Christine Fife

If only there were more hours in the day… I probably still wouldn’t get around to blogging more. But two things kicked me in the backside today and got me motivated. First, the #sm51 tweetchat (guest @johncass with topic Importance of Content and Engagement Strategy in Social Med... (more)

During today’s #hastagsocialmedia.com Unconference (#sm48)—with guest moderator Ken Burbary—the topic of Influencers was raised. The topic of today’s discussion was actually Social and the New Model For Market Segmentation, but within the new world of social media, Influencers pl... (more)

I’m not sure when “marketing” became a 4-letter word for so many people, but in my recent experience more and more people think of “marketing” as sleazy. This sucks if you’re a marketing professional, which I am, but I don’t advocate any marketing practices that people associat... (more)

What the heck does this post title mean, is probably what you’re asking yourself, right? Well, my intention for this post is to raise the topic of being “conversational” in your communications with customers and prospects vs. writing perfect, grammatically correct informational ... (more)

I’m always preaching to businesses to keep in mind the 5 keys of true participation when they are looking at getting into the social media/Web 2.0 options to expand their company reach and product awareness. Listening Speaking Caring Sharing Building relationships Lately, I’ve bee... (more)

The definition I like best for the word “conversation” comes from Dictionary.com: “Conversation: the informal interchange of thoughts, information, etc., by spoken words; oral communication between persons; talk; colloquy.” But notice that the dictionary hasn’t caught up with the... (more)

New Media Journal on Ulitzer Social media isn’t just for the Fortune 500 world, but it isn’t a just a simple, free, easy 1-2-3 proposition, either. In fact, as major corporations build out their social media strategies to expand their place in the market conversation, increase ma... (more)

If you’re on Facebook or connected to a charitable organization who has a Facebook page, you may have already heard about Chase bank’s philanthropic social media outreach program, Chase Community Giving. A brilliant communications outreach idea to show current and potential custo... (more)

We’re finally here. Post #6 on what it means to participate in the market conversation. Building relationships is a key part of that participation, but who should you be building relationships with and how? Every market space has a conversation going on by an ecosystem of individ... (more)

Came across an interesting blog post today: The Evolving Face of Social Networks. A bit more science-ish than I normally would be interested in, but as it pertains to social networking I was intrigued. The blog post raised two interesting thoughts (and I am paraphrasing): 1) If s... (more)

I know you’re all waiting for the final posting in the “What it Means to Participate” series, but I want to share my experience with MLB.com with you. As a marketer I find it interesting that they are not able to remove me from their email list. A few months ago I purchased Gian... (more)

To date, this blog series on what it means to participate in the market conversation has covered Listening, Speaking and Caring. We’ve now gotten to the 4th of the 5 most important objectives in a conversation marketing strategy: Sharing. This one is simple: share your experience... (more)

Companies provide products and services to consumers who want or need them, right? So what difference does it make if the companies actually care about the needs and wants of their customers, so long as they keep buying their products? It makes a big difference if you want to kee... (more)

The first amendment to the United States Constitution empowers the people of this country to freely say anything they want (unless it will cause a stampede, of course). Over the years marketers took this to heart and companies haven’t stopped talking at us since. But, just becaus... (more)

What did you say? I didn’t hear you, I was too busy talking, in fact, you’re lucky I realized you were saying anything at all. All too often, this is how companies have treated their customers, prospects, Influencers and everyone else with a stake/interest in their market space. ... (more)

More and more companies are realizing they need to engage with their customers, prospects, influencers and everyone else who has a stake in the market conversation, but what does it mean to engage or participate? True participation in the market conversation is much more than jus... (more)

Social Media like Twitter and Facebook are hot, hot, hot right now — being used for everything from marketing to market research to customer support. But for all the buzz, the activity taking place in social media remains hard to measure, and there are still no clear standards on... (more)

In a blog post by Shiv Singh, author of the Going Social Now blog, Shiv argues that “Social media is not enough in a downturn.” In the post, Shiv says: “That its not enough to focus on social alone. That nurturing the conversations in the social realm are the starting point not t... (more)

Seth Godin recently posted a blog titled Mowing the Lawn in which he talked about hating mowing the lawn as a kid with a broken down old mower. He goes on to advise: “Every person who does marketing, sales, product design or any other job that influences customers directly shoul... (more)

Over the past couple of months, we at Idiom Strategies have pitched a string of proposals to companies who stated they had an interest in doing something different and wanted to know if they should “get into social media”. When we initially met with these companies and explained ou... (more)