The Best of Mack Collier January 18, 2009
Posted by Arun Rajagopal in Conversations, Digital, Social Media.Tags: Mack Collier, Marketing Blog, Social Media
3 comments
Unleashed Small Business Marketing Photo, originally uploaded by storyspinn.A couple of days ago, good friend Mack Collier celebrated his birthday. An acclaimed social media consultant, trainer and speaker, Mack is the man behind ‘The Viral Garden’, an influential marketing/social media blog.
His blog features a weekly ranking of the Top 25 Marketing & Social Media Blogs and also a useful Company Blog Checkup series. His motto is “Don’t focus on the tools, focus on the connections that the tools help facilitate.”
‘The Viral Garden’ is a must-read if you are a social media newbie or a brand looking to carve a space in social media or an accomplished marketer looking for voices of reason in the age of conversation. It’s a great testimony of Mack’s short yet highly impressive journey in social media waters.
Personally, what I like most about Mack is his very endearing nature, his passion to focus on human connections and the way he puts across his message in very simple and direct terms.
As a dedication to Mack on his now very belated birthday, here’s a pick of some of my favorite posts from his blog. I must confess that I was not a regular reader of ‘The Viral Garden’ back in the days, but today I had a great opportunity to go through his great work.
1. Both social media evangelists & traditional marketers have to shed the ‘only I know my stuff better’ stereotypes and learn to work together.
2. Don’t focus on using social media to ‘create’ community, focus on using social media as a way to connect with your customers and join them in THEIR space.
3. Social media is NOT a marketing channel; it is a TWO-WAY communication channel. It helps enable trust between a brand and its consumers.
4. How can you bring more value to the world of social media?
5. New to Twitter? How to transform your Twitter experience.
6. A flyswatter case study on how to have fun with your marketing.
7. How to market like a rockstar. Another post on how marketing can be a fun process.
8. 10 ways to excite your blog readers. Another one here has more tips to grow your blog’s audience.
9. How to grow your social media audience. Do you target the ‘A-listers’ or you follow the ‘smart peeps’? Lots of great comments in this post.
10. This is one of my favorites where Mack tells us not to ‘overthink’ social media and to remove your ‘perfect filter’. I suffer from the same disease to get the right posts and am considering Mack’s advice to get over the bend this year.
11. Some very sane advice to companies who are thinking about engaging bloggers and social media influencers.
Hope you enjoyed ‘The Best of Mack Collier’.
Arun Rajagopal 