Just for fun: Chocolate Calculator
This is a TOTAL time-waster that’s TOTALLY worth the waste. 1. Pick the number of times a week that you would like to have chocolate. (More than one; fewer than 10.) 2. Multiply that number by 2. 3. Add 5. 4. Multiply that number by 50. (We don’t mind if you use a calculator) 5. If you have already [...]

Banking on Facebook: Building a Brand Through Social Networking
Excepting those living in caves and, perhaps, the cryogenically frozen, everyone knows the following Web 2.0 facts: ● Social networking is changing the face of the Internet. ● No site has done more to bring about this change than Facebook. Smart banks are embracing Facebook as another channel not just for branding, but also in order to [...]

I went to Wharton and all I got was this lousy certificate.
This Philadelphia Inquirer headline caught my eye this week: “Putting a price on Wharton’s prestige.” The story concerns a man who sued the University of Pennsylvania. Why? His graduate program, a joint effort of Penn’s engineering school and its Wharton School, gave him a management degree from the engineering school and a “certificate of completion” [...]

84% of Social Media Programs Don’t Measure ROI
The vast majority of professionals worldwide are using social technologies for business purposes, according to an August 2009 survey by Mzinga and Babson Executive Education, but most are not measuring return on their investment. Determining the success of your social media efforts can be a big investment in and of itself, but there are a few [...]

A quick thought about marketing dollars:
Your marketing investment should do at least one of four things: Create awareness of your brand and its offering(s) Change perceptions of your brand in ways that will encourage someone to choose your brand Give incentives for someone to “buy” more of what you’re offering or choose your offering more frequently Make your brand more available and more accessible So, [...]