I write about strategies to turn fans into customers and customers into fans. I also share ways to use real-time strategies to spread ideas, influence minds, and build business.
Forty years ago today, on May 28, 1976, The Ramones played my high school auditorium. I was 15 years old and a massive live music geek so I lined up early and sat in the front row. I didn’t like it. I didn’t get it. I thought it was weird. I didn't realize I was witnessing t...
Selfies are a thing. Love them or hate them, they are a part of modern smartphone culture, no more so than on a Presidential candidate rope line. Hillary Clinton has figured out how to optimize selfies for social sharing. It’s a small but fascinating marketing technique! Pre...
“Instagram. Whisper. Yik Yak. Vine. YouTube. Kik. Ask.fm. Tinder. The dominant force in the lives of girls coming of age in America today is social media.” I just finished the book American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers by Nancy Jo Sales. This is an i...
My birthday was this weekend and I gave myself the gift of several athletic personal bests. The only reason I could celebrate my birthday in this way was that five years ago this weekend, on my 50th birthday, I chose to change my mindset and focus on exercise and eating righ...
This morning I delivered the keynote speech at the Digital Signage Expo in the Las Vegas Convention Center. The digital signage industry is at the forefront of real-time offline marketing because businesses using the latest digital signs have the ability to change displays a...
Living in the Boston area gives me an incredible window into the U.S. Presidential election. Since Boston is less than an hour’s drive from the New Hampshire border, candidates with deep pockets advertise on television here in Boston hoping to influence the first in the nati...
As a young marketer, I was always taught: “Write about the benefits of your product, not the features.” This dusty old marketing approach is wrong.
Last night, President Obama delivered his eighth and final State of the Union address. It was an amazing display of his formidable communications skills. The president quickly touched on partisan issues that he’s championed and then moved to areas that he will focus on durin...