get found, convert, and analyze”.
            Inbound marketing can be effective if the communication is interactive and two-way, unlike outbound marketing which is one-way. One way to create inbound marketing is by being found on search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, YouTube, etc. This is a type of inbound content because someone who is looking for something specifically related to you will go directly to your page. By creating valuable content on your website, your website will rise in organic search results. By rising in organic search results, it will benefit you tremendously because the closer you are to the search engines first page, the more visibility you are gaining for your website.
You can try and get your website higher in the organic search result by pay per click (PPC). PPC is an advertising model used to direct traffic to a certain website. Every time someone’s ad is clicked, the advertiser pays the website owner or publisher. Another way to rank higher in organic search results is to make a well put together press release that is filled with information that your targeted audience will click on when they search on a search engine. Don’t use keywords that are commonly used by your competition; be more creative when it comes to keywords.
            A recently new field that inbound marketing has found its way to is the social media network. Social media sites are the most visited websites on the web. When marketing on social media, identify your target audience. Once you have a targeted audience, think about keywords this audience might use to search to find sites like yours. Facebook for example, has seen a steady increase in its search bar for businesses. A basic principle of a social media site is like using a forum, if there is no activity going on you will leave. To make sure that this doesn’t happen to you on your website, fill it with lots of information and useful content. Finally, another way to use the social media network for inbound marketing is to give your “community” something to talk about. For example, if you own a fitness company and you are now selling a new workout machine, tell your social medic community. This is the “network effect”, when your community creates a “buzz” about what you were talking about, it will bring in other users.
            An easy way to get information out about your business or product is to advertise where they are already going. For example, by putting “like us on Facebook” on your company’s website, this will draw people to your Facebook page where you can advertise all about your business, products and services. Another way to generate inbound marketing is to host contests. By letting your visitors and or customers take an online survey about their experience with your website, offer a chance to win a prize if they take the survey. Also give them the opportunity to go through an easy-to-do sign up for newsletters offering them coupons and sneak peeks into the future.
            Inbound marketing is far more effective than outbound marketing. You can prove this just by asking if you have deleted spam mail without reading it. Spam mail is an example of outbound marketing. Since social media is huge growing field, there should be no question as to why inbound marketing is so effective. In the end, it’s all about finding a new way to generate interest, and inbound marketing is the new way to generate interest and visitors, followers, customers.  
Sources:

The content in this article is part of Digital Ethos’s Digital Media Education in the Higher Education Internship Program, the content was created by @KaylaMarzo, a Student at Suffolk County Community college, intern at Digital Ethos.

What Digital & Social Media Marketers Can Learn from Business Consultants [Opinion]

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In the last five years I have heard some wild claims about who makes the best marketer – those claims have ranged from PR professionals, who ‘should be the only people to do it’, to Social Media, to ‘it takes a Sales Professional to provide the best internet marketing.’

I’d like you to think of Digital Assets in the form of a building:

  • The windows are Social Media – transparency of course
  • The walls are the advertising efforts – the place to display and show
  • The doors are the PR – as media attention helps get people to walk through the door
  • The shelves, displays and racks are the event planners – presentation and onsite execution
  • The Roof is the website – it covers everything else

However, the missing element is the foundation or the business itself. The digital and social media industry has gotten a lot of bad heat on not being effective and I would argue that has happened because the keystone has been missing, the Business Consultant.

I warn almost everyone that I interact with to look for the red flags when meeting a PR, Web, SEO, Social Media, Event Professional, etc. The best way to know if that have any clue what they are talking about will come with the first interaction. Do they start talking to you about their business and products, or do they ask you about yours?

The world is filled with overnight talent and businesses that offer these services and I say talent because most are very good at their niche, unfortunately it seems to end there. Think of it like a great marksman sent off to war to be a sniper without any military training. The ability to hit a target does not translate to being an effect solider, especially in terms of the bigger picture.

The transformed business consultants that are working as project managers and on the rare occasion can provide Web Development, SEO, Social Media and more are carrying with them the greatest lesson the marketing industry can learn, success goes beyond the view, comment and call!

