I’m in India this weekend with fellow TechCrunch/BusinessWeek writer Sarah Lacy. After we’re done with the elephant rides in Jaipur, we’re going to be meeting local tech startups. Then we head back to New Delhi to meet more aspiring entrepreneurs. Sarah is writing a book on how startup culture has gone global and I’m researching how R&D has globalized. It never ceases to amaze me how...0 comments Source: www.techcrunch.com
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TweetMeme: News
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Snoop Dogg, Entrepreneurship and Rajasthan
7 Nov 2009 | 5:01 am -
Twitlonger: We are sad to announce the cancellation of the Jonas Brothers concert for this ...
7 Nov 2009 | 4:46 amWe are sad to announce the cancellation of the Jonas Brothers concert for this evening in Zurich. Nick Jonas of th (cont) http://tl.gd/s57g8 comments Source: www.twitlonger.com -
Republican Leader John Boehner | Mega-Bureaucracy: J.E.C. ...
7 Nov 2009 | 3:55 amGOP Ldr Blog: CHART Mega-Bureaucracy http://bit.ly/1GwO1K #tcot #sot #teaparty #iammob0 comments Source: republicanleader.house.gov -
Stream Live Video on Twitter from twitcam- powered by Livestream
7 Nov 2009 | 3:11 amhttp://twitcam.com/56ba - twitcam de manhãaaa come here e veja eu com sono' shausasahuashusa0 comments Source: twitcam.com -
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.
7 Nov 2009 | 1:44 amVideo interessante. Como encontrar um bom profissional de saude - http://bit.ly/KYuMF0 comments Source: www.youtube.com
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TweetMeme: Popular
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Snoop Dogg, Entrepreneurship and Rajasthan
7 Nov 2009 | 5:01 amI’m in India this weekend with fellow TechCrunch/BusinessWeek writer Sarah Lacy. After we’re done with the elephant rides in Jaipur, we’re going to be meeting local tech startups. Then we head back to New Delhi to meet more aspiring entrepreneurs. Sarah is writing a book on how startup culture has gone global and I’m researching how R&D has globalized. It never ceases to amaze me how...0 comments Source: www.techcrunch.com -
Twitlonger: We are sad to announce the cancellation of the Jonas Brothers concert for this ...
7 Nov 2009 | 4:46 amWe are sad to announce the cancellation of the Jonas Brothers concert for this evening in Zurich. Nick Jonas of th (cont) http://tl.gd/s57g8 comments Source: www.twitlonger.com -
Republican Leader John Boehner | Mega-Bureaucracy: J.E.C. ...
7 Nov 2009 | 3:55 amGOP Ldr Blog: CHART Mega-Bureaucracy http://bit.ly/1GwO1K #tcot #sot #teaparty #iammob0 comments Source: republicanleader.house.gov -
Stream Live Video on Twitter from twitcam- powered by Livestream
7 Nov 2009 | 3:11 amhttp://twitcam.com/56ba - twitcam de manhãaaa come here e veja eu com sono' shausasahuashusa0 comments Source: twitcam.com -
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.
7 Nov 2009 | 1:44 amVideo interessante. Como encontrar um bom profissional de saude - http://bit.ly/KYuMF0 comments Source: www.youtube.com
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TweetMeme: Events
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Central Jersey hospitals restrict younger visitors in effort to prevent swine-flu spread | ...
