25 holi-days of better Christmas movies

Sick of the movies that ABC Family shows every year during its "25 Days of Christmas" holiday special? There are literally dozens of ways to watch movies these days, change the channel, visit your local Redbox, fire up Netflix, check the discount DVD bin, or search on-demand, and go watch these films instead!

These are the 25 best Christmas movies of all-time, in reverse order, saving the very best for Christmas Day:

• On December 1st, watch: Rise of the Guardians
• 2nd: A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas
• 3rd: It's a Wonderful Life
• 4th: Die Hard
• 5th: Black Christmas
• 6th: Miracle on 34th Street (1994)
• 7th: Four Christmases
• 8th: A Charlie Brown Christmas
• 9th: Jingle All the Way
• 10th: Love Actually
• 11th: Iron Man 3
• 12th: Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
• 13th: The Muppet Christmas Carol
• 14th: Arthur Christmas
• 15th: Scrooged
• 16th: Fred Claus
• 17th: Elf
• 18th: How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Animated)
• 19th: Home Alone
• 20th: Die Hard 2
• 21st: Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Live Action)
• 22nd: The Santa Clause
• 23rd: The Santa Clause 2
• 24th: Home Alone 2
• 25th: National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

Did I miss any of your favorites? Add them in the comments below:

6 simple tips for social media

At a high level, social media seems very simple. Post this, follow her, retweet that, connect with him. But after you dive in, it can be a struggle to stay afloat. You quickly realize that it can be much more complicated than those simple one-click actions. It doesn't have to be.

Here are six simple tips to help you gain more followers and get more likes:

Adopt early: One of the easiest ways to gain popularity on any social media platform is to be an early adopter. Those who join early not only learn the ropes faster, but can also take advantage of the domino effect of all the other people who join from that day forward. Each person that joins a new network immediately follows every one of their friends who are already on that network. If you're not on that list, they may never look for you again.

Follow friends: You should not only follow all of your friends from day one, but also occasionally check to see if any new friends have joined. Some platforms are great about this (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest), sending you notifications any time your friend from Facebook joins. But others take a little more effort. Check your settings or search tools until you find a "Search My Contacts" button or similar link. Most of your friends will follow back, they likely just didn't realize your account existed.

Follow back: The number one rule you'll hear the most when attending networking seminars, reading social media books, or watching a live webinar about social networks is "Follow Back!" It's something I'm not crazy about (for other reasons), but it truly is the quickest and easiest way to gain the most followers and increase interactions with your posts.

Post once per day: Unless you already have over 2,000 followers, friends, and/or connections I'd advise against posting any more than once per day. Spamming people's timelines and feeds with your opinions and stories is the fastest way to get unfollowed, unfriended, deleted, and blocked. If you have more than one post in mind, save it as draft or schedule it go live the following day.

Update profile: When someone finally does find you on any social network, the first thing they will do is read your profile. Keep it short, simple, and creative. But also make it descriptive. No matter how eccentric you are in real-life, your profile should be direct and to the point.

Add profile picture: I lied, the first thing they will do is look at your profile picture. Many times, they won't even make it to your profile because they didn't even realize it was you. If you want people to follow you, replace that Twitter egg with a headshot. Don't have a professional photo? Fine. Just upload anything for now. You can worry about putting your best face forward later.


I know a lot of my readers are also social media gurus and social networking ninjas, so please feel free to post your other tips in the comments section as well:

Ten reasons to not follow back

Every social media ninja and social networking jedi says the same thing, "Follow Back!" I disagree. Here are ten reasons why:

1. First, just because everyone else is doing it doesn't mean you should. If Johnny jumped... well, you get the point.
2. Second, it is okay to follow back, just do not do so blindly. Read their profile and last 3 tweets to see if you have anything in common.
3. Just because someone is following you doesn't mean you have the same interests. 
4. There are people out there who follow-unfollow just to gain followers -- so you could end up following people who actually aren't following you back.
5. You can't legitimately interact with your audience if your timelines and feeds are flooded with thousands of new posts every minute.
6. Social network influence algorithms like Klout's take your ratio of follows to followers into account when calculating your score -- having more followers than people you follow will improve your score.
7. Most social media gurus follow a lot less people than they have followers -- so they're not even following their own advice.
8. The only way to know if someone is worth following is by seeing the number of followers they have (the most interesting people have the most followers), so if we all followed back how would we know who to follow to begin with?
9. If everyone everywhere followed everyone back what would be the point? The greatest thing about social media is being able to create niche social networks with those of similar interests.
10. And lastly, by not following back, you're doing your part to put an end to this endless cycle. We have to start somewhere.

Can you think of any other good reasons not to follow back (I struggled with the last 2 if you couldn't tell)? If so, add them to the comments below:

An argument for generic LinkedIn invites

You've probably seen a blog post, heard a podcast, or attended a webinar that called for an end to generic LinkedIn invitations. Everyone is talking about it. And everyone seems to be in agreement. For example, here are 10 opinions from some industry experts:

• 40x50.com - (I Am Tired Of) Generic LinkedIn Invitations
• SocialMediaToday.com - LinkedIn Invitations: Everything You Need to Know
• Jim Muldoon - Improve Your Introduction Connect Request Ratios
• MarketingThink.com - 5 Ways to Use LinkedIn Invitations Help Your Social Selling
• Forbes.com - Your LinkedIn Intervention: 5 Changes You Must Make
• Kyle Lacy - Stop With Your Stupid & Generic LinkedIn Invitations
• TimsStrategy.com - 11 Ways to Personalize a LinkedIn Invite
• JobSearch.About.com - How to Send LinkedIn Invitations & Messages
• FastCompany.com - The 3 LinkedIn Etiquette Rules You Should Never Break
• CareerRocketeer.com - 5 Guidelines for Accepting LinkedIn Invitations

But I couldn't disagree more! I am here to argue exactly the opposite:

You don't need to customize your LinkedIn invitations to connect.

You don't customize each phone call greeting do you? No, you simply say "Hello". And when you handwrite a letter you simply start with "Dear". So why do we have to customize our LinkedIn greetings? In an effort to combat the 10 (thousand) posts that are telling you why you should, here are 10 reasons why you shouldn't:

1. It's easier to send generic invitations! Why are we making technology (that is supposed to make the world simpler and more convenient) more complicated by forcing people to customize each individual LinkedIn invitation?
2. The people who send these generic invites aren't lazy, they're busy! Time is money, so the fact that you didn't take the time to customize your message likely means you're a busy, successful businessperson who understands this concept, and therefore someone others should want to connect with on LinkedIn.
3. The LinkedIn mobile app does not allow you to customize your message, so the request likely came from someone innovative and technologically savvy who, again, you should want to connect with on LinkedIn.
4. The LinkedIn social connector add-on for Outlook also does not allow you to customize invitations, but it is the quickest and most effective way to connect with someone you just exchanged emails with while at the office.
5. Nobody reads, so until LinkedIn allows you to embed a 30-second elevator pitch video recording in each invitation you might as well not waste the time writing it.
6. Everyone should accept every LinkedIn invite to connect (you can always block them later), but the whole point of a social network is to connect with people, so why does it matter what their invitation said? The real power is what they bring to your network after you connect. If you accept someone's invitation and they are constantly spamming you, block them (but, unless you're a celebrity, this will rarely happen).
7. If people don't accept every invite, they can still check out your LinkedIn profile (and Google you) to find out more about you than you could possibly explain in the invitation's 300 character limit.
8. LinkedIn itself even says the ability to "add a personal note" is OPTIONAL! If it was required it would just be a blank text input box without a generic template.
9. You don't have to customize your "friendship" requests on Facebook or requests to follow on Twitter and Instagram (the so-called "personal" social networks), so why do you need to personalize your invitations to connect on LinkedIn (the so-called "professional" social network)?
10. And lastly, again, no one should expect you to customize your LinkedIn invites until everyone starts answering the phone, "Hello this is Ryan an innovative and creative marketer who would like to talk to you on the phone right now and here's why you shouldn't hang up yet..."