Traditional marketing and advertising was all about visibility and the connection point, the advertising was a success when the consumer connected with your name, product or service.( i.e. someone visited the website, opened the email, opened the text message or called your phone, that is marketing success in the traditional context). The ability to convert that experience into a sale was the business owners problem. This is the reason businesses fail continuously and why corporate leadership is completely in the dark with the digital environment.

How Can We do Better or Demand Better?

Take the Business Consultant approach, inquire about the business model, the products or services, why the target market is the target market. Take the campaign backwards, go from the conversion or sale to the campaigns and tools to reach consumers. Build the model on the business and remember the best in any industry become the best from exploring. Sometimes it’s easier to create new then fix broken.

Why “NO” is so important to the Profession of Digital & Social Media Marketing [Opinion]

The overnight rush of Web developers lead to overnight SEO providers and then the flood of Social Media Marketers. Which in turn lead to every PR, advertising and marketing agency claiming to offer services they knew nothing about to save their revenue streams. The industry changed so fast that quantity quickly overtook quality.

“NO” is crucial to not just the digital and social industry but the recovery of our economy! I was sitting in a session at BlogWorld, it was about monetization, each of the three presenters had the same story the “advertisers found us” and “I spent nothing on advertising”.

I had to go to the mic, this is such a common carless comment that I had an ethical obligation to set straight.

The question: “You said that advertisers found you and that you spent nothing on advertising, but I want you to think of what the cost was… you might not have purchased advertising but clearly you spent time and money to build your…”

All three faces quickly had a look that you couldn’t quite place, perhaps it was horror? Then Lou Mongello of Walt Disney World Radio jumped to answer, “Oh it was so expensive, it cost me time, I had to sell my house and I spent money on all sorts of things”.

Lou Mongello then went on to explain that part of his success came from having his families support and the understanding of sacrifice to accomplish the long term goal.

Don’t Go In Unprepared

Here is the crucial point of this article, because so many enter into digital and social media services unprepared with misrepresentation of their own business model, they are ill equipped to help their clients with the same problem. In the need to create profits they become like AOL, they leap into every adventure without any thought of their clients business model or worse their own long term business model.

Learning to say “NO” allows you to take on clients that will be successful with your talent or service, it garnishes long term revenue for your business and a reputation for growth. It’s not easy being picky in the beginning, or when times are tough, but it is successful! Even more importantly, it keeps others from wasting their life savings on an idea or business that they are underfunded, underequipped or worse ignorant about from losing their time and money. It also prevents the overwhelming false, false from becoming the digital and social media industry. The Social Media Marketer did not intentionally fail you, the web developer did not build a crappy website or fail to generate valuable SEO, the business was flawed and directed to fail from the beginning and the digital and social industry should not take the blame for that.

Pick your clients carefully, for the benefit of them, yourself and our industry.

Author:

@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.

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#140conf in New York City June 19th – 20th 2012 [Event]

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This year the #140c will be hosted at the 92nd Street Y at 1395 Lexington Avenue in NYC.

The History of the #140conf

In its fourth year running, this conference has had no shortages of experts with a plethora of educational and trending information to provide attendees. Each year it simply gets better and better.

In 2009, #140conf hosted events in:

2011 found #140conf spreading even further across the globe with events held in more locations than before.

There have also been a number of #140conf Meetups which have taken place across the United States, and outside of the states including places like the UK, Kenya and Israel.

In addition, check out the writers panel from #140conf 2011 that featured Debre Eckerling from @WriteOnOnline, Jeanne V Bowerman @jeannevb and Tracey Jackson @traceyjackson4.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIIKqAJmGmE]

With many more impressive panels the 2011 #140conf was a rousing success. This year is shaping up to top them all.

Jeff Pulver Speaks

In April, 2012, Jeff Pulver shared a talk in Des Moines Iowa and he had some very compelling things to say about how we act and interact on our social networks. Are you YOU on your social networks? Are you who you think your friends and consumers think you should be? If you are anything but yourself you are not really connecting with those most important when it comes to marketing yourself or your brand. Jeff put it out there pretty well when he asked:

Are you you? Are you connecting to the person who you are? Are you true to yourself? If you Tweeted yourself would you talk back? Would you friend yourself?

I can relate to this as it is very similar to my previous article “Who are you?”

