STAY COMM

On Thursday, December 3, six teams of six in five cities throughout the world participated in the Smartbox Hunt and had the pleasure of trying out several of their "experience" offerings during a competitive scavenger hunt.  Those of us in New York were fortunate to do the New York Skyride, learn how to arrange flowers at Arison Floral Boutique, take salsa lessons at Zamora School of Dance, and even explore Ripley's Believe it or Not in Times Square!  The good people at Smartbox fed us well at each stop, with delicious treats like breakfast pastries, gourmet sandwiches, and (my personal favorite) cheese, wine, and champagne to close out the event.  Smartbox invited bloggers, media professionals, and frequent users of social networks like Facebook and Twitter to participate in the Smartbox Hunt.

After spending a day enjoying Manhattan with Smartbox employees, who were enthusiastic participants and team leaders, I can say with confidence that this group of people knows how to have a good time and deliver an Unforgettable Experience.

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If you've been laid off and are finding it difficult to get motivated, one of the best things you can do with your spare time is to write about your area of expertise. There are many professional benefits to writing, including career advancement, and it's easy to get started

Build your knowledge and confidence with the following tips that will teach you how achieve career growth with the written word.

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Twitter is quickly becoming our favorite recession-proof marketing tool - it's a free, easy-to-use medium whose limits are constantly being defied.

140 characters didn't seem like a lot at first, but before we knew it 140 characters could include a tiny URL, a picture, and 12 seconds of video, for starters.

It was only a matter of time before a savvy marketing start-up harnessed the power of Twitter to share audio.

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... HA!

Website ranking and discovery site StumbleUpon's URL shortener, su.pr (pronounced "super") stepped out of Beta and offers zealous bloggers, Twitterers, and Internet marketers a unique view into online activity.  

Competing with sites like the the popular bit.ly, throwback tinyurl.com and clever but recently-hacked cli.gs, su.pr has features that have not yet all been present in a single URL shortener until now:

• Submits each post to StumbleUpon (and its 8 million users!)
• Schedule and post directly to Facebook and Twitter
• Customized URLS - i.e. stay-com.com/xYz123 - for the computer-savvy
• Suggests ideal posting times
• Showcases best content for each linked page
• See how many times your links have been shared (even retweeted) and across which services
• StumbleUpon's distribution push gives your link viral potential
• Oodles of fun charts and analytics, so you can go all mad-scientist with your social marketing

You can sign up for Su.pr today or log in using your StumbleUpon account.

We love demos.  Watch this one:

Years ago, traditional marketers viewed social media as a second-class, low-budget alternative to proper (and costly) branding.

By 2009, a company that wasn't harnessing the power of the Internet, particularly social media, as a marketing and branding tool would be at risk of falling to competitors who keep on their social media A-game. Yet until now, there has always been one integral caveat to trusting social media professionally: the inability to produce hard data and lack of analytics (read: tangible evidence that it works!).

Enter Viralheat, a startup that just made Mashable's "Spark of Genius" series with their affordable solution to tracking social media marketing campaigns.

From the Viralheat website:

• Monitor social media like never before. Viralheat tracks hundreds of video sharing sites, twitter, blogs, social networks, groups and forums in real-time
• Viralheat goes above and beyond monitoring by delivering analytics that help you optimize your outreach and engagement on social media platforms.

Watch their video tour and see for yourself how Viralheat can provide amazing insight into social media trends.  We're impressed.

Now check out the Viralheat website to search social trends for free!