Skip Links

Network World

Small/Midmarket Business Networking

Small Business Tech by James Gaskin

The ROI of influence

Chris Brogan explains how smart companies include social media in their marketing.

How does one become a leading social media expert? "I decided to leave the real IT world to run off and join the circus," said Chris Brogan.

Brogan spent 16 years working in the IT trenches for a major telecommunications carrier, including trying to stuff big servers into tiny rental cars for remote installations. He now works for CrossTech Media, the company that puts on the ITEC shows I’ve been speaking at, so I've had the chance to hear several of Brogan's speeches and he's been forced to listen to mine in return.

“Turning ROI Into Return on Influence” is the title of one of Brogan's presentations. The ideas Brogan presents in this and other talks help companies realize social media and social networking are new ways to reach out to customers. These methods humanize the company and let customers engage in areas they like rather than what the corporate marketing department decides.
Continued

Recent Newsletters | Archive

Clear Choice Tests

View more Clear Choice Tests

More ways to stay informed

NetworkWorld content as you like it

News

  • October's coolest gadgets

    October began, as it always does, with Japan's biggest electronics show: Ceatec. The show attracted a little over 196,000 visitors who got a chance to see the best of the Japanese electronics industry, including some exciting new prototypes of devices that are still some way from hitting the market.

  • First look: iRiver Spinn multimedia player

    The beautiful, fashion-conscious iRiver Spinn is the upscale lounge down the street from the Slacker G2's likable-but-slightly-sketchy dive bar. What the Slacker offers in happy-hour specials (free drinks music!), the Spinn more than matches in elegance, style, and sheer sexiness. But it also has...

  • Eos Wireless iPod Speaker System

    With the Eos Wireless iPod Speaker System, you can wirelessly transmit audio from your iPod to a remote speaker. It's a system that uses proprietary 2.4GHz wireless spectrum technology to distribute music throughout your house. The Eos is available in black or white as a $250 Core System with a...

  • RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8220 Flip

    Choose a section Introduction: A New Era for the Pearl What We Liked About the BlackBerry Pearl 8220 Flip The Cons Conclusion: To Flip or Not to Flip? Pearl 8220 Unboxing Image Gallery Pearl 8130/Pearl 8220 Comparison Image Gallery Full Pearl 8220 Technical Specifications from RIM (PDF)

  • Nokia E71 3G smartphone

    As Nokia's very first 3G phone with a full QWERTY keyboard, the US$500 E71 is an all-around improvement on its predecessor, the E61. It not only has a sleeker and more sophisticated curved design, but it packs a multitude of features ideal for both business and personal use.

View SMB news | All news

Featured Video

David Yarborough of Computer-Plus speaks

David Yarborough, President of Computer-Plus, talks about the printer support business while standing over the smoking printer he uses to catch attention during the ITEC conferences. Guess what's the most disgusting thing he ever dug out of a printer?

View more videos

PC World reviews

Nokia E71 3G smartphone
Oct. 10, 2008
As Nokia's very first 3G phone with a full QWERTY keyboard, the US$500 E71 is an all-around improvement on its predecessor, the E61. It not only has a sleeker and more sophisticated curved design, but it packs a ...

Lenovo IdeaPad S10 netbook
Oct. 10, 2008
Lenovo, one of the top notebook PC manufacturers, has hit a home-run with the IdeaPad S10, as it enters the fast exploding segment of mini-laptops. At first glance, it looks like a cross between the compact Acer Aspire ...

Nero 9 disc-burning suite
Oct. 09, 2008
Nero 9 is an extremely competent suite for burning CDs and DVDs of all types, as well as for playing, importing, and manipulating video and audio, including HD. But Nero 8 was competent, too, and while the improvements ...

Corel VideoStudio Pro X2
Oct. 09, 2008
Video is moving to high definition faster than a dog to a doughnut. So which do you buy first: a new HD camcorder, or a powerful new computer on which to edit its footage? If you choose the camcorder, Corel's US$100 ...

Pentax Optio S12 digital camera
Oct. 09, 2008
What do you get when you cram 12 megapixels and great battery life into a very tiny, very durable, and sublimely easy-to-use camera? You get the Pentax Optio S12, a solid competitor for the upper echelons of our Top 10 ...

Slacker G2 portable radio
Oct. 09, 2008
With the Slacker G2, Slacker introduces some key navigational, design, and usability improvements to its second-generation portable radio player. That said, it's still a flawed device--though far less flawed than its ...

Sonos Zone Player 120
Oct. 08, 2008
In early 2005 Sonos introduced the basic building block of its multiroom digital music system: the ZonePlayer 100, a combination digital music streamer and amplifier. Since that time, the ZP100 has gained lots of new ...

Adobe Premiere Elements 7
Oct. 07, 2008
Who needs a big hard drive when everyone's videos will eventually live online? Neat new Web services, such as the ones offered by Adobe and linked to from its new Premiere Elements 7 video editor, may incline folks to ...

The 17-inch-monitor showdown
Oct. 07, 2008
LCD monitors have become the de-facto standard for home users, but most businesses still choose to run on CRT monitors. This is mostly down to CRTs being cheaper than LCDs. However, LCDs have quite a few advantages over ...

Browser surf wars
Oct. 06, 2008
Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Internet Explorer, Safari... We rate the Big 5 of the browser brigade to help you decide which should be your window to the cyber-world.

  1   2   3   4   5  next 

Blogs

View all Blogs