Make sure ratings and reviews are clearly displayed on your site or product pages. was in a meeting with a web designer and was talking about the problem in front of a huge display screen of my website. I’ve been researching and thinking about the psychology of the social web and our Internet relationships. There are many common psychological techniques you can use in your every day Internet marketing.  Here are a few ideas to &# psych&# your visitors into spending more time on your website and your blog. 1) Social proof is king. Strange but true. 5) Illusion of scarcity. MORE >>

But having a link to a blog on your profile, as well displaying a feed of your recent blog posts, gives a potential employer stalking you on LinkedIn more ways to connect with you and learn about your skills. Have you ever considered the ways a blog can help you get a job? I meet a lot of young people entering the work force and I always recommend blogging as a way to get ahead … in almost any career. Here’s why: 1) Show what you’re made of. In any interview, you normally have to try to convince people that you know what you know. In a blog, you can SHOW them. MORE >>

The strategy completely blew up on the medical center last week when my class discovered that right next to a blog post about the grief of pregnancy loss, the clinic was displaying ads for cute children’s clothing. Last week a bizarre decision by the prestigious Mayo Clinic had my college class rumbling with outrage. One of the most popular class exercises I use to demonstrate the importance of blogging and content strategy is dividing the class up to dissect and discuss various corporate blogs. strategy gone horribly wrong. thought this was a strange decision. Utterly tasteless. MORE >>

This is happening to a large degree with display ads. I’ve been thinking and writing a lot about the evolving role of content in the marketing world — from the challenges of the “physics” of social media marketing , to Coke’s bold vision for a content-based marketing strategy. My friend Mitch Joel has also been pondering this topic. In a post entitled  The Content Crash , Mitch states that the field has simply “become a pumping ground for a marketing message. ” Content is advertising? ” Wait a minute. People HATE advertising. Radical trust. MORE >>

As individuals and brands, the best we can hope for is to be authentic personas , an ideal that we display for the world to see. Authenticity, authenticity, authenticy. That’s probably the most popular characteristic we prescribe for social web success, and by far the most mis-used, too — and I have an example to show you why. attended a social media conference last week filled with a star-studded cast of A-Listers. I was eager to see them in action. learned a lot, but one of these super-hyped speakers really disappointed.  I stayed to watch the train wreck. am blown away.”. MORE >>