Tesar-Reynes

I have an entrepreneurial spirit. Often, I daydream of starting my own business and making Business Week’s list of America’s Best Young Entrepreneurs. The young men and women who populate this year’s finalists look like rock stars to me. One of them, Shama Kabani, caught my attention because she made her mark by starting a business specializing in exactly what I do – Social Media Marketing.

This girl is 24 years old and she already owns a company that expects revenues of $280,000 in only its second year of operation. Her business, …

Hands down, the Economist is my favorite publication. Simply put, it keeps me informed. The writers don’t try and sway my opinion with guilt or emotion. They use only logic and sound reasoning, with a dash of British wit. I love British humor, so it’s right up my alley.

The video above was produced by the weekly news source in partnership with Xplane, an information design consultancy. I found the video on AdMaven, an interactive advertising blog from fellow Chicagoan and blogger Nick Kinports. For those who complain that the Economist is for pretentious educated people, the video shows they can dumb it down effectively.

As the video highlights, the model for information and entertainment …

I came across this Yahoo article How to Protect Your Online Reputation this morning. Forbes writer Amanda Berlin details some nice tips on keeping track of your personal brand on the Web. With all the social networking going on, do you know what image you’re projecting?

Here’s a list of tips she recommends:

1. Google your name
2. Register your name as a domain and with social networks
3. Create a Google Alert for yourself

Searching for yourself is self-explanatory, but make sure to do an image search too. I’m pretty lucky to have a unique name like …

It is a beautiful Friday here in Chicago. The temperature reads 80 degrees and the sun shines bright. Not a single cloud hangs over the city. I think I’ll head to the beach after I get this post out.

So, in celebration of good spirits, here’s the latest viral video craze. The Today Show featured this video of a wedding party dancing to Chris Brown’s Forever earlier this week, and it’s reached over 12 million hits already. (Thanks to my friend Sarah Bonkowski for tweeting this earlier in the week.)

Now that’s how you celebrate starting a new life with someone! How happy was that bride when she came out into the aisle? Amazing!

It’s a time of transitions for me. I’ve lived with my good friend Jeramiah …

The social media director at my internship e-mailed these two e-books to the office last week.

• About Face by The Advanced Guard
• How to Use Facebook for Business by Hubspot

I have to say, they are two of the best basic, yet comprehensive, guides on Facebook for businesses I’ve seen. You can link to Jason Baer’s post for a detailed analysis, but if you have an hour, give them a read.

Here are some numbers on Facebook you can’t ignore.

• Over 275 million users worldwide (60 million in the U.S.)
• 1.2 billion monthly visits
• 3.5 billion minutes are spent on Facebook a day
• 4 million people become fans of …

I get a call about once a week from someone who has just seen our blog. Typically, the conversation centers around something they read and how it helped them out. After I thank them profusely for their comments, I ask them if they have subscribed to the site or left a comment. The answer is invariably “no”.

Roland and I would really appreciate two favors from you: first, please give us feedback on what you would like us to discuss……or whether you even agree with us. Next, we have watched our RSS feed numbers grow, but not as rapidly as we would like. I know this sounds like a plea for subscription money, but would you be kind enough to pass this blog on to a friend? We are not selling anything at this site except …

If you saw my last post, you read about my suggestion to hire a social media manager. Along with that thinking, your social media manager’s first step will likely be to draft a corporate social media policy.

I’ve tweeted this post on corporate social media policies about four times the last month. In it, you’ll find excellent examples of the policies corporations big and small, from computer firms to marketing firms, have written for their workforce.

Most top managers harbor reservations about social media because their scared of losing control of message. I don’t blame them. How can a corporation as big as IBM expect to keep all their employees on message point?

A social media policy will help keep your workforce in check. In fact, rather …

Face it. If your brand doesn’t have a social media presence, you are behind the curve.

In the last three weeks, I’ve been to 3 social media Webinars from Cision, one interview for a position in new media for Valerie Denney Communications, and a 4 hour social media mini-retreat at my internship with Carolyn Grisko & Associates.

Everyone wants a piece of social media! The good news for you is that it’s still early enough in the game to jump in a get a handle on it all.

Cision innovates with their approach. For one, they don’t have a Twitter account, instead listing their employees Twitter handles and inviting you to connect with them. I advise you …

A few weeks ago, in article in ADWEEK, “The New Reality Facing Job Seekers,” addressed the thought that wages will be lower for some people looking for jobs. Thus far I have not seen it in the recent searches we have been retained upon.

The whole digital area seems to remain hot and the social media side is even hotter. Both the people in our database and the folks on my Linked In network seem to be very busy and even frazzled. There are a number of new agencies forming, strategic alliances coming together and small agencies being bought by larger ones. Salaries are definitely escalating in the mid to senior level.

Good …

By now you’ve heard of it – the mini-blog site that the media is in a frenzy about since Jon Stewart parodied it on his show. When the nation’s premier conservative newspaper writes an article on How to Tweet, you may have considered finding out for yourself.

Bloggers and journalists have written thousands of articles on how to get started on Twitter. I refer to Scott Meis’ blog, Social Media Snippets, for the best Twitter advice. Two posts you’ll want to check out are Why Twitter Can Seem Intimidating and his Twitter Tools …