Are you still using the keywords meta tag? Or are you stuffing your description meta tags in hopes that it will help your rankings?If so, Google has a reminder for you: you're wasting your time.

In this excerpt from Bernie Borges' book, Marketing 2.0, Bernie offers marketers advice on how to do proper planning to develop a social media marketing strategy. Old school meets new school when marketers do their homework through research to identify a content strategy and how to use tools such as blogs and social networks to execute a social media strategy.

One of the success stories in my book, Marketing 2.0 is about Brent Britton. Not too many lawyers use the social web. If you ask most law firms “why don’t you use social media” most will say “that’s not where we get our clients.” But, Brent’s use of the web has been second nature. I give Brent a lot of credit for his personal branding. I asked Brent how he does it while being part of a law firm and complying with strict industry regulations.

Many brands will use a microsite – a single-purpose li’l website – to serve as a landing page for a new advertising/branding/marketing/social media campaign. This FEELS like it makes sense. Why it might NOT make sense? It’s rare to see a microsite with any real traction.

For any internet marketer to be truly successful in the web 2.0 world of social networks and constant interaction, understanding where all of these internet memes come from is crucial...

For a long time, links have been the largest factor in search rankings. While (in my opinion) this is still true today, other signals are gradually growing in importance. One of the most interesting of these is “web references” or “citations”. A web reference refers to a mention of a brand, product or web site, which is not referenced in a link (or perhaps referenced as a no-followed link).

Great article from Jason Cohen of Smart Bear software explaining how a social media presence will soon be as much a requirement for a business as a website was in the late -90s.

Liveblogging is a very interesting phenomenon. Essentially it is just writing down information at the conference or meeting you are in attendance. Almost similar to taking a notebook and a pen, but with the added bonus that if you are a well respected person, potentially millions of people are going to be able to see and comment on the information you are receiving/inputting.

Duct Tape Marketing is both a lesson in branding and a fine example of how small businesses can build very successful marketing plans with offline and online components using a proven approach that has become an overnight success in 25 years. Bernie Borges podcast with John Jansch...founder of Duct Tape Marketing offers a lesson in branding...

We have written about uses of social media in B2B where passionate people took risks and leveraged their corporate capital to launch creative and innovative social media plans. But that’s not you. You have tried to convince management of the value of social media to no avail. There aren’t the resources. You just can’t get buy in. No matter how many blog posts you share showing large and small companies succeeding with social media, the bosses just won’t bite. What do you do?