Tuvel Communications Blog

February 10, 2011

Using Quora for Personal and Business Benefit

I joined Quora and have been using it for a couple of months, after seeing all the buzz about it on Twitter in recent months (and since it's my job to know about these things). Now, you might be thinking "ANOTHER social network? How am I going to keep track of this? And what use could this possibly be to me?" I don’t blame you for thinking this, because I thought the same thing at first. It seems like there's a new social networking site every week, with claims from all over the social mediasphere about how it's "the next big thing in social media." It can get a bit tiresome, ya know?

Now that I’ve had the opportunity to evaluate Quora, I want to give you my initial thoughts, as well as provide a few opportunities and uses for Quora for businesses.

What is Quora, anyway?

My first thought when I started using Quora was Oh, this is like a cross between Twitter and LinkedIn Answers with some Wikipedia thrown in. You create a profile, "follow" some topics (and people) in which you're interested, and post your own questions and/or answers to other questions. People can vote your answers up or down, comment on them, thank you for an answer, and even mark it as unhelpful (which essentially buries your answer). You can also follow individual questions within a topic to be alerted of answers that are added. So, there's a lot of following going on.

The Wikipedia-esque part comes in the ability for people to edit your answers. Well, you can "suggest" edits to the original poster that they can choose to accept. This is where I'm slightly confused, though. Why would you suggest edits to someone else's answer? It's their answer – why not leave a comment, or post your own answer? Maybe there's something glaringly incorrect about their answer, and rather than publicly call them out on it, you choose to suggest the correction. To me, though, this seems rather nit-picky. Am I wrong here?

That's great, but how can I use Quora?

I hear ya. You don't want to join yet another social network without knowing what you could possibly get out of it – both personally and business-wise. Let's go through a few of these uses and opportunities:

Building Thought-Leadership: Follow topics in which you have some expertise and answer questions in those topics. Provide well thought-out answers that will help to position you as a go-to expert on that topic. You also have the ability to describe your experience on a particular topic, which people see when you post an answer within that topic.

Content Marketing: The questions and answers you post on Quora can be great fodder for other content – like blog posts, for instance. Use your questions for a specific topic as the basis for a blog post to get your readers thinking about answers. Or, create a blog post from your answer (and the answers of others) to someone else’s question. And hey - you can even connect your Wordpress or Tumblr blog to Quora to make this easier!

By the way, Quora has a cool feature that gives you the ability to tweet a link to your answer to a question. This is great for cross-promotion between platforms, although I wish you could also post to your LinkedIn profile (makes sense, doesn't it?).

Research: Quora covers a wide array of topics, so it's dead easy to find a wealth of information on whatever you might be looking for. If you still can't answer your question from what's already there, post it and crowdsource answers!

Brand & Industry Monitoring: Run a search for an industry topic (like "Mobile Broadband") or a brand (like "Verizon") - the results are a treasure trove of information to help you gauge industry hot topics and customer pain points. It's a great way to listen and participate in the discussions going on - both for thought-leadership and for customer support.

Expanding Your Network: Sure, there are loads of people from my existing networks that I'm following and who are following me on Quora; but I've managed to find lots of new people as well through mutually-followed topics and questions. These are incredibly smart people who I consider to be top of their game and post some really helpful answers to questions.

Are you using Quora? How have you found it useful (or not, even)? Tell us your opinion!

Continue reading "Using Quora for Personal and Business Benefit" »

Technorati Tags: Quora crowdsourcing social media tools

Posted by Kari Rippetoe at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

December 21, 2010

Doing More with Less: Digital Communications for Business Development

Last week, I attended and spoke at the British Consulate's IPA Forum in New York City. Participants were economic development agency representatives from European countries. These folks are charged with creating business and jobs in their resspective countries - business that is generated by US-based companies.

The theme of the morning was doing more with less in a global recession. In my presentation entitled The New Biz Dev, I spoke about leveraging the digital environment for business development purposes. My remarks focused on tips, tools and low-cost ideas for utilizing digital communications (including social networking).

The thread running through my talk was that the Internet can be used to build long-lasting relationships and save money. I cautioned folks, however, that "resources" include time and money and building relationships takes time!

