SEAN TINER

TGIF! Amazon is running a special promotion of  my latest eBook InstaSucess: The Secrets of Instagram ! Enjoy Friday and download the book for free today!

"Swing for the fences and don't strike out" - Donny Deutsch Do you take risks or calculated ones? As new technology continually encourages brands to innovate, it's important to risks and stay ahead of the competition. Frequently, companies, brands, and organizations rush to implement new strategies and do not spend enough time calculating potential variables. Does the brand have enough: Experience? Capital? Leadership skills? Did the brand anticipate: Low sales? The competition's response? Unexpected growth? Does the brand have: The ideal location? Rushing into a new venture will create a response, but calculating the risks will help guarantee that the brand makes a splash.

What separates a successful idea from a disastrous flop? Is it the precise implementation of a business plan? Excellent leadership skills? A tactical team? Amble start up capital? Or the ability to execute a quirky idea? Tomorrow, Joan Rivers, the latest winner of Donald's Trump's The Celebrity Apprentice , debuts " How'd You Get So Rich? ," a reality show that introduces the public to the glamorous lifestyles of successful entrepreneurs. From Billy Bob Teeth to The Slanket , Rivers interviews several inventors behind quirky ideas that made millions. As the economic downturn encourages entrepreneurial innovation, what will be the flourishing ideas this year? Next year? And in five years? There are plenty of ways to make a dollar, but sometimes it is the most basic, innovative and quirky that win on a large scale. I am often reminded of Alex Tew who had age 21 launched milliondollarhomepage .com , a website with a million pixels of advertising space, each costin...

Using Twitter to Engage Constituents v1 Enjoy the slides from my recent presentation at the Cool Twitter Conference in San Diego, CA.

(Sean Tiner ) (Sean Tiner ) (Christian) (Sean Tiner ) (Sean Tiner ) (Rodney Rumford , Co-Founder of Tweet Photo) (Jennifer Van Grove, Mashable ) (Jennifer Van Grove, Mashable ) (Sean Tiner ) (Mirna Bard, Nureach Global) (Marta Donayre , GrantsWiz ) (Marta Donayre , GrantsWiz ) (Bob Fine, Cool Blue Company LLC ) (Becky Carroll, Customers Rock!) (Angie Swartz , Twitter Talk Radio) Today, I spoke at the Cool Twitter Conference in San Diego , CA. I lectured on "Using Twitter to Engage Constituents." Although, I used nonprofit case studies to convey successful Twitter engagement and fundraising examples, the marketing theories from my presentation are applicable to corporations, brands, and individuals that desire to use Twitter as part of their integrated marketing communications plan. At the event, I really enjoyed exchanging social media ideas with various marketing professionals. I will post tips and tricks from the conference soon.

The NBA playoffs will tip off soon! The players are ready, but is the official website? In an era where anyone can easily become a website developer due to template design and click & publish software, it is important for brands not to overlook search engine optimization strategy. One important design strategy is to include title tags in the images of the website. Title tags are not viewed by humans and only viewed by search engines when they crawl a website. For example, if you look at the bottom two images, you will notice two different perspectives of the same website. The first displays how the website is viewed by humans and the second shows how the website is viewed by a search engine. ( NBA.com ) ( NBA.com as viewed when crawled by a search engine) Ideally, the title headings, including "teams," players" "nba playoffs" and several others should be included in the title tags of the website. Including title tags helps position websites on keywords, ...

As companies reduce marketing budgets to survive in the current economic climate, creative marketing strategies are being utilized to create awareness and attention for products and services. Toshiba's new television commercial illustrates how ordinary people (not celebrities) can be creatively incorporated into a campaign. The advertisement focuses on the body as form and creatively engages the viewer through unique perspective and unusual choreography. In the years and months ahead, not all companies will continue to have rock star marketing budgets, but brands can continue to receive significant attention for their products by implementing unique, creative concepts.

Engaging in the conversation, does not mean sending coupons or constantly encouraging consumers to purchase a product. It means opening a dialogue that is beneficially rewarding for BOTH parties: the consumer and the brand. Frequently, brands expect that a weekly email blast with discounted products will engage consumers for the long term. Each week, marketers send countless emails offering "exclusive" deals that are only available that week. There are only so many products, clothes and computer products that we can purchase at one time. After a few months or even weeks, we eventually become numb to this strategy. Instead of reading the emails, we delete them. Although constantly offering coupons may create quick sales, it does not develop a brand's value in the long term. Consumers WANT to feel engaged in a brand. They WANT to feel connected. They WANT to be associated with other consumers who share their same passion. Instead of having one advertising campaign, Apple ha...