6 Nov 2009 | 6:00 pm#SwineFlu #H1N1 #News Central Jersey hospitals restrict younger visitors in effort to prevent swine ...: http://url4.eu/i0QK0 comments Source: www.mycentraljersey.com -
Announcing DiscoveryBeat: an event on how to get your apps noticed in an age of noise | VentureBeat
6 Nov 2009 | 1:45 pmVentureBeat: Announcing DiscoveryBeat: an event on how to get your apps noticed in an age of noise: VentureBeat is t... http://bit.ly/3wqG8C0 comments Source: venturebeat.com -
Cisco Partner Velocity Event In Paris Focuses On Social Media - Networking - IT Channel News by CRN
6 Nov 2009 | 12:26 pmCisco Partner Velocity Event In Paris Focuses On Social Media http://bit.ly/TwElT0 comments Source: www.crn.com -
Entrepreneur networking event reveals large planner presence
6 Nov 2009 | 11:37 amEntrepreneur networking event reveals large planner presence http://bit.ly/3RTGcg0 comments Source: www.examiner.com -
2009 World Architecture Festival Winners Announced
6 Nov 2009 | 7:30 am2009 World Architecture Festival Winners Announced http://ff.im/-b5GQb0 comments Source: www.inhabitat.com
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@tweetmeme
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tweetmeme: Republican Leader John Boehner | Mega-Bureaucracy: J.E.C. Chart Shows Speaker Pelosi’s New Bill Will Cr... http://bit.ly/2NUNE7 (via @ELB55)
7 Nov 2009 | 7:11 amtweetmeme: Republican Leader John Boehner | Mega-Bureaucracy: J.E.C. Chart Shows Speaker Pelosi’s New Bill Will Cr... http://bit.ly/2NUNE7 (via @ELB55) -
tweetmeme: Snoop Dogg, Entrepreneurship and Rajasthan http://retwt.me/1Kq7u (via @TechCrunch)
7 Nov 2009 | 6:30 amtweetmeme: Snoop Dogg, Entrepreneurship and Rajasthan http://retwt.me/1Kq7u (via @TechCrunch) -
tweetmeme: Twitlonger: We are sad to announce the cancellation of the Jonas Brothers concert for this even... http://bit.ly/4EJw3M (via @Jonasbrothers)
7 Nov 2009 | 5:59 amtweetmeme: Twitlonger: We are sad to announce the cancellation of the Jonas Brothers concert for this even... http://bit.ly/4EJw3M (via @Jonasbrothers) -
tweetmeme: YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. http://retwt.me/1Kq5R (via @WMaia1560bng)
7 Nov 2009 | 5:49 amtweetmeme: YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. http://retwt.me/1Kq5R (via @WMaia1560bng) -
tweetmeme: Stream Live Video on Twitter from twitcam- powered by Livestream http://retwt.me/1Kq4U (via @ThiagoBanik)
7 Nov 2009 | 5:10 amtweetmeme: Stream Live Video on Twitter from twitcam- powered by Livestream http://retwt.me/1Kq4U (via @ThiagoBanik)
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Copyblogger
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The Oscar the Grouch Guide to Building a More Remarkable Blog
6 Nov 2009 | 7:33 amThis week marked the 40th anniversary of the breakthrough TV program Sesame Street. I’ve written before about some of the many lessons you can learn from this cultural icon, but today I’m going to zero in something new. You might have an Elmo blog, a Cookie Monster blog, or a Big Bird blog. (How you define those is up to you.) But some of the smartest and most successful bloggers out there bear more in common with the show’s least-likeable character: Oscar the Grouch. Oscar was an important character from the show’s beginning, and on the surface he doesn’t seem to quite fit in. -
Here’s Something to Think (and Talk) About
5 Nov 2009 | 6:55 amI’m flying to New York City today for the Audience Conference, so I thought I’d share a quotation about the relationship between writers (or any content creator) and the people they hope to connect with. When talented people write badly it’s generally for one of two reasons: Either they’re blinded by an idea they feel compelled to prove or they’re driven by an emotion they must express. When talented people write well, it is generally for this reason: They’re moved by a desire to touch the audience. ~Robert McKee Let’s discuss. What do McKee’s words mean to you? About the… -
Get Off Your Computer and Become a Better Blogger
4 Nov 2009 | 6:45 amBloggers spend a lot of time on their computers. They’re posting, reading, commenting on other blogs, sending Tweets, checking half a dozen social networking sites, and generally being web-geeky. They find something interesting or random, and then clue in other people to that interesting or random thing. This is how blog posts gain steam on Digg or go viral. This is how we find out about new YouTube videos. This is how we communicate now. Except we don’t. We were people before we were bloggers Think about the blogs that you like the most. Like, to pick a totally random example,… -
The Quentin Tarantino Guide to Creating Killer Content
