The Wax Blog

I talk a lot about the need for the right "mix" when you promote your product, business, book, whatever it is - engaging in social media is no different. To get a good result you have to find the recipe that's 100% ALL YOURS. But just like the hard-to-bake souffle, there are some ingredients I've seen in of the work of ALL successful social media contributors.   Here are the components I believe you should always use for your  social media recipe...and some of experts who cook it up just right. Feel free to add your favorite folks - let's get a good list going!

I  found a company willing to share a true, B2B social media case study complete with strategy, tactics, and heavens to betsy, they even measured it!  As I perused my newly invigorated LinkedIn account I discovered Ed Loessi CMO and Chief Strategy officer for Boston-based RapidInfluence, a consulting company that focuses on the implementation of strategic plans. (Boy does every company need this!!) RapidInfluence embarked this year on a social media strategy and not only successfully implemented their strategy, they've documented it on their blog Ed has kindly allowed me to re-blog their social media post here on the Wax blog - but I would strongly recommend you read the full blog on the RapidInfluence site here to view all the graphics and visit more links.  Please add comments with suggestions you might have for RapidInfluence on new things they might do or things that have worked for your firm. We're all going to be learning new stuff forever in this world! From the  RapidInfluence Blog, October 6, 2009

Face it, people wouldn't be going out on their own or running a small business without guts of steel - but that same tenacity can really mess them up in marketing. As a critical success factor marketing is second only to customer service. Over the past few years I've seen the same mistakes over and over again in terms of small business and marketing - I've made most of them myself too. Here are the top five pitfalls for I've seen most often in the past seven years at Wax - I'd love to add on to this list of marketing's deadliest sins so please comment!

Since we all just had a good time talking about what NOT to do on LinkedIn I thought I'd post some things you SHOULD do. LinkedIn, according to Mashable just surpassed 50 million users. Although it's clearly not the sexiest of social networks (the media loves them some Facebook and Twitter) LinkedIn is incredibly valuable, especially for the B2B set.  You can definitely market your business but remember - you're building relationships one to one. That means there are no shortcuts. These are things that are working for me but I would love to hear any cool ways you're using LinkedIn successfully. Remember,  there are no experts in social media just the intellectual capital of the collective. (Seriously I just made that up )