By Robert Lockard
In the digital age, information is not only plentiful, it’s downright endemic. We have Web analytics tools that can glean information on people who visit our websites.
I will compare information gathering to eating. The more food we eat, the more weight we are likely to gain. If we eat everything we find, we’re not living a healthy lifestyle. It takes discipline and wisdom to choose the foods that our bodies need the most and then eat appropriate servings of them. A little variety doesn’t hurt either.
If we constantly eat and never do anything with that energy, even if the food we eat is good for us, we’ll probably become obese. People who become obese have a greater chance of premature death, just as ecommerce companies that become saturated with information and don’t do anything with it can die prematurely, as well. Not to mention suffer indigestion.
Information is a great thing, just like food. But we must use it wisely. We should gather information pertinent to our needs and then put it to good use in our online marketing decisions, product pricing, customer service, etc.
By the way, I got the idea for this blog entry from an article in Ecommerce Times, entitled, “Drowning in Data: Web Analytics and Information Overload.” That article has lots of insights into information gathering, and I took a piece and ran with it.
This leads me to some things I learned at a recent Webinar by Hubspot and Brent Leary, entitled “How to Use Social Media to Attract More Customers.” I promised I would talk more about this Webinar in my blog entry on Facebook, and I’ll keep my word now.
I highly recommend clicking on the Webinar link above to watch the hour-long presentation. You can also download the presentation slides in a PDF file to save time.
In the Webinar, I learned about websites I can use to both gather and organize information from social-media sites like Twitter. Here are the ones Leary mentioned:
- TubeMogul – distribute online videos and analyze viewers and impact.
- CoTweet – organize your conversations in Twitter.
- Salesforce – measure results in Twitter, Google and other online media.
- Bit.ly – shorten links and keep track of who clicks them.
- Favotter – another Twitter measurement site.
- Twitalyzer – in-depth information on your Twitter account.
I find these sites helpful in my efforts to focus the social-media exposure of eHarbor, Inc. and its affiliates. In fact, eHarbor’s affiliates help not only to create a website for you, but track and gain more visitors through search engine optimization and other strategies.
These companies include: Magellan Commerce, Real Estate Promoter, Submit Solution, and Direct Home Find.
Remember, you are what you eat – but it’s what you do with your time and energy that truly defines you.
The photo of the fat cat is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of brokinhrt2.
That’s not to say that we’re celebrating all the time or that we’re focused solely on having fun. Our slogan for 2009 is “Swinging for the fence,” and we’re doing our best to live up to that ideal by working hard and giving our best effort.
I promised I would talk about the Conficker C virus in 
