WordPress is free, but if you want to get the most out of your CMS for inbound marketing, here are 10 recommended paid services that you should look into. Key Highlights [00:55] Paid Services for WordPress [02:02] 10 Paid Services That I Think You Should Be Investing [03:38] Genesis [04:37] Web Hosting: WP Engine [08:42] wpsitecare.com [10:24] Security Plugin [11:07] Landing Page Plugin [13:33] Stock Images Site [14:35] Contact Form Plugin [15:38] Magic Action Box Pro Notable Quotes So a backup ...
Sep 21, 2013•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast Are you overlooking the potential power of video to help promote your brand? Read on about why Neal Schaffer chose to create a book trailer for Maximize Your Social - and why you should invest in video, too. Key Highlights [01:17] Reminder: Video Is Important! [03:06] What Video Is About [03:43] Other Types of Embeddable Content [04:19] Why Video Is Important [05:55] Content Should Be Entertaining, Resourceful, and Shareable [06:04] My Advice For You [07:00] An Example of A Successful Video [08:...
Sep 12, 2013•12 min•Transcript available on Metacast The background for and importance of auditing your social media, with a concrete example comparing the Facebook presence of two hotels. Key Highlights [01:16] Social Media Audits [01:45] Creating Baseline Numbers [02:29] Create a Role Model [02:52] The Notion of Audit [04:00] Is It A Good Ideal to Compare Yourself with the Competition? [04:32] Notion of Social Proof [04:46] Where the Role of Audit Comes In [06:01] Looking at the Organic Growth Rate [08:01] Number of Like Is Meaningless [08:30] G...
Sep 04, 2013•14 min•Transcript available on Metacast Engagement, relevance and relationships are as important in social media marketing as they are in email marketing. Key Highlights [00:41] My AHA Moments on Best Practices with Email Marketing [02:18] Email Providers Getting Better at Filtering Spam [02:48] What Gmail Has Done Recently [03:35] What Happens When You Send A Lot of Emails [04:06] More Engagement, Better Relationships [05:01] Make People Stay Longer in Your Site [05:30] Best Practice in Email Marketing [05:58] Create Engaging and Rel...
Aug 29, 2013•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast The truth about Facebook's recent changes: Nothing changed. You still need a data-driven approach to Facebook - and social media - marketing. Key Highlights [01:00] Recent Changes with Facebook [02:38] How EdgeRank Works [03:42] The Notion of nTime Decay and Notion of Affinity [04:05] Reintroducing Posts Into Your Newsfeed [04:48] Every Facebook Post Counts [06:36] Have A Data-Driven Approach in Social Media Notable Quotes And I mean, really, Facebook uses an algorithm, okay, they want you ...
Aug 21, 2013•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast Neal Schaffer details how his social media accounts recently got hacked - and provides six points of advice to help you avoid the same fate. Key Highlights [01:03] What is LastPass [02:46] The Problem When I Didn't Change All of My Password [05:12] Digging Around [06:35] Twitter Being Ahead of Other Networks [07:29] Create Unique Password for Each Site [07:49] Change Your Password Regularly [08:03] Use Two-Step Verification [08:28] Audit Your Third-Party Apps Notable Quotes But it's cr...
Aug 14, 2013•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast Learn about Neal Schaffer's Pinterest experiment - and the data which backs up why you shouldn't be ignoring Pinterest anymore. Key Highlights [00:49] Why Pinterest Is A Fascinating Network [02:41] What Fascinates Me About Pinterest [04:33] Pinterest Statistics [05:58] The Quality Traffic You Can Get From Pinterest [06:52] What I Ended Up Doing In Pinterest [07:29] Creating Pinterest Boards [08:18] Pinterest As A Social Bookmarking Site [08:59] How Can You Begin Using Pinterest [10:23]...
Aug 06, 2013•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast What does it mean to be an influencer in social media? Why is it important to businesses? And how can people become influencers? Key Highlights [01:43] Have A Social Scoring [03:21] What is Publicly Available Data? [04:23] The Interesting Thing About Cloud [05:56] How I Look At Social Scoring [06:39] Become the Center of Influence [07:47] Carve Your Own Path [08:58] Be Natural [10:19] Be An Influencer and Add Value [10:49] Be An Utility Notable Quotes And it really comes down to, if you're ...
Jul 30, 2013•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast Before you hire an intern or call up a social media consultant, first ask yourself these 5 critical questions to give your social media for business plans a reality check. Key Highlights [01:24] My New Book -- Maximize Your Social [02:13] How I Talk To My Potential Clients [02:35] How Can I Help You With Social Media [03:22] Determining Business Objective [04:46] Perceived Benefits of Social Media [05:48] Perform A Simple Audit [06:36] How Do You Reach Your Business Objective? [07:36] The Killer...
Jul 03, 2013•12 min•Transcript available on Metacast If you're on LinkedIn for sales, business development, or marketing, you need to realize that everything you do on LinkedIn leads back to your profile. Here's advice on how to improve upon it. Key Highlights [01:02] How To Better Leverage LinkedIn for Business? [01:39] The Second Demographic [02:41] LinkedIn Demographics [03:18] Think About What Social Media Can Do for You [03:59] It All Comes Down to Your LinkedIn Profile [05:43] Why It Is Critical to Put Time and Effort In Your Profi...
