In my previous post, I shined a little light on the repercussions Facebook platform apps can have on the productivity and performance on an individual.  But, how does Facebook apps create sluggish, under-performing companies?

Again noted, Facebook can be an incredible contributor to a company’s bottom line.  It’s a fantastic resource for generating leads and promoting brands, goods and services.  Companies need to define acceptable usage policies for social media so that the incorporation of social media is effective within the overarching marketing strategy.

Website Magazine’s November issue lists 50 leading web sites for marketing and business development professionals. As one could imagine, the list paints a different picture than that which would have been constructed only a few years ago.

As Website Magazine points out, the use of social sites has increased among top enterprises.  Among the listed social sites are Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Ning and Yelp.

Blogging sites have also become increasingly popular with enterprise trend setters.  Of course, the two most well-known, free blogging platforms, WordPress and Blogger, were ranked high in the list – #’s 9 and 11, respectively.  And, blogs could not receive nearly as much customer attraction if it wasn’t for the aggregators that push their content to subscribers and increase the blogs’ visibility.  A few aggregators, namely, Digg and Technorati, were included in Website Magazine’s list.

Finally, any company seeking to solidify their online presence, must now syndicate video content.  YouTube is now the second-largest search engine, following only its parent, Google, and provides easy and rapid traffic generation through professional and grass-roots video creation and delivery.  It’s no wonder that YouTube was #4 on the list.  Other video platforms like Blinkx, MetaCafe and Ustream.tv were included in the top 50, as well.

In conclusion, I must agree with Website’s disclaimer, “Keep in mind that the sites on this Top 50 are not an acknowledgement of their effectiveness but rather their popularity.” Website Magazine asserts that the effectiveness of the given sites still highly depends on the manner in which they are used.  Again, I completely agree.

On a previous post, I discussed the importance of diversifying your social media marketing channels due to the attacks on the social network Twitter.

As these attacks were taking place, marketers rushed to other channels such as Facebook and FriendFeed.  This, in turn, brought heavy stressed upon the infrastructure of these two servers making their responses to traffic requests quite sluggish, as well.

Over the past few days, we’ve witnessed some of Facebook’s own growing pains. 

The tried and true, traditional 80/20 rule has accurately described almost every aspect of our lives – business and personal. We have come to rely on its consistency when calculating our predictions. And, for most areas, we can continue to trust it. But, in regards to Social Media, the 80/20 rule needs to be adjusted to ensure the success of your business in today’s market.

So we all know that Microsoft is really pushing their new search engine "Bing."

Microsoft's advertisement spending is insane as they try to catch with Google.

Now, Microsoft extends past web and TV media into the radio.  They're targeting niche radio listeners.

Bing was on my local Christian radio station of all things.  Who would have thought they'd be there.

Comscore just realeased it's numbers for April and May in search share.  While Google still has a major lead, the points are starting to slip.

Here's the graph acquired from MarketingCharts.com.

I once was a sales associate for Eddie Bauer.  Each of the associates, like most sales-oriented positions, had manager-set goals.  I would constantly sell 200-300% of my goal.  The general manager asked me one day, "How do you do it? How do you sell that much in revenue?"  I replied, "It's simple.  I'm not here to sell clothes."

Okay, first up, sorry for the ebonics; just thought I'd mix it up a bit.

But, here's the question, "How well can your clients relate to your brand?"  Can your clients find a place within your community? To borrow a term from Godin, can your target clients relate to other members of your tribe?

Ever wonder how a long distance runner keeps going?

Its quite simple actually... They never reach their destination.

Amateur runners generally struggle with running distances until they figure out the secret that experienced runners have learned and implement.

So the economy isn't turning out like you'd hope right now and its, perhaps, hard to get going in the mornings.

While many are suffering, its imperative that you continue to do the right things even in the bad times - you must continue to do what will guarantee the success of your company in the long run. If you do, you and your company will not only survive, but come out stronger on the other side. If business isn't "booming" right now, its okay.  You now have more time to develop new marketing and sales disciplines.

Typically, we define the sales equation as Great Products (or Services) + Great Marketing = Great Sales.

Then, we spend our time, money and other resources focusing on both products and marketing.  Larger companies develop entire departments that specifically manage products or marketing.