Lara Kretler’s Blog

I spend a fair amount of my time these days sharing the good news about social media and what it can mean for individuals and organizations. In these economic times, social networking and web 2.0 are more critical than ever - both for employees who need to be prepared for any possibility, and for businesses who need to do more marketing with less [...]

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Mack Collier had a great post this week about using social media to form online connections you can then take offline and cement into real friendships. I’m a huge proponent of this, but the birth of my niece on 10/24 has me thinking about the opposite - how to use technology and social media to enhance and deepen [...]

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Central Ohio bloggers, PR pros and Twitter fans, it’s good to be us. Tomorrow night, Wednesday, October 22, is our next official Columbus Tweetup. This one’s being held at Opera Columbus and the food sounds terrific. We even have out of town VIP guests driving down just for the Tweetup. Have you RSVPd yet? If not, you can do that here. [...]

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Editor’s note: Earlier this week, I blogged over at CONet about a free public tech event called Ohio 2.0 and a subsequent private VIP reception known as 2.Ohio, both put on by the Columbus tech community. I was invited to cover the events via my blog and Twitter. What follows are my live-blogged observations edited only for typos or [...]

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The online marketing gurus at Webbed Marketing have done it again. How’s this for a super cool social and SEO experiment to get the bloggers blogging and online buzz-meters buzzing?
This definitely falls into the category of “I wish I’d thought of that.” I’m so glad I get to work with the WM folks and I can’t wait to [...]

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Recently I discovered the best toothbrush ever, the Colgate 360. Think all toothbrushes are alike? Think again. This thing rocks. It’s got the perfect hand shape and the ideal mouth feel, plus it gets your choppers - and everything else in there - feeling super clean. It has this cool, rubbery, sandpapery, velcro-like area to scrub your [...]

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I talk a lot about the power of social search, and today I’ve experienced a perfect example. On my way back from a late, quick lunch errand, I found myself facing a dilemma and needing quick answers. I posted a query to my knowledgeable and enlightened Twitter network, knowing I’d benefit from instant expertise.

Note: I also could have posed the [...]

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I must mention Chris Brogan a lot in my house, because anytime I’m faced with a challenge related to my blog or social media work in general, my husband gets a mock-serious look on his face and asks “what would Chris Brogan do?!” CB really is that influential when it comes to web 2.0 stuff. Now, he [...]

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If you’re connected to me on Plaxo, Friendfeed or Facebook or you’ve subscribed to this blog’s RSS feed, you probably already know that I’m a huge fan of Delicious. I use this social bookmarking site in place of my Internet favorites to save sites, articles, videos, blogs and other links I like so I can refer back to them at [...]

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