Societal communications are occurring now on a global level. Jeff reminds us that while the communication line is open, we have plenty of social media users who are more than happy to be brash, rude, insensitive, and that perhaps these people are being themselves. But we also have others who are the veritable shrinking violets, who are unlikely to ever be heard on a grand scale. And then we have our social leaders. Those whose Tweets and Status shares compel us, attract us. In most cases, those people have a strength we admire. Each of us have our own strengths when it comes to how we voice our feelings, how we communicate. In each of us is our true voice that when shared with the Twitterverse, or asserted on a Facebook status will have its own selling point, for those with a similar voice, opinions and assertions.

Inspire others whenever you can, because you can.

This Year’s #140conf NYC

The turnout for this year’s conference is expected to be attendees from 17 countries and 31 states.It is already expected to be the largest worldwide gather of entrepreneurs and professionals who are interested in the effects of real-time on people and businesses.

The focus will be on how the internet has the power to change lives and all attendees should expect to leave with a new outlook on how real-time interaction on the web can be used to grow your business or personal life, or even to do something intrinsically meaningful such as activism in charities you support. The options are almost endless.

The schedule is a fast paced and very unique one. It is the intention of the organizers to supply the perfect platform for as wide of a demographic as possible. Everyone is encouraged to share their thoughts or engage with attendees and speakers. Individual talks will be limited to ten minute excerpts and panel discussions will run for 10 to 15 minute sets.

Conference speakers will be arriving in NYC from all over the world. Speakers from the Pacific, South America, Europe, Asia, Canada and of course many from the United States.

Register Today to Be a Part of This Event

Interested in having your voice heard at a future #140conf event? We are always looking for new voices to introduce to our community. Just drop a note to Jeff Pulver. Interested in leveraging the influence of the #140conf NYC community? we are looking for companies interested in sponsoring this event.

The #140conf events –Tweetups, Conferences, Parties and Roadtrips – present an opportunity to consistently broaden your social media knowledge, whether for its own sake, or for application in communication, business, news, politics, philathropy or just about any other sphere. You always meet the most interesting and creative people at these events, and each time, Jeff’s mix of speakers,  their topics and perspective leave you substantially more informed and meaningfully inspired.

– Ian Aronovich – @GovtAuctions

Don’t miss this years @140conf #140conf in NYC!

Author:

@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.

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Real-Time Monitoring for Facebook Analytics

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With new updates kicking off on Facebook left and right hopefully you haven’t missed the opportunity they have presented to take advantage of real-time monitoring of your webpage statistics and demographics. One of their newest tools is in fact, the Real-Time Monitor for Facebook analytics. Whereas before the updates seemed to arrive on an irregular basis, they have built new post level analytics that give user’s the answers they are looking for, updated, around every 5 minutes.

This has phenomenal impact for those who wanted to more closely monitor how specific posts fared, or even gauge how fans reacted to content, contest, questions and more social communication options in real-time and ask they occur. Although the new tool is currently in beta and free for Pro users, it is worth keeping an eye on for when it makes its to public release.  Currently, the beta tool requires users to remain within that tool in order for them to collect the metrics and share the data in real-time, but they have plans to expand further on this functionality, hopefully with more flexibility, in the future.

What Can You Monitor with the Real-Time Tool?

You will be able to filter by a variety of metrics including, but not limited to:

  • Unique Impressions
  • Paid Impressions
  • Total Impressions
  • Organic Impressions
  • Viral Impressions
  • Total Engagement
  • Shares, Likes, Comments, Clicks and Virality

Users will be able to monitor all of the active posts on the pages they administrate. The filter options are flexible and can be viewed as Change in Values or Total Values. This will offer marketers a unique perspective on how their content is trending in real-time.

c/o EdgeRank

Negative Feedback Posts

If you notice a trend that indicates an individual post is beginning to accrue more than average negative feedback, you may want to consider remove the post to help reduce damage to your average EdgeRank. This can also help your page to maintain the strongest possibility for a high-end EdgeRank.

“Virality”

Everyone knows that your content or media has a chance at going viral on a social media network. They are famous for this on a daily basis. You will now be able to view previously unseen real-time analysis of the viral lift to each piece of content you release. Users can then study how viral, organic, and paid impressions begin to interact with the content to create even further viral marketing opportunities.