Are you on team generic LinkedIn invitations? If so, add your reasons below! Or if not, feel free to tell me why I'm wrong:

Marketing = Creativity + Data

I've always been creative (every child is). But I've also always loved math (yes, math). In 6th grade I actually tallied up the stat lines for our fantasy basketball league myself, using a newspaper (pre-internet) and a TI-85 calculator (pre-iPhone). Then in college, I even chose my first major based off my creative skills and love for math. But after two years at the Knowlton School of Architecture at The Ohio State University, I realized that it was actually too design based and lacking the engineering I had expected. I wanted more math. I wanted more data. That's when I found the perfect career -- Marketing.

Marketing and advertising have always been stereo-typically creative fields (i.e. Mad Men's Creative Director, Don Draper). But today, great marketers are more than just creatives, they're analytical as well. Today, marketers have to thoroughly enjoy digging into the data and tracking KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) on a weekly basis. In order to be a successful marketer in the digital age, you need to track campaign effectiveness from the top of the funnel through the sale.

And now, there's a new marketing buzzword sweeping the nation: Big Data. According to smartdatacollective.com, "big data refers to our ability to collect and analyze the vast amounts of data we are now generating in the world." Now, with big data, marketers can start analyzing and utilizing information earlier in the sales process, before suspects even enter the funnel.

For example, have you read the story about how Target figured out a teen girl was pregnant before her father did? Or how President Obama's 2012 campaign used big data to rally individual voters? Both are examples of how "marketers" analyzed the vast amounts of data available to them to target specific audiences and then persuade them to act in accordance to their organization's goal. And both are examples of how, today, marketing isn't just about being creative. Today:

Marketing = Creativity + Data

The new 80/20 rule

If you've read my blog, seen my presentations, or talked to me about social media, you've probably heard me preach my version of the 80/20 rule (which by the way is in no way related to Joseph M. Juran's Pareto principle) in regards to what you post on social networks:

80% of the things you post online should be professional and in-line with your public profile while the other 20% can and SHOULD be personal or off-topic.

But lately, I've found the 80/20 rule to be useful guideline for many other things in my life. Generally, if you can split a decision into two 2 black-and-white choices, there is a grey area in the middle in which 80% of your decisions should be made near the good, reasonable, acceptable, unusual, and wise choices end of the spectrum and the other 20% near the high-risk, poor, and easy choices end. Here are some examples:

• Eat 80% healthy foods and 20% junk foods
• Read 80% enlightening books/articles and 20% gossip
• Watch 80% enlightening TV/movies and 20% gossip
• Shop at 80% local stores and 20% national conglomerates
• Focus 80% on helping others and 20% on helping yourself
• Invest 80% of your money on safe bonds/plans/accounts and 20% on aggressive stocks

Can you think of any others? Add them in the comments below:

iOS 7 could actually cost $APPL

Apple's new iOS 7 mobile operating system is a big departure from the previous 6 versions. In fact, it's the first big change since its inception in 2007. Change is good -- and iOS 7 is great! But Apple could actually lose money as a direct result of this new operating system update, and here's why:

iOS 7 includes a new feature which automatically updates apps in the background, which means you never have to open the AppStore app again.

Imagine if your peanut butter cans, milk jugs, and ketchup bottles automatically refilled at home without ever having to go to the grocery store again -- would you ever have Oreos in the cupboard, ice cream in the freezer, and mustard in the fridge? Probably not.

Well the same is true on your iPhone and iPad. If you never "have to" visit the AppStore, you likely won't at all. And if you don't visit the AppStore, you won't ever see all the cool new apps featured next to the updated versions of the ones you currently own. So you won't see the best advertising that exists for iOS apps, "window shopping" in the AppStore itself. And as a result, you'll buy less apps.

