Alberta Business Marketing

It sure is…when done right and teamed up with business professionals.

First off, a big Calgary style thanks to David and our guest of honour Mr. Chris Brogan for a great kick-start to my small business podcast once again.  It has been a busy quarter with Ulistic and our weekly podcast took a back-burner position as we ramped up our Small Business Internet Marketing Training Program and all other Social Media Consulting services we are offering to Calgary and International business.  Thank goodness Diane (Chris’ Assistant) and I made this appointment many months ago.  We felt we had to honour it, and what a show it was and happy we went through with it.

Chris, David and myself chatted like old friends for 30 minutes plus a few extra minutes at the beginning of the call.  It was refreshing to hear Chris’ approach on social media and online communities and to know that our approach is not much different from his.  For a while now we have been working with small business across Canada and focusing on strategies and techniques on leveraging online services to connect with clients, foster community and create strong alliances.

While some focus on the tools (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), we have shifted our focus to understanding the process and the messaging but also keeping in check that our clients still have products and services they deliver.  They have sales goals to obtain, financial benchmarks to reach and shareholder value to deliver.

Chris also opened my eyes a bit wider to the power of Twitter once again.  I am still on the fence about its overall success however I just have to think back to how I met George Garcia at Calgary’s Park2Go.  (George dropping my car off on Sunday and next Friday again.  I met George through social media services and it is an honour to call George a friend and a trusted colleague.)

So many great new ideas were shared during Chris Brogan’s appearance on the Ulistic Orange Files Podcast.  Download our show now at Canadian Small Business Social Media Podcast.

Tags: Business/Finance, Calgary, canada, Chris Brogan, David West, George Garcia, Internet Marketing Training Program, media services, online communities, social media, social media consulting, stuart crawford, Twitter Inc, ulistic, using online services
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And he should be!

I still listen to news radio (only when I am not in the mood for my usual selection of 80’s hair band metal) when I am driving to our Ulistic office in Southeast Calgary.  It is only for the 15 minute drive, just enough to get the latest traffic, stock market information and news headlines.  Sometimes, I will even tune into Dave Rutherford to hear his daily rant on QR77 or listen to what Charles Adler has to say in the afternoon.  That is the extent of my news watching, listening or reading.

I read the Calgary Herald Business Section the odd Monday morning just to see what new small businesses are starting up and the odd time will I read or even glance through the entire morning paper.  When I travel in the United States, the hotels deliver USA Today or Wall Street Journal or other US Papers which usually end up in a pile in one corner of my hotel room.  Goes to show that the news in print for me is just something I am not interested in reading.

I, perhaps like many of our colleagues are electing to tune into online sources for news.  Why?  Perhaps it is the grass-roots reporting, the real story without the right or left-wing opinions attached with the story.  I will however tune into my niche blogs on the industries I work with and have Twitter alert me when something happens which requires my attention.  How about you?

This weekend I read an interesting article online on how the President of CNN is concerned about Social Media.  I am not shocked by this concern from a major US media source and I am sure others in the world share this concern.   CNN and all major news outlets should be concerned on the power of social media has for sharing of news related items.  There is an old saying, see it in the paper tomorrow, see on TV later in the day, hear about it soon on radio or get notified immediately on social media.  This is where news is now breaking and you just need to turn to the US Airways crash in New York for an example of the power of Social Media in the news world today.

Today my news sources are guys like Chris Brogan, Joe Panettieri, Larry Walsh, Bob Burg – just to name a few.  These guys are now journalists in our online world. I truly trust what they have to say for the niches I follow.

Who is Stuart Crawford

“Stuart is the go-to person for anything social media. He has an in-depth knowledge of not only all the parts that make up social media, but also how to make them work together for you. He is an entrepreneur to the core and he understands that whatever is implemented: twitter, blog, rss, video, etc. it has to be streamlined so that it takes the least amount of time possible and yet still be laser sharp as far as effectiveness goes.

Stuart is great to work with and if technical roadblocks occur, he is an out of the box thinker when it comes to remedies.”