Recent Posts

Users can monitor the individual performance and status of the most recent post by viewing impressions, clicks, engagement, and even negative feedback in real-time. Brand management can easily use this vital information to identify and cultivate the performance of each post to the fullest or manage damage control by pulling those negatives out quickly when needed.

Author:

@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.

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SignMyPad – the PDF Document and Signature Solution

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SignMyPad is a great app that is perfect for those in the sales industry, or those practicing law or real estate transactions. It allows users to fill in information in fields on a document as well as gain viable signatures from clients on-the-fly.

The Test

Running a test on an iPad shows that this is a very user-friendly and quick application for filling in text fields, dates, check boxes and more on documents. While other applications such as Smartnote may have a couple of more alternatives for the insertion of special characters, Smartnote is nowhere near as fast as SignMyPad. Since those in the real estate, law and sales industries are frequently only n need of check boxes, signatures, and text fields, this app fits perfectly.  If you are using the newest iPad OS, you should also have a bit more flexibility and functionality. Using it is s easy as selecting the type of items to enter.

  • Date
  • Radio Button
  • Signature
  • Check Box
  • Text

Using the date option auto-enters the current date and a sales person should be able to create a full purchase agreement without spending too much time or putting clients on hold for too long.

Pros of SignMyPad

  • Fast
  • User-friendly
  • Flexible
  • Functional
  • Opens documents from email attachments or Dropbox

Cons of SignMyPad

  • No landscape option
  • In some instances copy and paste does not work across documents

About SignMyPad

This app was created by Autriv Software Developement and is available for $3.99. The newest version allows for saved signatures and a clean folder interface for users.  Even if signing documents isn’t an everyday thing for you in your industry, the convienience versus the price makes this a must-have app. A Pro version for $19.99 includes geo-tagging options for saved PDF’s.

This app is available on iPad and Android.

Author:

@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.

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Google Places for Your Service Industry

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An innovative business known as PlumberSEO.net has found a way to use Google Places for service industry networking. While they specialize in working with HVAC contractors and Plumbers, PlumberSEO helps those in their industry take their businesses to the next level with effective online marketing with social media, SEO, map optimization and many other internet marketing tools.

Find a Plumber and More

It used to be that when you were looking for a plumber, electrician, roofer, or any other type of service contractor, you picked up the yellow pages and almost always went with the one that had the most impressive ad, the most credentials, and the most well-known company brand name. In today’s world, very few people still use this traditional method of printed resources, instead, they head to the web to look for the best options for service contractors in their area. One of the ways in which Google has made this search easier for consumers is by adding Google Places.

Check out this quick video to get familiar with Google Places if you require a bit more in-depth understanding.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpZan96KHOM]

Now when people look for service contractors in their area, they commonly head to Bing, Yahoo, Google, or other favored search engines as well as to social media sites where they may ask friends or family if they can suggest a contractor in the area.

A recent survey of 2,000 consumers revealed the 86% of the surveyed use the internet to find local business, 74% of those cited search engines as where they go when seeking a local retail or service industry contractor.

Local businesses that are not showing up on page one of search engines are missing major opportunities to grow their business as most people tend to decide their choice in contractors from page one of search engine results.

How to Manage Google Places

Google Places isn’t without its own flaws. However, most of these are user related and may just require a bit more of an in-depth understanding of how Google Places works. If you have had any issues you may want to check out this video for some helpful tips if you find you need help troubleshooting.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/user/GooglePlaces]

In addition, be sure to check out how to Optimizing Your Google Places Page to get the best results for your business.

[polldaddy poll=6238017]

Author:

@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.

Sources:

Corporate Social Media Summit New York 2012 [Event]

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Once again The Corporate Social Media Summit is back and as usual will come complete with real insight, valid experience and the answers you may be looking for when it comes to social media. There will be over 150 top delegates in attendance. Get registered as soon as possible to insure your place at this phenomenal social media educational summit.

What Can Attendees Expect from the New York Corporate Social Media Summit 2012?

There are many elements of social media, networking and marketing that attendees will take away from the conference.