Therefore, this great new iOS 7 operating system that's a major improvement over it's predecessor could actually cost Apple money in the long run.

Agree? Disagree? Let me know if the comments after you install iOS 7 on September 18th. All I know is I've been running iOS 7 for a few weeks now and I'm yet to spend a dime in the AppStore (not including CandyCrush in-app purchases, of course).

9 simple steps to going digital

They say it takes 21 days to form a habit. And therefor another 21 days to break it. But making the switch from analog to digital is harder than just breaking a habit. It's generational. But just because you were born in a specific decade doesn't mean you have to be stuck in the paper age.

Here are nine tips to help you go from a scribbling-pen-and-paper boomer to a digital millennial:

1. Shopping List: Stop writing your shopping list on that dry erase board on your fridge and start keeping track of your grocery needs in an app that syncs between devices. Now, if your spouse picks something up at the store at lunch, you won't accidentally also buy it after work.
2. CDs: If you're seriously still buying and/or burning CDs please stop. Trade in that compact disc player, get an iPod, and turn all those 15-song albums into 100-song playlists. Then throw away that CD sleeve on your car's visor. You can thank me later.
3. Notes: Stop taking notes on post-it's at work or home -- jot them down on your phone or tablet instead. Now you'll never forget them and they'll never accidentally end up in the trash.
4. FM/AM Radio: Ditch the radio at work or on-the-go and download an app and/or podcasts instead. They're fully customizable and sound better too!
5. Movies: Are you really still driving to the video store for rentals? Just rent it online on iTunes, Vudo, Amazon, or stream it on Netflix. Or at least go to the nearest RedBox. Then be sure to rate it on whichever service you're using. Now, next time you're looking for something you'll like, you'll get recommendations specifically for you.
6. Wallet: Replace all those cards in your wallet or purse with an app like Lemon, Passbook, or CardStar. It easily scans the barcodes and membership numbers to quickly create a digital copy on your phone. You'll lose a little weight (off your shoulder or out of your back pocket) and save some money at the same time.
7. Books: I know physical books have a "smell and feel" that are harder to quit than crack cocaine, but give a Kindle or Nook a try for 2 months and I guarantee you never fall off the wagon again. Syncing across devices and the ability to download new books anytime, anywhere, are just a few of the reasons you'll never turn a page again.
8. Recipes: Are you still writing your recipes on index cards and filing them away in box? Type them up on your computer for easy searching and sharing. Or download an app on your tablet or phone and instantly multiply your list of dinner options exponentially.
9. TV: Some shows are better live, one-at-a-time, on a week-by-week basis, but there are also hundreds of shows worth binge-watching on Netflix and Hulu at any time. Late to party on the new hit show? Out of the loop at the water cooler? Start a new show a month or even a season late and get caught up in a few days with TV on-demand.

Follow these tips and you'll find yourself not only paperless, but also much more organized and ultimately happier.

Have any other helpful tips? Add them in the comments below:

14 reasons I love iOS 7

iOS 7 on my iPad mini

iOS 7 isn't available yet. It won't go public until this Fall. But the beta version was released to registered Apple developers nearly 3 weeks ago. I downloaded it. And I love it! Here's why:

1. New Design: The new UI and UX is refreshing. I love the pastel, translucent design. I love the new fonts. And I love the redesigned native app icons.
2. Control Center: Easy access to Bluetooth, WiFi, airplane mode, and other settings is long overdue. Just swipe up from the bottom of any screen.
3. Flashlight: Control Center also includes quick access to your calculator app and a built-in flashlight on/off switch that controls your camera's LED flash -- one of the handiest apps I had in iOS 6 that I can now delete in iOS 7.
4. Photo Moments: The photos app now automagically gathers all your camera roll pictures into "moments" based off time and location.
5. Safari: Safari has been updated to include swipe navigation, bookmark icons on new browser windows, and new browser tabs that look like your flipping through a filing cabinet -- you can even tilt your phone to look down the page to get a better view of each tab.
6. AirDrop: I guess it's pretty cool functionality -- being able to share things with other iOS 7 users in your vicinity -- but the best part about AirDrop is stuffing a sock in the mouth of all those Galaxy S4 fanboys who think sharing playlists with friends is the "coolest thing ever!"
7. Group iMessages: A few subtle updates in iMessage, like photos of those involved, make group chats better than ever.
8. Integrated YouTube / Vimeo: I take tons of photos, but I always wish I shot more videos. With system-wide YouTube and Vimeo integration, hopefully I will.
9. Auto-Update Apps: Apps automatically update in the background so you never have to open up the AppStore again -- which should save you some money too. 
10. Camera App: The camera app has been updated with built-in filters and an Instagram-like square lens. I'm one of those people who take photos outside the social network then import it into the app later, so being able to frame the photos correctly on my first attempt is a big deal.
11. iTunes Radio: I've honestly never been a huge fan of Pandora Radio, but Apple always outdoes the competition, so I have no doubt I'll become an avid iTunes Radio user. Plus, it's integrated with your Music app which means it already knows what songs & artists you like, making it an immediately more powerful music discovery tool.
12. Notification Center Today: The new Notification Center includes a "Today" tab that gives you a personalized overview of your day, including appointments, weather, stocks, tasks, and more. And it's accessible from the lock screen!
13. Unread Mail Folder: The mail app now includes smart inbox folders including an "unread" folder of just new email messages.
14. New Siri Voices: Siri has been updated with a more natural sounding woman's voice as well as a brand new male voice.

Have you downloaded iOS and found other cool features I've missed? Add them in the comments below:

The best Twitterers are Marketers

There's no denying, the best accounts to follow on Twitter have the most followers -- that's why they have the most followers (and if you disagree, please, keep reading). But what you don't realize, is that every one of those people are selling you something. It's true -- even if it's not obvious.

Let's start with just the people YOU follow. There are your friends, your family, and everyone else. An everyone else is selling you something.

Take the list of the top 10 people on Twitter with the most followers (this does not include corporate brands, which, obviously, are trying to sell you something):

1. Justin Bieber: @justinbieber - 39,673,026 followers
2. Lady Gaga: @ladygaga - 37,703,992
3. Katy Perry: @katyperry - 37,075,529
4. Barack Obama: @BarackObama - 31,982,994
5. Rihanna: @rihanna - 29,756,835
6. Taylor Swift: @taylorswift13 - 28,329,970
7. Britney Spears: @britneyspears - 27,372,412
8. Justin Timberlake: @jtimberlake - 20,778,620
9. Shakira: @shakira - 20,773,482
10. Ellen DeGeneres: @TheEllenShow - 19,301,628

They're all trying to sell you something -- mostly music. And even when it's not as obvious as that, they're still selling you on the idea of themselves as musicians, politicians, or celebrities. Their selling their own personal brand.

And then there are the corporate brands. Common sense tells you they are trying to sell you something, but you wouldn't know it by reading their tweets. There is no mention of "Buy this" or "Try that" -- just simple content marketing and engaging conversations. And that's why they're the best brands on Twitter:

1. YouTube: @YouTube - 10,259,054 followers
2. Twitter: @twitter - 8,856,790
3. Twitter en español: @twitter_es - 8,480,198
4. CNN Breaking News: @cnnbrk - 6,923,605
5. TwitPic: @TwitPic - 6,615,838
6. UberSocial: @UberSoc - 5,826,875
7. The New York Times: @nytimes - 4,700,907
8. NBA: @NBA - 4,525,421
9. Google: @google - 4,465,778
10. E! Online: @eonline - 4,267,255

Brands and Twitter are all about content marketing. The best brands -- whether personal or corporate -- are the best content marketers. They post interesting tweets that are relevant to their followers. By doing so, they promote their brand. That's why they have the most followers. And that's why all the best Twitterers are marketers.