Service Category: IT Consultant
Year first hired: 2009 (hired more than once)
Top Qualities: Personable, Expert, High Integrity

Monica Santiago, On Page Productions

Tags: bob burg, Calgary, Calgary Herald, Charles Adler, Chris Brogan, Consultant, Entrepreneur, hair band metal, Joe Panettieri, Larry Walsh, laser, New York City, Online social networking, online sources, online world, President, Real-time web, Social Landscape, social media, Social Media Ventures Inc, stuart crawford, The Wall Street Journal Online, Time Warner Inc., Twitter, Twitter Inc, United States, US Airways Group Inc., USA Today, Wall Street Journal, web 2.0, World Wide Web
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off

And he should be!

I still listen to news radio (only when I am not in the mood for my usual selection of 80’s hair band metal) when I am driving to our Ulistic office in Southeast Calgary.  It is only for the 15 minute drive, just enough to get the latest traffic, stock market information and news headlines.  Sometimes, I will even tune into Dave Rutherford to hear his daily rant on QR77 or listen to what Charles Adler has to say in the afternoon.  That is the extent of my news watching, listening or reading.

I read the Calgary Herald Business Section the odd Monday morning just to see what new small businesses are starting up and the odd time will I read or even glance through the entire morning paper.  When I travel in the United States, the hotels deliver USA Today or Wall Street Journal or other US Papers which usually end up in a pile in one corner of my hotel room.  Goes to show that the news in print for me is just something I am not interested in reading.

I, perhaps like many of our colleagues are electing to tune into online sources for news.  Why?  Perhaps it is the grass-roots reporting, the real story without the right or left-wing opinions attached with the story.  I will however tune into my niche blogs on the industries I work with and have Twitter alert me when something happens which requires my attention.  How about you?

This weekend I read an interesting article online on how the President of CNN is concerned about Social Media.  I am not shocked by this concern from a major US media source and I am sure others in the world share this concern.   CNN and all major news outlets should be concerned on the power of social media has for sharing of news related items.  There is an old saying, see it in the paper tomorrow, see on TV later in the day, hear about it soon on radio or get notified immediately on social media.  This is where news is now breaking and you just need to turn to the US Airways crash in New York for an example of the power of Social Media in the news world today.

Today my news sources are guys like Chris Brogan, Joe Panettieri, Larry Walsh, Bob Burg – just to name a few.  These guys are now journalists in our online world. I truly trust what they have to say for the niches I follow.

Who is Stuart Crawford

“Stuart is the go-to person for anything social media. He has an in-depth knowledge of not only all the parts that make up social media, but also how to make them work together for you. He is an entrepreneur to the core and he understands that whatever is implemented: twitter, blog, rss, video, etc. it has to be streamlined so that it takes the least amount of time possible and yet still be laser sharp as far as effectiveness goes.

Stuart is great to work with and if technical roadblocks occur, he is an out of the box thinker when it comes to remedies.”

Service Category: IT Consultant
Year first hired: 2009 (hired more than once)
Top Qualities: Personable, Expert, High Integrity

Monica Santiago, On Page Productions

Tags: bob burg, Calgary, Calgary Herald, Charles Adler, Chris Brogan, Consultant, Entrepreneur, Social Landscape
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off

And he should be!

I still listen to news radio (only when I am not in the mood for my usual selection of 80’s hair band metal) when I am driving to our Ulistic office in Southeast Calgary.  It is only for the 15 minute drive, just enough to get the latest traffic, stock market information and news headlines.  Sometimes, I will even tune into Dave Rutherford to hear his daily rant on QR77 or listen to what Charles Adler has to say in the afternoon.  That is the extent of my news watching, listening or reading.

I read the Calgary Herald Business Section the odd Monday morning just to see what new small businesses are starting up and the odd time will I read or even glance through the entire morning paper.  When I travel in the United States, the hotels deliver USA Today or Wall Street Journal or other US Papers which usually end up in a pile in one corner of my hotel room.  Goes to show that the news in print for me is just something I am not interested in reading.

I, perhaps like many of our colleagues are electing to tune into online sources for news.  Why?  Perhaps it is the grass-roots reporting, the real story without the right or left-wing opinions attached with the story.  I will however tune into my niche blogs on the industries I work with and have Twitter alert me when something happens which requires my attention.  How about you?

This weekend I read an interesting article online on how the President of CNN is concerned about Social Media.  I am not shocked by this concern from a major US media source and I am sure others in the world share this concern.   CNN and all major news outlets should be concerned on the power of social media has for sharing of news related items.  There is an old saying, see it in the paper tomorrow, see on TV later in the day, hear about it soon on radio or get notified immediately on social media.  This is where news is now breaking and you just need to turn to the US Airways crash in New York for an example of the power of Social Media in the news world today.

