m2h blogs by Marcia Hansen

In The Three Keys to Social Media Marketing, Hugh MacLeod talks about developing his business based on the concept of gift-giving. Every business day he sends out a new cartoon to the people on his email list. He does this to provide value, or gifts, before the sale.
Hugh writes:
If enough people like the gift, it’ll [...]

Organizations that can bring humanity and flexibility to their interactions with other human beings will thrive.
Seth Godin, Linchpin
I really believe what Godin is saying in the above quote, and I’ve tried to put it into action in the work that I’ve done. From responding in a personal voice on Twitter, to doing man/woman-on-the-street video interviews [...]

Whether you have a small or large business, creating a sound social media strategy to meet business objectives is important. In a recent post, Shel Holtz points out that Chaos is Not a Strategy. He outlines three types of social media: organic, programmatic, and campaign-based.
I’d like to expand on these three categories and offer possible [...]

Based on what I’ve learned from working within a large organization, there are many suggestions I have for managers in marketing, communications, or public relations before they leap into the social media space.
While I truly believe that large corporations need to learn how to act like small, local businesses again in order to be [...]

Are you ready take your business into social media?
If you’re at the research stage and trying to figure out if social media is the place for you, then the following three tips are something to consider as you evaluate whether to get your business into social media.
Because, let’s face it — not every small [...]

Last year, I won a customer service award because of how I acted proactively to assist customers on Twitter. I was one of about 50 employees invited to a special luncheon with Dennis Haysbert. I didn’t know about the special lunch ahead of time. I just did what I thought needed to be done, and [...]

Yesterday, I was at the Round Lake Classic Car Fest for a LIVE video shoot for Vehicle Vibes. I’ve been doing more of these for Allstate social media this summer. I really enjoy talking with people who attend; however, I’ve also learned there are challenges to doing a live shoot in addition to memorizing questions [...]

Someone asked me the other day the difference between link baiting, link building, and link or comment spam.
Trying to keep it simple, here is what I said:
Link baiting: is a philosophy that places importance on creating useful, remarkable content that people will, just as a matter of course, want to share with their friends because [...]

In my previous post, Video is Queen, I wrote about why video is queen (if content is king) and that video has the potential to strengthen endorsements and brand recommendations.
It’s no secret that one of the values for brands is when multiple viewers click through in a timely manner to purchase based on a [...]

If content is king, video is queen.
YouTube is now the second most popular search engine. People are creating and watching more and more video these days. Textual content is still strong and has it’s uses, but video captures our attention in more and more ways.
Video is queen because:
1. Video is fun and engaging.
2. Video is [...]