Posts Tagged: "Twitter"

It is still early to know whether this is irrational exuberance or whether this is a meaningful event for the companies that follow LinkedIn to IPO. In all likelihood it is a little of both, namely a meaningful event that demonstrates at least some irrational exuberance. With the economy and the IPO market having been in the tank for so long a little zeal never hurt anyone, right? In any event, regardless of what LinkedIn does from here on out the fury of trading and interest suggests that good things are on the horizon for the economy and perhaps for job creation as well.

LinkedIn announced this week that the professional social networking giant is now valued at $8.79 Billion, roughly 38 times sales figures reported in 2010, after it’s first day as a publicly traded company on May 18. This may be hard to believe by many because LinkedIn has never reported being profitable, nor have they ever made more than $250 million in any one year. However, within minutes of LinkedIn initially offering 7.84 million shares priced at $45, the shares doubled in price and at one point in the day LinkedIn’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) peaked in excess of $122 per share.

Social media has taken the world by storm. Everyone from college students, to politicians, to news media outlets, to business professionals, to small and big businesses, to musicians and artists and other individual people both young and old have jumped on the social media bandwagon. When creating a marketing campaign, no matter what the business is, social media is an obvious choice for those who wish to expand their reach beyond that of the local phone book. Be that as it may, given that social media is still quite new to the business arena, there are still so many opportunities missed because of common yet avoidable mistakes.

Social Media has quickly become the fastest growing online phenomenon. Originally Social networking was for college students and artists and musicians, but increasingly businesses of all sizes have jumped on the Social Media bus. Small, medium and large sized business, retail storeowners, politicians, journalistic publications, law firms, chain stores, restaurants and businesses from nearly every industry have chimed in. Whether you have a brick and mortar retail location or are solely online, Social Media can help. But as with any business strategy one can partake in, all of your efforts including, time and money are wasted if you do not know what mistakes you should avoid in order to get the most out of your online efforts.

Over the last two election cycles it has become clear how important it is to have a social media strategy. President Obama masterfully used various Internet and social media communications to ride a wave into office, leaving the Republicans well behind. In the 2010 election cycle the Democrats tended to do quite well on Facebook, but the Republicans gained momentum and did much better on Twitter and enjoyed greater overall “digital energy,” at least according to research conducted by the EmergingMedia Research Council. It is safe to assume that Members of Congress are getting more involved with Social Media, and that trend should only continue to grow in coming years.

About ten months ago I wrote, The Importance of Having a Web Presence where I discussed why you should have a website, where you can buy your domain name and how to find webhosting services. No matter what type of business you have, whether it be a brick and mortar retail location, a consulting business, a law firm or any other type of business, large or small, you need to have a company website if you are to have any real chance of keeping up with the competition. But what makes a successful website? How can you get consumers past the home page? What do you feature on your website? How do you set it up? Whether you are starting from scratch or simply trying to improve the website that you already have, there are key components that every website should possess, eleven of which I will share with you today.

Chances are you have already put some thought into Social media at some point over the course of 2010. And chances are you or your company is currently finalizing your advertising and marketing budgets for 2011. But how many have included Social Media as a part of your marketing and advertising campaign? Are you are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Plaxo, IP Alley and other social media sites pertinent to your industry or specialty with in your field? Those you have created profiles on different sites, how active are you in your social media marketing campaigns? How often do you update your work experience and other information? How often do you post content on your profile. How often do you tweet? This are all things you can and should do. And since we are nearing the end of 2010, I thought I would share with you a a list of “Social Media Resolutions” that you should add to your 2011 Marketing and brand building campaign.

As I learn more about my new mobile business tools, I am amazed at how much I can do with them to enhance my business. According to Apple there are over 50,000 apps available for download on the iPhone alone. In fact, we often play a game in our family that I like to call, “Is there an app for that?” We have found some seriously odd applications. But with all of the apps that are available, how can you determine which apps are most suitable for you and your business? Following is a guide to some of my favorite and some of the more popular non-industry specific iPhone, iPad and iPod applications that you can use to keep up with your Social Media no matter where you go.

One of the biggest myths surrounding Expertise is that in order to be considered an expert, you need to know more than everyone else about the topic at hand. In reality, you just need to know more than or at least be able to educate those within your target audience to be considered an “Expert” on the subject. The question becomes, with the vast number of businesses and attorneys turning to Social Media today, how does one stand out in the crowd? Perhaps the single most prominent way to stand out and Demonstrate Expertise and Build Credibility using Social Media, is through regular visibility while sharing your knowledge with others.

I am pleased to let everyone know that the ABA Journal has selected the IPWatchdog Blog as one of the top 100 best websites by lawyers, for lawyers. Late yesterday I received the e-mail from the ABA Journal informing me that IPWatchdog.com was included in the 2009 ABA Journal Blawg 100. Now it is time to vote your favorites in…

Essentially what it sounds like is that by getting you to sign into your twitter account, the scammers are able to look for patterns between the accounts you sign into using a form of spyware. If you use the same or similar passwords on websites of different kinds, chances are you are using the same or similar login for all of your accounts.

I just gained another new follower on Twitter (IP_Privacy), and when I went to my Twitter account to follow in return I noticed they had tweeted an article from the Washington Post regarding the FTC setting endorsement rules for bloggers.  It seems that the Federal Trade Commission has decided to update the guidelines relating to the use of endorsements and…

Three weeks ago, TechRadium, Inc., a Texas Corporation with its principal place of business in Sugar Land, Texas, sued Twitter, Inc., a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in San Francisco, California, alleging the infringement of US Patent No. 7,130,389, issued on October 31, 2006, and US Patent No. 7,496,183, issued on February 24, 2009, and US Patent…

I love to write about patents and intellectual property in general, and I love to read about all things intellectual property as well.  As any writer will undoubtedly tell you, researching and writing takes a lot of time.  It seems that I am increasingly finding interesting things to write about and expand upon, but there are only so many hours…