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Mana Ionescu

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President, Lightspan Digital, A Chicago digital marketing firm

250 points

I believe in driving results through clear, simple and direct online marketing solutions. My approach is to educate and empower clients, partners and associates to apply marketing solutions that are the best fit for their business needs, level of comfort ...

I believe in driving results through clear, simple and direct online marketing solutions. My approach is to educate and empower clients, partners and associates to apply marketing solutions that are the best fit for their business needs, level of comfort with the online space and economic realities.

Experience:

-8 years of online marketing experience
-Strong expertise in driving best-in-class conversion rates in email marketing
-Led online engagement and sales strategies for HSBC Digital Marketing
-Awarded the HSBC President’s Award in 2007
-Twitter tips writer/contributor Twitip.com

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WEB: All Digital Blog

June 24, 2011

Mana Ionescu and 4 other people answered this question

Why should the average everyday working professional have a profile on Linkedin?

What Andrew said. :) Recently a friend of mine was unexpectedly laid off after many years with the same company and she said to me, "I couldn't believe how long it had been since I updated my resume. So long that my MBA wasn't even ... more

General Management

April 27, 2011

Mana Ionescu and 5 other people answered this question

Facebook Ads: Did you click on one recently?

I have not clicked one, ever! And as Robert says, I use extensions to block them.
Now that's not to say that everyone interacts with them the same way. We do run ads for companies and products and they do work with certain demographics. more

Facebook Advertising

April 27, 2011

Mana Ionescu and 1 other person answered this question

Twitter: What is the social media etiquette for thanking people who retweet or follow you?

I think it's important to thank for RTs but I don't think it's necessary to thank each new follower. Many use automation services to auto-dm all new followers. This is just as impersonal as not thanking at all and may actually turn off some people. ... more

April 16, 2011

Mana Ionescu is now following Mark Schaefer and 7 other people

April 15, 2011

Mana Ionescu and 5 other people answered this question

What strategies are being employed by companies to NOT overwhelm their employees with change?

Smart companies have mandatory "navigating change" courses for every new employee within their first 6 months of employment. Change is inevitable. The best thing we can do is create a culture that will prepare employees, and help them get in the mindset that change is ... more

General Management

Information Technology

Cloud Computing

April 15, 2011

Mana Ionescu and 7 other people answered this question

Do you find the term "social media" to be useful or confusing? And what would you suggest instead?

I find that a majority of small business owners don't know what "social media" means. They wants specifics and such a term is too vague for them. "Social networking" makes more sense to them. I also find that many business owners think social media is ... more

April 11, 2011

Mana Ionescu and 9 other people answered this question

Why do you unfolow, unfriend or unlink?

My solution to "curating" a network is organization not unfriending, in most cases. I love lists and I encourage all to organize contacts in lists (they're called different things but Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn all have ways to organize contacts and selectively watch these groups, ... more

April 10, 2011

Mana Ionescu and 16 other people answered this question

What would be your reaction if competition hired away your top two most talented employees?

hi Andrew, I honestly answered the question. What would be my reaction... That would be it. What you're pointing to, (interpreting why people leave as disloyalty) is exactly why employees may leave. Any company that interprets the desire of their employees to do more as ... more

General Management

Human Resources

April 9, 2011

Mana Ionescu and 3 other people answered this question

How does the principle of "social proof" contribute to up and down votes on social networks?

Oh I am sure the rank influences the perception of comment quality. Especially on platforms, such as this one where a comment with many votes gets moved to the top. That's going to be the first comment everyone sees (and have patience to read). So ... more

April 9, 2011

Mana Ionescu answered this question

What is everyone's favorite local social media service?

hi Ryan, what do you mean by "local social media service"? Do you mean location-based applications, such as Foursquare, or do you mean a local business that offers a social media management platform?
For location-based services I like Gowalla. Their maps and trips features are ... more

Information Technology

Web & Graphic Design

April 9, 2011

Mana Ionescu and 1 other person answered this question

Is exclusively original content a winning Twitter marketing strategy for small business?

Unless you produce multiple blog posts or pieces of content per day it would be very hard to employ an exclusive original content strategy. And just talking about ourselves all day with no links to articles shouldn't count as original content ;). So you have ... more

Social Meda Marketing Strategies

Twitter Best Practices

April 8, 2011

Mana Ionescu answered this question

What are real benefits to consumers & companies for #geoloc services like Foursquare & GoWalla?

The ability to find where people go is highly valuable. We mostly watch FSQ and GoWalla check ins and interact with people via Twitter when we see them taking an action or visiting a location that's relevant to us. We look at neighborhoods, people's preferences ... more

April 8, 2011

Mana Ionescu and 9 other people answered this question

How do you know who to connect with on the social web? How do you filter?

assuming you know the characteristics of your audience, do a bio search and find people who meet those characteristics. The tool I like to use for ad-hoc searches is filtertweeps.com. So for example if I want to chat with CTOs search for Twitter people who ... more

Online Marketing

March 2, 2011

Mana Ionescu and 2 other people answered this question

What is Mindtouch and how did they manage to spam everyone on Twitter?

Wendy, Sarah, this is really unfortunate. I became a spammer one day after installing a new iphone app and connecting it with foursquare and twitter. But the makers of the app were not as innocent as MindTouch. I didn't realize that they were going to ... more

March 2, 2011

Mana Ionescu and 5 other people answered this question

What are some of the best ways to promote a new blog aside from Twitter and Facebook?

On top of what everyone else above listed (all great advice), we use a tactic we call "blog-crawling." We search for blogs (or use google alerts) with posts on similar topics and engage in conversation on the topic by posting comments, alternate views, and/or questions ... more

Audience Development

March 2, 2011

Mana Ionescu and 1 other person answered this question

What is the worst incident you have had happen to you on social media?

Once I installed an iphone app that connected with my Foursquare and shot out a tweet and facebook post for every PAST Foursquare checking I had. That was over 200 posts in under 5 minutes. I had no idea the app would go into the ... more

Feb. 15, 2011

Mana Ionescu and 6 other people answered this question

Directed towards marketers: Is there a specific reason for not responding to an email?

I think when something doesn't work it's a good time to change strategies... Forgive my assumption but I'm guessing you're referring here to cold emailing and calling? There shouldn't be a surprise that "Cold emails" will get fewer responses than even "cold calls." It's just ... more

Business Ethics

Feb. 14, 2011

Mana Ionescu recommends this answer by Andrew VanderPloeg

Will social media make the Better Business Bureau irrelevant?

It's interesting to me to think though that the type of person that would find themselves engaged in a community like Focus.com is someone who already values online community. Not everyone does. It's for that reason that I wonder if the BBB will always have ... more

Better Business Bureau

Feb. 14, 2011

Mana Ionescu and 10 other people answered this question

Facebook or Twitter: Which is more effective for your business?

I agree with Shelly. In fact we just finished a large analysis of strategies and tactics to get clarity on what works and what doesn't, both based on channel and based on industry. The data showed Twitter (when used for conversation, not just to broadcast ... more

Facebook Marketing

Following 5 Topics

Customer Service

Social Media Marketing

Following 8 People

Followed by 15 People

Knowledgeable in 30 Topics

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