  • Attendees will get familiar with methods and tools that can help to create a social media marketing strategy that encourages long-term success for their companies. Expect to learn about how such companies as Dunkin’, AVG, Comcast and others have formulated effective social media structures and how to model a similar strategy that will boost your businesses social brand awareness quickly.
  • Attendees will get the chance to connect and network with over 250 social media pros. This global event already has confirmation from many countries such as South Korea and Norway. This will be attendees chance to rub shoulders with personell from Hyundai, Warner Home Video, RCN, Adobe and more.
  • Attendees will be given the information they need to get ahead of their competition. With social media being a constantly evolving industry, it is imperative to keep abreast of the latest strategies and best practices. At the New York Corporate Social Media Summit attendees will hear from representatives from Boeing, American Express and more.

In its third year, the New York Corporate Social Media Summit supplies an ultimate learning experience in addition to valuable networking experience for the constantly evolving marketing industry. This year’s summit will benefit attendees with 5 new additions that will help business owners learn to address some of the top issues in social media today.

  1. Speakers from Europe will be sharing some of their best practices with attendees. Some of the best brands in Europe are represented and will discuss some of the elements that have led to their success.
  2. Attendees will be able to meet and network with over 250 senior level professionals.
  3. A unique session where the attendees get to set the agenda. This is the time to ask those questions that you have been searching and researching for.
  4. Some of the best service providers around will be on hand to help with solutions to manage your own personal strategies, resources and other financial issues.
  5. A networking opportunity and best practice sharing in a Linkedin group that is exclusively for some of social media’s most experienced figures.

Register Now

Author:@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc.A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.Sources:

The Hard Truth about Facebook: Why the Facebook IPO looks like a Bad Investment

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  • Facebook Does Not Produce any Content
  • Facebook May be Maxed Out!
  • Facebook Lacks Innovation
  • Facebook Does Not Replace a Conversation!

Facebook DOES NOT Produce Any Content!

We have been told time and time again, “Content is King”. As an avid digital user, I have found this to be absolutely true. You may be hard pressed to find many who disagree. If this holds true, then Facebook is the biggest flakey investment you can make, in fact, it shouldn’t even survive much longer.

Facebook capitalized on technology – it was a place for people to come to connect and learn. This was at a time when content was still struggling to make its way to digital avenues. In fact, iTunes was in its infancy and did not even hit the top spot until 2008. This gave Facebook the edge as The Place to interact and learn. Think about content producers like the NY Times, they too, were late to the digital era.

What is Facebook and how does it generate revenue?

Users that create content! Every time you participate in Facebook you give them content. This was a fair tradeoff in 2008, perhaps even in 2011, but times are changing. If 2012 is the year of content, then Facebook may be in trouble. While there is likely not going to be a wild withdraw from Facebook at this moment, trust me when I say content providers are starting to see the value in limiting their content and perhaps even withdrawing future content from social sites like Facebook.

If the NY Times stops posting on Facebook, the NY Times will still have increases in readers and perhaps an increase in viewers. It’s arguable about whether or not the NY Times has made a terrible error in posting anything to Facebook. If I know that I count on the NY Times for my “content” but also know that I have the NY Times in my Newsfeed on Facebook, than I am much less likely to visit the NY Times app, website or open the email because I am counting on seeing the NY Times content on my stream. In fact, I even get a small preview that will likely let me know what the “content” is about and so there is no reason to visit the NYTimes.com or their app on my iPad. This is arguably a terrible business model for the NY Times!

The same can be said about entertainment – TV shows, Movies and Artists (i.e. musicians) that get little or nothing for producing “content” for Facebook. Why should Britney Spears keep placing “content” on Facebook? It’s not like Britney Spears needs 910 Million people to be introduced to her, does she? In fact even if only half of her “likes” turned into paid subscriptions at $1, she would have a entirely new revenue stream just based on the “content” already being produced.

Facebook May be Maxed Out!

We all know there is a peak in every business and venture but at 900 million how much further can you really grow? In fact, by recent number indications, Facebook may already be slowing down. Getting 900 million to pay attention to you is one thing, getting them to stay is another. As a Facebook user I admit I already spend a massive amount of time on Twitter and LinkedIn in comparison to Facebook. When Pinterest came out I gave up more of my Facebook time, not the other two!

