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I found this infographic, "How to Rock Social Media in 30 Minutes a Day," a couple of weeks ago over at Social Media Today. 

Naturally, I was intrigued. Who wouldn't want to spend just 30 minutes a day and end up a social media rock star?

There was certainly no shortage of scandals to entertain Canadians during the first long week-end of the summer—and to write about if you're a Canadian communications consultant.

Scandals plague Conservative Senators

In Ottawa, our nation’s capital, Senators are dropping from the Conservative caucus like injured flies as they face reports of alleged expense account abuse. On Friday, Pamela Wallin excused herself from the Tory caucus until an audit of her travel expenses is complete. Prior to that it was Mike Duffy who quit caucus on Thursday after news leaked that Prime Minister Harper’s chief of staff, Nigel Wright, gave Duffy a personal loan of $90,000 to repay improperly claimed travel and living expenses.

Question: What’s one of the best ways to ensure you (almost) always get positive PR? Answer: You do as you say.

Parents sometimes trot out the cliché; do as I say, not as I do, when they’ve done something that they’ve expressly told their kids not to do. They could run with scissors, for example, or eat pudding without finishing their Brussels sprouts.

My twitter stream was abuzz today with the PR fail and epic Facebook meltdown of a small bakery in Scottsdale, Arizona--one of the best lessons in how NOT to handle a social media crisis I've ever seen. It's not often you see something so unbelievably cringe-worthy it causes your jaw to drop down to your knees and leaves it hanging there for most of the morning.

The brouhaha began when Amy's Baking Company Bakery Boutique and Bistro appeared on Gordon Ramsay's "Kitchen Nightmares" last Friday night. The owners, Amy and Samy Bouzaglo, became so difficult Ramsay up and quit for the first time ever in the show's 82-episode history. Ramsy said:

 If your business relies on the Internet to find at least some of its customers, there's a new book to add to your must-read list: Findability: Why search engine optimization is dying, by Randy Milanovic, principal at Calgary's Kayak Online Marketing.

The book is a concise and readable synopsis of the new rules of search engine optimization, including the importance of engaging on social media sites and creating content that others want to read.

Welcome to the 6th edition of the Friday Morning Marketing Quarterback.

It's a look at what happened during the past week in the world of all things marketing (including PR, social media marketing, search and inbound marketing).

Many years ago (more than I care to remember) one of my clients included the Confectionery Manufacturers Association of Canada.

They hired us to change people’s attitudes to sweets and a variety of tactics were used to do just that over our three-year contract.

A few weeks ago I met with a consumer packaged goods company that was reviewing their PR agency in order to ensure they were working with the best partner possible.

The process included inviting two new agencies to showcase their capabilities. We were happy to strut our stuff. But as the presentation wound up I couldn't help but wonder if there wasn't a better way for clients and marketing communications agencies to figure out if they were meant for one another.

Email nurturing—also called lead nurturing, marketing automation, drip marketing and auto-responders—is a common marketing tactic designed to gently encourage prospects to move through the sales funnel and make a purchase.

Nurturing campaigns are crucial to B2B marketing success since they change a buyer’s focus from their problems to your solutions. Essentially a nurturing campaign is the bridge that turns unqualified leads into marketing qualified leads ready to talk to sales.

As a smart B2B marketer you have a database of leads you consider one of your most valuable assets.

But did you know that a phenomenon called “subscriber recency” is dramatically impacting your click-through rates (CTRs)? A number of studies, including one from HubSpot’s social media scientist Dan Zarrella, show that CTRs decline dramatically as the age of your leads increase: