Every time a SpaceX rocket launches, all eyes are on the Twitter feeds of @ElonMusk and @SpaceX. Space is fascinating and understandably risky, but it’s how those Twitter accounts convey information that speaks to the point of this article: Vulnerability is sometimes a valuable way to endear yourself to an audience. With each launch, heart […]

Your organization finally has taken the plunge into podcasting. You’ve chosen a host, show title and theme music—you have the right equipment, too. Congratulations, but you’ve only just begun. If your organization wants a successful and sustainable podcast, you need to not just inform, but also entertain and engage the audience. And you can’t do […]

If you look up the word “daunting” in the dictionary, I’m fairly certain “starting a new social media account for your company” would be one definition. When Cisco’s Talent Brand team opened an Instagram account in the summer of 2015, we didn’t just throw a few photos into the feed, bedazzle them with hashtags and […]

I’ve been to many gatherings of social media professionals over the last decade, from pop-ups to week-long seminars, and the format and content of these shows varies wildly. So, as a first-time Social Shake-Up Show attendee this year, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Would this be a small meeting of the minds or a […]

Social media is no longer in its infancy. Sure, we might be distracted by Snapchat Spectacles or some other shiny object of the moment, but social media is no longer the wild West it once was. In fact, we’ve reached a certain level of maturity: We’re teenagers, in my opinion—we know enough to be dangerous but […]

For the past decade, people have argued about where social media should sit in a company’s organizational chart. And communicators have summarily been shifted around as the argument evolves and various experts pontificate on the best location. But ultimately, there’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach—social media’s location should be a direct reflection of a […]

For many businesses, leads and sales are primary KPIs. But before you can track sales, you have to generate them—and standing out from the crowd on social media is no easy task. Online consumers can anticipate when ads are coming and they know when and how to skip them. Think about when an ad pops […]

If the output between paid, owned and earned media has become blurred and increasingly cross-pollinated, then why is the internal structure at most organizations still so linear? When I was in the broadcast news business a decade ago, it wasn’t uncommon to receive several dozen press releases between the time I left for the night and […]

One of the things I love about social media marketing is the data it offers. My team and I like to talk about the immediate feedback we get as soon as something is posted. Within hours, we know if a piece of content is a hit or miss. We’ve trained ourselves to watch engagement, track […]

Anyone who has had a five-minute conversation with me—or follows me on Twitter—knows that I’m a huge fangirl of “The Walking Dead.” Since the sold-out Social Shake-Up Show was recently held in Atlanta, where “The Walking Dead” is filmed, I took the opportunity to visit some of the show’s key locations. I saw Rick Grimes’ house, […]