It’s almost here!  Sage Summit that is. And I simply cannot wait.  There’s so many ways to get involved with Summit socially, and if you don’t know how to yet, you can find out here.

This year, we’re throwing a 3-part contest at booth #517 and there are many ways to win prizes such as Kindle Fires, $100 gift cards, and business book series.

Throughout the day on August 14th, 15th, and the 16th we will have a drawing based on the number of Foursquare check-ins, tweets using the hashtag #blyDEA, and number of @BlythecoLLC mentions. Each form of participation gets you a ticket for the drawing.  The more you participate, the better your chances of winning. It’s gonna be a competition guys so make sure to tweet away and check-in away!

When using Foursquare to check-in, be sure to include your twitter handle or contact info in the ‘shout out’ section so we can correctly tally your participation.

See Also: How to Use Hashtags

In order to check in on Foursquare you’ll have to search for ‘Blytheco Booth #517′ with your mobile device which should populate when you are near the area.  You can also find the booth info here on Foursquare.

Recommended: Foursquare 101

On the last day,  there will be a final drawing and the person who has garnered the most tickets will have the greatest chance to win the grand prize: A Kindle Fire!  Also, whoever is deemed the Booth #517 Foursquare Mayor by1:00PM on August 16th will also win a Kindle Fire!  Sounds like fun, right?

Click here and/or here to find out how you can become a Mayor of a Foursquare venue.

You can download the Foursquare mobile app on your app store or here.

Winners will be notified via twitter so be sure to regularly check @BlythecoLLC so you can claim your prize.  Good luck to all and can’t wait to see you there!

Note:  This contest is for Sage Summit attendees only.

The post 3 Ways to Win: Twitter and Foursquare Contest at #SageSummit appeared first on Think, The Blytheco Blog.

In the 2012 London Olympics, Twitter is taking center stage. It’s the first Olympics where many of the competition results are hitting the Web through social networks before they’re aired on television.

For twitter, this isn’t all that unusual – many of us get our news or updates from the twittersphere, and many of us also get our rumors from there as well.  (Remember “the fall” of Egypt’s Mubarak anyone?).  While twitter is a fantastic way to share information and to also check up on the latest news, it is also proving to be a spoiler machine for this year’s Summer Olympics.

Coupled with the twitter spoiler alerts, many Olympics officials are attesting that the sheer number of tweets being sent are disrupting news broadcasts, prompting officials to ask visitors to only tweet during an emergency.  Let’s think about that… “to only tweet during an emergency.”  When did people start using twitter over phones and e-mails to contact others for something important? But I digress…

[Free Twitter Twaining Here!]

In stats released exclusively to CNNMoney, Twitter revealed there have been more than 10 million Olympic tweets sent during the games so far. Twitter says the tweet volume is about 100 times what it saw during the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

While Twitter lit up with talk about U.S. Olympic swimmers Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte during their widely anticipated races, the sport with the most mentions is volleyball, according to Twitter. The company doesn’t differentiate between “beach volleyball” or “indoor volleyball” in its measurements.

Two-thirds of team USA’s athletes are on Twitter. Many of them are chattering about the outcome of their events long before U.S. television viewers get a peek at the action.

I guess the moral of the story would be to plan ahead!  In this day and age, twitter and other social media outlets are rampant.  My opinion is that Olympic officials and news stations should have anticipated the use of social media during these historic events. Maybe there’s a twitter shield or barrier out there?  Or a twitter EMP?

What are your thoughts?

To optimize Twitter for your business, visit slideshare.

The post Is Twitter Spoiling and Disrupting the Olympics? appeared first on Think, The Blytheco Blog.

Because I’m in marketing, and am frequently giving marketing advice, I often encounter the question of how I personally weigh my company’s brand against my competitors’. This is an interesting subject because if you focus too much attention on your competitors, you can become sidetracked with chasing after them instead of honing in on what you actually need to do to succeed.  At Blytheco, I try to follow my own advice and focus my team around being world class instead of worrying about our competitors.

What does that really mean? Well, instead of trying to beat your competitors by examining what they are doing – compare yourself to world class organizations and observe what they are doing right. Apple is a prime example – they’ve figured out how to tap into the core of what people are looking for and turn it into a great business model that equals word-class gold.

This is the kind of business that people compare you to when they think of experiences – not your competitors, in fact, people might not even know who your competitors are….but they know who Apple is. So shouldn’t you be looking at things just a little bit differently as to what experiences you want your customers to have with your product or service?

When I used to co-facilitate a leadership retreat with my good friend Ed Kless a few years ago, we would put organizations in the frame of mind of Disney and ask, if the Disney corporation – the sellers of the ‘happiest place on earth‘, were to take over and purchase your business, what changes would they make?

What this did was get owners away from thinking about their competition and thinking way out of the box about how to make their employees and customers delighted. Some amazing ideas happened.

So, the moral of the story? Don’t worry too much about your competition.  Instead, focus on being world class. If you are looking for more ways to sail high and above your competition, check out our white paper on crushing your competitors.

@BlythecoLLC

The post #blyDEA No. 46 – Don’t Worry About Your Competition, Focus on Being World Class appeared first on Think, The Blytheco Blog.