Jun 25, 2013•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast What is the value of guest blog posts on your website? Learn about the history of Windmill Networking along with advice on what type of content you should try to source for your website blog. Key Highlights [01:07] Moving From Windmill Networking to Maximize Social Business [01:29] How I Started Windmill Networking [03:43] From Personal Blog to Collaborative Blog [04:18] What I Realized with Guest Blogging [06:13] The Story of the Term Maximize Your Social [07:05] The Bigger Benefits of the Swit...
Jun 18, 2013•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast A holistic and realistic perspective on the role social media marketing can play at your business. Key Highlights [01:08] How to Get Started in Social Media? [01:57] What Social Media Can Do for Me? [02:59] Push-Pull Approach [03:12] Ways of Driving Consumer Demand [03:31] One Thing that Most Companies Forget [04:10] How Much will this Cost? [05:09] The Beautiful Thing About Social Media [05:50] Relationships Doesn't Happen Overnight [06:53] Start Small [06:59 What Immediate Results You Wil...
Jun 11, 2013•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast More companies are sharing more content in social media, but when a social media user has a conversation with your business, does your voice branding back up your content - and is it "human" enough to deepen online relationships? Key Highlights [00:52] The Notion of Having a Strong Corporate Brand [02:21] Different Forms of Content [03:30] You Need to Have A Conversation [03:52] What Should Your Blog Be [04:18] How You Engage with Your Audience Is Critical [04:46] Be Open to Anybody [0...
Jun 04, 2013•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast A deep analysis of Social Media Examiner's 5th annual Social Media Marketing Industry Report. Learn where the social media marketing market is today and what trends are in store for its future. Key Highlights [01:48] The 2013 Social Media Marketing Industry Report [02:54] Survey Participants Demographics [03:28] The Most Interesting Takeaway on the Report [03:50] The Fifth Most Popular Question [04:20] The Third Most Popular Question [05:03] What Worries Me [06:24] Huge Potential for Social...
May 30, 2013•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Neal Schaffer reveals the secret fact that businesses should know in order to leverage the potential that is Google Plus. Key Highlights [01:23] Why Do You Need A Presence On Google Plus? [01:57] Google Plus Changes to the User Interface [02:36] How Google Plus Is Different [03:19] Understanding the Importance of Google Plus [03:45] Google's Correlation With LinkedIn [05:37] The Community Fabrice of Google Plus [06:46] How to Attract Google Users Notable Quotes We've had social network...
May 21, 2013•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast The importance of focus in everything you do in social media marketing: Platforms, content, and objectives. Key Highlights [00:40] Why You Need to Perform Internal R&D [01:28] FOCUS! [02:00] What Focus In Social Medi Means [02:19] The Problem That Most Companies Fall Prey To [02:48] The Components of Anchor [04:12] Take Baby Steps [05:12] Take Some Withdrawals [07:04] Stay With the Focus Notable Quotes I think that anybody that is active in social media, anybody that's active in busines...
May 14, 2013•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast Join me as I share my own usage of and reviews of popular social media dashboards while also recommending some new ones for you to explore. Key Highlights [01:13] What the Evolution of Social Media Dashboards means [02:42] Twitter Social Media Dashboard [03:15] Another Thing I Realized About TweetDeck [03:40] Moving to Hootsuite [04:03] The Problem I Am Having with Hootsuite [04:41] Exploring Social Sprout [05:30] Sprout Social's Timesaver Functionality [06:52] Viral Heat [07:01] CW Dashboa...
May 01, 2013•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ian Clearly of Razor Social joins us for a look at the best social media marketing apps for social media management, monitoring, and automation. Key Highlights [00:30] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Ian Cleary [01:22] Defining Different Categories of Apps That Social Media Marketers Can Use [02:09] Ian's Recommended Platforms [02:55] Special Features of Nimble [03:54] Monitoring Tools [05:08] Recommended Automation Tools [06:13] The Advantages of Zapier [08:17] Connect With Ian [08:32] Fina...
Apr 25, 2013•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast A look at Empire Avenue from a social media marketing perspective. Does it make sense for your brand to have a presence there? Key Highlights [00:46] What Is Empire Avenue? [01:50] Why Empire Avenue Should Matter [02:59] An Example of Why Empire Avenue Is Interesting for Social Media Marketers [04:07] Is Your Target Audience on Empire Avenue? [04:51] Creating Missions [06:35] My Empire Avenue Ticker Notable Quotes Compared to the 10s, or 20s, or hundreds of millions of users that other social ne...
Apr 08, 2013•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Through an experimental post, you will quickly discover the differences between the major 4 platforms and discover value in Google Plus that you might not have seen before. Key Highlights [00:49] One Big Difference Between Facebook and Google Plus [02:51] Google Plus's Different Community [03:34] Some of LinkedIn's Technical Infrastructure Issues [04:17] Why I'm Excited About Google Plus [05:51] The Difference in the Atmosphere Between Google Plus and Facebook [08:33] Google Plus ...
