Digital marketing insights.

Does your customer service set you apart from your competitors? That’s a trick question – I can almost promise you that it does, whether you want it to or not.

I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Bryan Kramer last week to discuss his take on B2B, B2C, and his favourite, H2H (human to human). Bryan is the CEO of Pure Matter, an award-winning global digital agency based in Silicon Valley. He’s a social strategist and author of the acclaimed book Human to Human: #H2H.

Recently, I shared a strikingly simple but elegant concept I picked up from Social Shake-Up in Atlanta, Human-to-Human or (H2H) communication from Bryan Kramer. Today, I’d like to give you another that really stuck out in my mind: showing beats telling.

One of the more common sentiments shared at Social Shake-Up in Atlanta – and a personal cause of mine – was the advice not to outsource your social media and customer relations communications to a third party.

Sometimes, you come across a marketing concept so simple and effective you wonder why everyone didn’t think of it ages and ages ago. I know I’m certainly not the only person who’s gotten that impression from Bryan Kramer, who spoke at Social Shake-Up in Atlanta.

The Collaborative Economy – a keynote at Social Shake-Up with Jeremiah Owyang – left an unexpected impression on me that’s had me thinking for weeks.

How often do you think about the reading level of the men and women who read your web pages, blog posts, and downloadable offers?

As anyone who has been following my Twitter feed recently would have observed, I attended the Social Shake-Up event (hosted by SocialMediaToday) in Atlanta. I was prepared to come back and write a few posts about what I’d learned, but instead I want to start by giving a few thoughts about the conference itself.

When you use your own website every day, it can be hard to notice anything wrong with it. It looks just the way you wanted it to and nothing seems out of place, so why would you need to make any changes?

The idea behind sales funnels has been with us for quite a while, and there isn't any big mystery about the way they're supposed to work: You create offers (like downloadable content) to get prospects interested, and then present successive offers and communications to engage them further.

What if the back end of your business website knew who your customers were, and automatically made decisions about how to classify them based on their activity on your website?

Guest blogging – on the right blogs – can be a powerful way to reach a new audience, gain new readers, and network within your market or industry.

In the few years since Amazon first rolled out its Kindle publishing program, the book industry has been spinning on its head. Suddenly, it became convenient and affordable for writers to share their works, whether they were industry specialists (like me), first-time novelists, or even established writers and publishers. Think of these as your ultimate premium content offer.

The power of Twitter is that, as a platform, there is so much to be found - new connections, weird facts, and business opportunities abound. It's important to know what to listen to.

Will blogs soon go the way of wooly mammoths and bell-bottomed jeans? Some online marketing leaders certainly think so. In fact, many of them are giving up their blogs already, taking their content, fans, and inspirations to Google+ and other social venues.

Should you do the same?

Before we answer that question, let's take a quick look at a case for and against giving up your blog.