By now, you most likely have seen the blog by recent college graduate Cathryn Sloane, who argued that all social media managers should be under the age of 25.

“You might argue that everyone, regardless of age, was along for the ride,” she wrote. “We spent our adolescence growing up with social media… no one else will ever be able to have as clear an understanding of these services, no matter how much they may think they do.”

Her blog incurred a barrage of criticism: angry comments (over 500 at the time of this writing), Facebook shares, tweets, responses by bloggers from all over the internet, even Forbes. She was even invited on an all-expense paid scholarship to the New Media Expo, the conference formerly known as BlogWorld.

But missing from this conversation is Cathryn herself. She doesn’t respond to comments on her own post, her last tweet is from before her article was published. The hateful words have been spiraling out of control for days.

An important part of managing social media for your brand is dealing with criticism and problems when they arise. Your customers have a direct line to question and comment to you, and those questions and comments in turn will be visible to the world.

When something crops up, respond as soon as possible and with thought and care. The person who originally asked will feel heard and a problem won’t spiral out of control.

CGT Social Media crisis, Facebook, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter

The question many business executives are asking lately with regard to social media seems to be “What’s the return on investment?”

There may not be a solid answer for you so far – especially if you’re seeking a monetary return. Social media is a transformational way of communicating and its effects have yet to be fully seen.

The best return on your investment right now is the realization that you’re building a solid relationship with your customers online, much in the same way you do offline.

Whether it’s through Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, or any other tool that comes along, social media is a valuable way to interact directly with your target audience. They can contact you with questions, problems, concerns or appreciation.

In the long term, is there anything more valuable than getting to know the people who are interested in your product or service? We think not.

CGT CGT Newsletter Ad Agency New York, Direct Marketing, Facebook, Marketing, pinterest, positive ROI, Social Media, Twitter

Believe it or not, the year is half over. Now’s the best time ever to evaluate the past six months and ask the most important business question of the year: What do you have to do for the rest of this year to reach your profit goals?

Reflect on what you’ve accomplished so far, and think back to what your goals were in January. Did you make any of those goals? If so, give yourself a pat on the back and set some new ones. If not, why? Were they too ambitious? Or did you lose sight of them along the way?

Without profit goals, your company has nothing to strive for and is driving aimlessly. Establish your profit goals now and map out appropriate plans to achieve them.

Write them down and keep them where you can see them every day. This way, you’ll have them at the front of your mind and be more likely to accomplish them. Good luck!

CGT CGT Newsletter Ad Agency New York, Marketing, profit goals, profitability of your company

Over the past three months, Google has been refining its algorithm with updates named after animals. The first major update was Panda, and the most recent was Penguin.

Both updates threw the SEO world into a frenzy; websites that once enjoyed top positions on Google have been penalized for infractions such as keyword stuffing, low quality links, over-usage of repetitive anchor text and even thin content.

Many companies believe that having hundreds of inbound links is the magic answer to getting a top ranking, but Google prefers quality links over quantity. For example, Google puts very little value – if any at all – on links that go into your website that originate from a website whose business categories are unrelated to yours. These are called “unnatural links” and may actually result in a ranking penalty.

While these algorithm overhauls started in April, ongoing refreshes – much like after-shocks of an earthquake – are expected to continue throughout July and the coming months. If you’ve noticed a dip in your website traffic and your ranking has dropped, blame it on the Panda and Penguin.

CGT CGT Newsletter Ad Agency, Google, Panda, Penguin, ranking, search engine, SEO