I touched upon using hosted solutions for relationship building efforts. Whether its an ASP for an e-mail campaign or document sharing for collaboration, hosted solutions is the way to go. Ease of use, cost and reliability are only a few reasons that our shop rarely licenses software these days.

We also discussed customer service and how social networking solicits feedback, saves money and builds relationships. We mentioned Salesforce and MailChimp as examples of customer relationship management tools that are integrating social media into sales efforts and marketing campaigns.

Much of Tuvel's outreach efforts include hanging out where our customers and prospects are - on their turf. We talked about making it easy for you and your company to be found and to do business with you, but I also discussed the importance of finding where your customers are online (even asking them directly through surveys and customer communications - two-way conversations). I emphasized the importance of developing and nurturing a permission-based house file rather than renting e-mail lists.

We had a fun discussion about contests and promotions, trying to impress upon attendees that all people like to have fun - whether they come from business to business, government to citizen or business to consumer sectors.

We developed a nice list of low cost tools that you can use for listening, creating content and sharing. You can find it here:

Continue reading "Doing More with Less: Digital Communications for Business Development" »

Technorati Tags: social media social networking digital communications business development

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November 19, 2010

What We're Reading, November 19th

It's been a few months since our last edition of "What We're Reading", and we thought it was high time to bring it back - especially with all the fantastic posts we've been reading and resources we've found about social media, blogger outreach and online marketing. Here are a sampling of what we've discovered, all wrapped up in a handy post for your Friday reading enjoyment:

• Seven Steps for Live-Tweeting Success from the NTEN Blog
• QR Codes: 4 Tips to Release Content to the Wild from the Content Marketing Institute Blog
• Something we're very excited about: Twitter’s Official Analytics Product Has Arrived from Mashable
• Social media can sizzle on the trade show floor from BtoB Magazine
• The Blogger Outreach Group on LinkedIn is a great resource for information and discussion on blogger outreach strategy and tactics.
• Do you use Hootsuite? Even if you don't, please take our poll:

Continue reading "What We're Reading, November 19th" »

Technorati Tags: social media content marketing blogger outreach Hootsuite Twitter event marketing QR codes

Posted by Kari Rippetoe at 09:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

August 18, 2010

Tools & Tips for Managing Social Media for Events

I recently contributed two guest posts over at Sound n' Sight, Jenise Fryatt's blog about event marketing & technology. She asked me to offer my social media management tips for events - which is something Tuvel specializes in (we've done it for the NAB Show and the FOSE & GovSec Conferences, to name just a couple). I had loads of advice to offer on the topic - so much that I had to break it up into a 2-parter!

Check out my guest posts here:

Part 1: 10 tips for managing social media at your next event
Part 2: 8 can't-live-without tools for event social media management

Technorati Tags: social media event marketing #eventprofs

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June 11, 2010

What We're Reading, June 11th

Here's this week's rundown of some of the more interesting social media, online marketing and digital media articles, blog posts and other media we'd like to share with you:

• 13 Ways LinkedIn Supports Event Marketing from: Engage 365


• Is this Foursquare or Bore-square? from: {grow} Blog


• Facebook Launched Revamped Analytics Tools from: All Facebook


• 9 Tools and Trends to Help Planners Do a Better Job Right Now from: BizBash Toronto


• Upward-Facing Associations: Part 2 from: SmartBlog Insights


• Very funny video from the folks at PitchEngine, entitled "A Fond Farewell":

Continue reading "What We're Reading, June 11th" »

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Posted by Kari Rippetoe at 09:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

May 21, 2010

7 Not-to-Miss Twitter Chats for Association, Non-Profit, Event and B2B Marketers

We here at Tuvel LOVE Twitter chats! We host and moderate Twitter chats for clients (like the NAB Show and Share Our Strength) to help generate interest in a cause or event - resulting in donations, registrations, and overall awareness. We also participate in quite a few Twitter chats, and I'd like to share a few where you might find @TuvelComms, Mitch (@mitcharno) and me (@KariRippetoe) joining the conversation.

In case you're not sure what a Twitter chat is, here are some tips for participating in a Twitter chat. Also, here's a pretty comprehensive list of other Twitter chats covering a wide variety of topics and interests.