3 Nov 2009 | 5:58 amIn a recent Copyblogger post discussing how the king of content is being slowly usurped by the Crown Prince of Context, author Larry Brooks referenced the remarkable opening scene of Quentin Tarantino’s new movie Inglourious Basterds. There are few writers like Tarantino, and though his verbal carpet bombs and kinetic escalation of violence aren’t for everyone, there is no doubt that the dude follows his muse. Those who love him will eagerly wait in lines wrapped around the block to show their support. In short, Tarantino sells it every time. And by it, I mean an ironclad belief in… -
How to Get Lucky With Content Marketing
2 Nov 2009 | 7:36 amDo you feel like you’re fighting for every page view your blog receives? Do you wonder why you’re struggling to find readers when other bloggers seem to just hit “publish” and the world comes running? It may be tempting to throw up your hands and say, “those other guys have all the luck,” but it won’t get you anywhere. The truth is, those “lucky” people are doing something you’re not doing. (Or they’re doing what you are doing, but better.) If you want to get lucky, you’re going to have to give up the “poor…
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ProBlogger Blog Tips
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Blogging is Rocket Science
7 Nov 2009 | 6:07 amToday’s post is by Kevin Sanders of Strong and Fit. Do you ever have those moments when seemingly random, unrelated thoughts kind of merge together in your mind? This happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I remembered a documentary I watched on the space shuttle years ago. Something was said about the percentage of fuel it burns within the first two minutes of liftoff. It stuck in my mind and I tried to find the information on Google. No luck. Then I remembered that one of my family members (Dale Hutchens, Ph.D.) works with NASA. He is a chemical engineer who was directly involved with… -
Six Ways To Make More Money As An Affiliate
6 Nov 2009 | 5:15 amBy Johnny B. Truant I’m going to go out on a limb and say that affiliate marketing is the easiest way to make money online. You don’t have to create a product or develop a service, you don’t need huge amounts of focused traffic the way you do with AdSense, (I started using AdSense a year ago and just recently passed the $100 minimum payout), and you don’t need to do a ton of advertising or SEO to make it work. All you really need is an audience to whom you can refer products and services. Of course, the above statement is true in the same way it’s true that you… -
The Paint By Numbers Guide To Artful Blogging
6 Nov 2009 | 5:15 amA Guest Post by Greg Hayes from Live Fit Blog. Do you subscribe to the idea that blogging is an art form? I do. Britannica Online defines art as “The use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others.” If you’re a blogger, then by definition, you most certainly engage in the following activities during the creation of content: Creative Writing Web Page Design (Aesthetics) Idea Development (Novelty) Social Media (Shared Experiences) When we start our blog, we read the A-list bloggers, and they repeat the… -
14 Types of Stories You Can Tell On Your Blog
4 Nov 2009 | 6:18 amYesterday we explored WHY stories can be such a powerful communication tool on your blog. Today we’ll look at 14 types of stories that you might like to try on your blog. 14 Types of stories can you tell on your blog Personal Discovery Stories – tell how you discovered a lesson. These stories show your readers how similar you are to them and also might give some practical advice on how they might learn from your experience. Stories as Analogies and Illustrations – tell a story that on the surface has nothing to do with your topic but which illustrates a principle that is relevant. -
Why Stories are an Effective Communication Tool for Your Blog
3 Nov 2009 | 6:18 amAs I write this it is the first Tuesday morning of a new month and I’m sitting in a local coffee shop going through my ‘start of the month routine‘. It involves a large lattè (everything else hinges on this) and some delving into my blogs metrics to see how they’ve been performing. While I do keep track of the traffic stats of my blogs each day I like to set aside an hour or two at the start of each month to go a little deeper and do some more analysis of trends on my blogs – I find that when I do this I notice things that I can build on to continue momentum on…
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ReadWriteWeb
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Weekly Wrapup: Mega Content Sites, Gen Y on Twitter, iPhone App Recommendation Services, And More...