Today my news sources are guys like Chris Brogan, Joe Panettieri, Larry Walsh, Bob Burg – just to name a few.  These guys are now journalists in our online world. I truly trust what they have to say for the niches I follow.

Who is Stuart Crawford

“Stuart is the go-to person for anything social media. He has an in-depth knowledge of not only all the parts that make up social media, but also how to make them work together for you. He is an entrepreneur to the core and he understands that whatever is implemented: twitter, blog, rss, video, etc. it has to be streamlined so that it takes the least amount of time possible and yet still be laser sharp as far as effectiveness goes.

Stuart is great to work with and if technical roadblocks occur, he is an out of the box thinker when it comes to remedies.”

Service Category: IT Consultant
Year first hired: 2009 (hired more than once)
Top Qualities: Personable, Expert, High Integrity

Monica Santiago, On Page Productions

Tags: bob burg, Calgary, Calgary Herald, Charles Adler, Chris Brogan, Consultant, Entrepreneur, hair band metal, Joe Panettieri, Larry Walsh, laser, New York City, Online social networking, online sources, online world, President, Real-time web, Social Landscape, social media, Social Media Ventures Inc, stuart crawford, The Wall Street Journal Online, Time Warner Inc., Twitter, Twitter Inc, United States, US Airways Group Inc., USA Today, Wall Street Journal, web 2.0, World Wide Web
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off

This morning in my Google mail inbox and Hootsuite account was a very interesting post from Chris Brogan (I get Chris’ blog posts emailed to me each morning) entitled “When all this gets cool“.  If you don’t know who Chris is, well you need to check him out.  He is one of the thought leaders in the Social Media space worldwide and has some pretty good concepts around how to use these tools to do some cool stuff.

The article from Chris talks about social media and the cool factor, what we can do online today is amazing and yes extremely cool.  This article really nails what we can do with social media tools.  Over the past few days I have been putting together a theoretical framework for Ulsitic on the entire social media landscape, this helps.

I agree with what Chris has to say about when what you can do with Social Media tools becomes cool.

Social Media is not about the tools.  Just like when I was an IT guy in Calgary, it wasn’t about the Windows 2003 server that was cool, deep down inside it wasn’t cool at all.  What was cool was how my clients could do cool things when they used the technology I set up for that or later in my IT career sold them.  I never sold a solution that didn’t fit into their business model, that wasn’t cool at all.  At the end of the day it was about the masterpieces of design they created, the ability to find petroleum products several kilometres beneath the surface of the earth or the fact that our clients could send out a press release to thousand with a click of a button.

In the Social Media world it is exactly the same thing.  Twitter, blogging, Facebook are not cool at all (well they can be a little), it is what we can do with these tools that are cool and remarkable.  The people we meet, the ideas we share and the concepts we can leverage are very cool.  On Chris’ blog he has a pretty good list on some items we can do each day to help out our community and others.  The biggest challenge I can see is finding the time or making it a priority in my day and then just doing it.

Here are just a few of them. Again I recommend you read his post at http://www.chrisbrogan.com/.

Start a public list of Twitter accounts from local businesses. Point everyone in your community to it.

Start small mastermind groups on Google Wave (I have an incredible group going. Very small. Very useful.)

Donate four hours a week to a charity, giving them more promotion and exposure for their causes, equipping them with more ways to find what they need.

Connect to 10 people every day. Make it a blend of 5 people you’ve been in touch with, and 5 people you need to stay fresh with. Ask for nothing. Offer everything. ( Tim Sanders does this well.)

On a side note, Chris is scheduled to be our guest on Ulistic’s Social Media podcast in April, visit “The Orange Files, Social Media in Canada podcast” for additional information.

What can you do today to make a difference in your community and make what you are doing online “cool”.  I guess it is time for me to finish what I start with my SW Calgary church blog site.

Tags: BeanCast, Blog hosting services, Business/Finance, Calgary, canada, Chris Brogan, church blog site, Cool, Cultural appropriation, Facebook, Facebook Inc, Google Inc., media tools, my IT career, Online social networking, online today, petroleum products, Popular culture, Social information processing, social media, Technology/Internet, Twitter, Twitter Inc, web 2.0, Windows 2003 server, World Wide Web
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