The following are chats that focus on marketing and communications, particularly for B2B, event, non-profit and association marketers. I hope to see you at one (or more) of these chats sometime (and be sure to say that Tuvel sent you!).

• #engage365: Hosted by the Engage 365, the online community for using social media for events, this chat takes place every Friday at 1pm ET.


• #assnchat: This chat takes place every Tuesday at 2pm ET and focuses on hot topics in the association world.









• #npchat: Non-profit profs share ideas for mobilizing supporters, generating awareness, and increasing donations every Wednesday at 3pm ET.


• #b2bchat: Participants talk about B2B marketing topics of all kinds, from social to search to email and everything in between. Takes place every Thursday evening at 8pm ET.


• #imcchat: Looking for ideas on creating integrated marcomm strategies? Join the the Integrated Marketing Communications Chat every Wednesday evening at 8pm ET.


• #eventprofs: Chat for event professionals about event marketing strategies - online and offline. It takes place on different days and times, so check out this schedule for the next one.


• #archat: This is a chat for marketers and business profs from all walks of life focusing on "influencer relations" - Analyst Relations (AR), Public Relations (PR), Investor Relations (IR). Takes place every Monday at 1pm ET.

What are your favorite marketing Twitter chats? Leave a comment and let us know!

Continue reading "7 Not-to-Miss Twitter Chats for Association, Non-Profit, Event and B2B Marketers" »

Technorati Tags: Twitter marketing event marketing association marketing B2B marketing social media tweetchat Twitter chats #assnchat #engage365 #b2bchat #imcchat #eventprofs #archat

Posted by Kari Rippetoe at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

May 03, 2005

DC Urban Moms

As recently posted to the AdMarketing list:

Hi all--

Sometimes I forget how many support groups & lists there are in the Washington, DC area. In addition to great lists like DC Web Women and craigslist , there are virtual groups like DC Urban Moms.

Shannon Henry has a nice profile of this online community in today's Washington Post. Perhaps other AdMarketers care to share some of their resources with the group? Txs, Mitch

DC Urban Moms Online: Click for Support, Advice, Home Remedies, Gossip, Political Rants (free reg req'd). Mitch

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Posted by Mitch at 09:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 29, 2005

Media Calculators

The Laredo Group, has Website Conversion Rate, Pay-Per-Click Advertising ROI, and E-Mail Marketing Calculators up on the website.  You can find these calculators out there but it's good to see them all in one place. Pay-Per-Clicks/PPC is especially helpful.

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Posted by Mitch at 05:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 14, 2005

WIW- Washington Independent Writers

With a tight turnaround schedule,  we're in need someone to edit a newsletter article on a recent client campaign. The opportunity was posted (for free) on a Sunday night to the Washington Independent Writers Job Bank. By Monday afternoon, we had received over 15 responses and they were good!

Making this decision reminds me that it's important to create an easy experience. Those offering easy contact and a website with samples caught my eye. Those that put up barriers (need to fax writing samples, call  to discuss) lost my attention.

WIW is a great resource when you need writing help.

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Posted by Mitch at 07:21 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

January 28, 2005

Proven Tactics in Viral Marketing: Online Games, Quizzes, eCards, Contests & Buzz Building

MarketingSherpa takes the time to produce worthwhile resources. You got to pay but for $45.00 (.pdf), this report on viral marketing seems to be a good bet. I have no affiliation with MarketingSherpa but I do like Anne (the owner).

Proven Tactics in Viral Marketing: Online Games, Quizzes, eCards, Contests & Buzz Building.

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Posted by Mitch at 06:30 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

January 05, 2005

RSSTop55 - Best Blog Directory And RSS Submission Sites - Robin Good' Sharewood Tidings

In addition to exposure through SEO and SEM, marketers should also be submitting to blog and RSS directories. (originally seen on Duct Tape Marketing).

RSSTop55 - Best Blog Directory And RSS Submission Sites - Robin Good' Sharewood Tidings.

Where To Submit My RSS Feeds And Weblog URLs To Get More Exposure, Visibility And Reach

As more and more people get involved with the Internet and as more Web sites, blogs, news services and other online resources continue to grow in number and variety it becomes increasingly important to maintain high visibility and exposure for the content being generated by closely following the major distribution media.

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