The social web is becoming more personal so consumers expect your messaging to evolve. Are you aware that the same technology that tells you your best friend from high school’s daughter lost a tooth can also provide highly actionable competitive insights? Yes, I’m talking about social media. Savvy organizations have long used competitive intelligence (CI) to understand their competitors’ strategies. Pairing CI with social media broadens the scope of the CI function to include additional tactical and strategic information. Enabling rapid response marketing. Combat misinformation. MORE >>

They weren’t talking to the person who will benefit from their solution, they were talking about a solution to the same technical audience they’ve always spoken with. Suit up, shake hands, and deliver a speech about the technical superiority of your product. Trot out your recent press releases about the latest upgrades and newest features. Try to sound like these data points provide the quintessential business solution. Does it work? recently met with Paul, VP of Solutions Marketing for a technology company. He told me they weren’t landing deals they had thought would be sure bets. MORE >>

The sales rep who treats the buyer as a highly informed person, will earn the trust of that buyer. But the only way to treat the buyer is a highly informed person is for the sales rep themselves to be highly informed. In his new book To Sell is Human , Daniel Pink talks about information asymmetry in the sales process. He points out that the reason people have historically distrusted salespeople is because salespeople had all the information and the buyer had none. Thus the term caveat emptor (let the buyer beware). . The buyer and seller both have a balance of information. MORE >>

By +mentioning the author or person you are directing the comment to, a notification to that person is triggered and will call out your comment.  Google+ really is an engagement tool (among other things) that has a unique welcoming open community. While posting is a great way to increase engagement with your followers don’t forget about opening the door and jumping in to other’s conversations.  Here are a couple of things to keep in mind when doing this: Comments can be long form, adding value or opinions to the post (ex. Here’s my take on this…”) or ‘drive-by’ (ex. MORE >>

In this world of user-created content, individual channels, personal media devices, etc. While I continue to believe in the rapid growth of the mobile internet, I remain a skeptic about the future of Mobile TV.  There might be some niche applications for real-time mobile TV, such as some live sports events, but niches rarely justify building out an entire specialized network. recent article on Mobile TV in eMarketer , titled Mobile TV Faces Obstacles , makes the challenge clear, with the finding that only 13.5% of mobile users will pay for a mobile TV subscription. MORE >>