5 Links That Are Better Than Most Super Bowl Ads

My reading has been quite focused lately: social media. Enjoy some of the real nuggets I found over the past two weeks.

1. Why USANA is excited about social media: this guest post over on Jen Fong’s blog by Tim Haran is a great summary of what one direct sales company is doing with social media. I’m a HUGE fan of what Tim and team are doing over at USANA. One thing that really interested me is that even a company USANA’s size requires time to really get the ball rolling. I assume their fan page has been up a year or more, and they just crossed the 10k fan number (I think they’re past 11k now). It’s easy to think that everyone is going to flock to your fan page the minute it’s launched because they’re excited as you are about it, but it normally doesn’t work that way. Slow and steady wins this race.
2. 13 Ways Businesses Can Leverage Foursquare and Gowalla: New friend Mike Merrill offers this packed list on how to use these two new social media tools. I admit, I didn’t know the first thing about these apps until reading his post. I’m not sure if I’ll jump on the bandwagon, but I do admit that the platform is powerfully promising.
3. On Being the Message: Another friend (and one of DFW’s best kept online marketing secrets) Frank Barnett just launched a new blog, and I already love it. Frank has years of experience running hugely successful search campaigns, and it appears as though he’s gonna share a little bit of his brain with us. Lucky us.
4. Fact: the Hundred Facebook Friends You Have Aren’t Real: Gangway Advertising reminds us of a humbling truth: “with social media, mass numbers are empty.” Too true, and too different from our normal way of thinking. How do you keep yourself in check from chasing followers and friends instead of connections and conversations?
5. TheOatmeal.com: Co-worker Frank Taylor made the mistake of showing me this site earlier this week. I can’t leave it. It’s too freakin’ funny. Any site that boasts title like “How to Suck at Facebook,” “5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth,” and some saucy language about Pterodactyls is worth at least an hour of your time. And for those who know how, check out the source code of the home page. Genius.

Similar Posts:

• Exploiting vs. Exploring
• Are Your Social Media Efforts Doomed to Fail? – by Jen Fong
• Social Media Marketing Mayhem