Mar 29, 2013•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast Now that you have a robust social media marketing program running in your own country, what about the rest of the world? Key Highlights [00:41] Social Media Is A Lot More Global Than You Think [01:40] Looking At Some Statistics.. [03:20] Should US Be In Charge of Every Global Channel? [05:03] Sharing of Best Practices Between Regions [05:30] The Challenge for Smaller Brands [05:46] The Challenge for Bigger Brands Notable Quotes Social media is a lot more global than you may think. And for people...
Mar 21, 2013•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast What is the best away to avoid a social media crisis? Listen to Neal Schaffer's advice and, instead of dwelling on the negative, focus on the positive by generating goodwill and brand advocates through growing a social media following. Key Highlights [00:26] Social Media and Crisis Management [01:10] Examples of Social Media Crises [01:30] What to Do When Faced With Crisis? [02:54] The Best Way to Prevent Crisis [04:24] Another Way to Deal With Crisis [05:53] Preventing Potential Social Med...
Mar 13, 2013•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast What makes a BAD social media strategy? Here I outline 5 key components that you should avoid in planning your own social media marketing strategy. Key Highlights [01:04] Is There A Way to Write A Social Media Strategy? [01:53] 5 Ways of Looking A Good or Bad Strategy [02:24] Why Having An Objective Is Important [03:30] Campaign-Based Approach [04:47] Social Media As A Two-Way Communication Channel [06:20] Wrong Choice of Channel [07:16] The ROI Notable Quotes And when I talk about an objective,...
Mar 06, 2013•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast Move beyond the semantic differences of content marketing and inbound marketing and learn about the central role that content will play in your social media marketing. Key Highlights [00:27] The Role of Content In Social Media Marketing [02:19] Forms of Content [03:37] Content Vs Inbound Marketing [04:08] Content As One of Key Drivers [04:28] The Best Way to Be Effective in Social Media Marketing [05:09] My View in Content [06:06] Always Provide Information to Your Customers Notable Quotes But v...
Mar 01, 2013•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Is there a need for a social media marketing MBA? Let me describe to you my conceptual approach to social media education - and why there is an ever-growing need for a social media marketing or even socal business MBA. Key Highlights [00:22] The Concept of Social Media MBA [00:54] The First Thing People Tell Me [02:02] The Core Concepts That Are Not Platform Dependent [03:12] The Notion of Insourcing Your PR [04:00] The Relevance of Insourcing Blog Content [05:19] How You Can Best Leverage Socia...
Feb 22, 2013•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Stop outsourcing your social media to consultants and agencies who put a black box around your social media. Instead, start thinking of ways to own your social media strategy and insource your social media activities. Key Highlights [00:43] Fire Your Social Media Consultant [01:24] The Problem With Outsourcing Resources [02:50] Are You Blindly Throwing Money Away? [04:00] Own Your Strategy [04:53] Understand The Basics [06:11] Do You Really Need A Social Media Consultant? [06:52] Think Twice And...
Feb 11, 2013•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Google Plus is a critical social network that every business should be on, but many discount it. Why? Find out why - and how you can help your company better leverage G+. Key Highlights [00:53] Should You Care About Google Plus? [02:29] Open Networking [03:31] The Influence of Our Circles [04:02] The Power of Google Search Results [06:11] Google Plus Is An Active Community [06:37] Establish Your Google Plus Presence Now Notable Quotes From a personal perspective, it's one thing you know, wh...
Feb 04, 2013•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Social Business: A New Definition. Let me explain my perspective on the evolution from social media as an independent form of media to how it might impact your business, and thus what social business means to your company. Key Highlights [00:23] Social Business Defined [01:12] The Traditional Definition of Social Business [01:43] My Definition of Social Business [02:00] How I Began My Social Business [02:43] What I Provide Companies That Need To Be Consulted [04:04] One of My First Clients [04:3...
Jan 28, 2013•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast Does Facebook Graph Search matter to your business in the here and now? A look at the importance of sticking to present technology in your social media strategy. Key Highlights [00:22] Social Media Here And Now [01:30] The Facebook Graph Search [01:43] How Facebook Graph Search Can Affect How We Use Facebook [02:29] The 2 Things Facebook Graph Search Hinges On [03:08] The Question On Data [03:40] My Advice on Maximizing Social Media Presence [04:49] Understanding The Need for a Historical Perspe...
Jan 21, 2013•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to the first episode of my podcast! This will tell you why I launched my podcast, which at the inception was called the Social Business Unplugged podcast. I also want to share with you how a podcast can feed into an inbound marketing strategy. Key Highlights [00:31] Why Social Business Unplug? [01:02] The Idea of Podcast [02:14] You Can't Do The Same Thing Everywhere Else [03:04] The Idea About My Podcast [06:14] Knowledge Is Power [07:48] It's Always About Becoming Your End Cu...
Jan 12, 2013•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