Why are other Social Sites stronger then Facebook? They have a niche! Facebook has tried to be all things to all users and that’s gotten them lost! LinkedIn is where we go to do business and professional networking, Twitter is the top choice for news and chatting – after all you’ve never heard of a FacebookUp have you? Ever attended a virtual conversation on Facebook? In fact, Facebook completely dropped the ball when GooglePlus captured the world’s attention with Hangout! When you try to be everything to everybody you end up being no use to anyone, that’s Facebook’s grim future right now.

Note: Google may be the exception (Search and Social Come Together)

Facebook Lacks innovation

Let’s face it, when you fail to innovate you tend to open the door and show yourself out, Facebook showed early signs of that when Twitter was released. That was arguably the start of Facebook’s Why didn’t we think of that? Well lets copy it or better yet buy it!

The list goes on and on, Facebook got its status updates from Twitters innovation, Facebook Places developed from FourSquare and GoWalla, which was such a failure that later they bought GoWalla. Google Plus quickly trumped them with Video Chat and so Facebook tried to copy it. Once Facebook realized that Google was way too big and they could never compete with the inbound marketing of the search Giant, we then had a short lived Bing/Facebook Social Search integration. You love Google Video Ads, well Facebook copied that too. Fan of being able to Pin It! so is Facebook. If you really love the fact that a picture is worth a thousand words, then that’s the equivalent of a billion dollars as that’s what Instagram was acquired for, by Facebook!

We could talk about the business model, but after all the news about retailers flocking to Facebook pages and then running away clearly it’s not a primary place for business, no matter how many times they try to tell you it is.

Facebook is clearly over extended and in complete chaos with its inability to innovate beyond its checkbook. This doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have value in marketing and advertising, after all 900 million emails is a safe list, just one that might not be quite as valuable as we have been lead to believe.

Facebook Does Not Replace a Conversation!

 It is possible that in the near future society  will hinder Facebook forever, a status update is not a conversation. Networking, Learning and Communications are greatly hindered by the existence of Facebook and its just a matter of time before our nation and communities around the globe shun Facebook as a major contributor to health issues and conflict. Facebook has little if any reality in it, it is a place for people to share what they choose, trying to showcase themselves, their family and their lives in the best light possible even if it is the furthest thing from the truth.

One might enjoy the idea that grandparents can see their grandchildren through the curation of an edited and extremely biased feed, the truth however could range from basic struggles to life threatening abuse that fails to get discovered from a lack of real world contact.

If you’re a friend, family member or loved one, I hope you don’t mistake the value of real life contact with the purpose of a feed. I most especially hope it’s not at the cost of a future or a life.

The Balanced Truth

While I spent most of the time looking at a few of the issues that will impact Facebook’s survival, I don’t want to be unfair. Facebook is a great tool, but it’s just that, a tool! Facebook has connected people like never before, contributed to the free dissemination of information and pioneered Social Media into the revolution of digital communications. However, it’s just software.

Facebook cannot replace real life communications or the desperate need we have for them as part of our existence. No child will be born because of Facebook, no war will be stopped, no product will be manufactured by it, and no business will grow simply because they were on Facebook.

Children come from physical contact, wars are averted through communication that requires we hear, see, touch and smell each other. Facebook is not going to get on the assembly line and build your Ford, stove or Mobile Phone. Facebook will not report the news, and ask the tough questions. Facebook will not repair your roof or rescue you during an emergency. Facebook will not raise a child, nurture them, inspire them and provide for them. No business will be successful because they got on Facebook, that’s up to the entrepreneur, their vision, passion and hard work. 

I am taken in awe by Facebook’s Innovation to come to existence and serve a purpose, it has changed lives, some for better some for worse. Facebook has value and can be used as an effective tool, just not one that a reasonably educated and experienced person can see growing much further. Facebook has been a consumer of great ideas and innovative content, but that’s the problem, it consumes, it doesn’t create.

Author:

@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.

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***Disclaimer, The article is meant to share the opinion of the author based on availble informations and data, it is not an investment tool.***