7 Nov 2009 | 5:00 amIn this edition of the Weekly Wrapup - our newsletter summarizing the top stories of the week - we analyze a new breed of content site that is rapidly gaining momentum, look into recent statistics showing that Gen Y is using Twitter more, compare five recommendation services for iPhone apps, review the new-look MSN, and more. We also check in on our two main channels: ReadWriteEnterprise (devoted to 'enterprise 2.0' trends and products) and ReadWriteStart (dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs). Sponsor Subscribe to Weekly Wrapup You can subscribe to the Weekly Wrapup by RSS or by… -
Straw Man Argument About Enterprise 2.0 Doesn't Fly
6 Nov 2009 | 2:05 pmDennis Howlett got the attention of the Enterprise 2.0 community today, with his continued skepticism about "social" technologies and their place in the business world. Here's a quote from his post entitled Enterprise 2.0 - the non-debate: "Why am I not surprised? I've argued for years that the notion of anything that has 'social' attached to its moniker is about as welcome as breaking wind in a spacesuit." Sponsor While Howlett makes a few good points in his post, we think that he's making a straw man argument - that the Enterprise 2.0 community is somehow involved in a big lie. The reality… -
Clicker: A One-Stop Shop For Online Video (1000 Invites)
6 Nov 2009 | 1:00 pmFinding specific online videos from TV networks and independent producers can often be a daunting challenge. Some TV shows are on Hulu, some can only be found as paid downloads on iTunes or Amazon and some are only available for streaming on the network's and producer's own sites. Clicker wants to change this by making it easier to find shows from TV networks, music videos, and web videos from across the Internet. Clicker is currently in private beta and only available in the US. The company gave us 1000 invites for our readers. Read on to find out how you can get yours. Sponsor Clicker… -
Layar Tells CNN: Augmented Reality Will Be Second Only to Voice On Phones
6 Nov 2009 | 12:17 pmWhen you've got a global audience, maybe it's good to make sweeping, ambitious statements. Maarten Lens-Fitzgerald, co-founder of Augmented Reality browser company Layar, was interviewed by CNN today and took the opportunity to claim that AR on phones is going to be so big in the future that only voice will be more popular. Maybe. Many people in the Augmented Reality world are rolling their eyes at Layar's incredible media exposure. They worry that relatively simple implementations of this technology paradigm will create such a bubble of hype that software developed over decades will suffer… -
Remixing Via iPhone: 5 Tools for the Pocket DJ
6 Nov 2009 | 11:00 amIn 1906 John Philip Sousa criticized the gramophone saying, "These talking machines will ruin the artistic development of music in this country." Nevertheless, because Sousa did not forsee user-generated culture proliferating alongside "mechanical music" he could not have been further from the truth. Not only have machine technologies aided in musical development, but there are a variety of mediums to choose from. While audio engineers may scoff at the idea of making music on the iPhone, there's no denying that a number of options exist for the pocket DJ. Below are a few tools to get you…
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Mashable!
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POLL: TweetDeck Trounces Seesmic Desktop in Reader Vote
6 Nov 2009 | 8:41 pmWe’ve had a number of close calls here during our Web Faceoff series, but this wasn’t one of them. This week we pitted TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop against each other in a bar room brawl for favorite Twitter client. Now, the results are in. Whereas last week’s Windows 7 versus OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard battle was a close one, with Windows 7 going the distance to outlast the current Mac OS, this week’s showdown had a big winner. …and TweetDeck was it, with a full 71% of the vote (3294 votes) as compared to Seesmic Desktop’s 23% (1055 votes). Six percent or 260… -
iPhone Coming to Verizon in 2010 [RUMOR]
6 Nov 2009 | 5:21 pmMany signs point to the Apple and AT&T agreement that makes the latter the exclusive carrier of the iPhone within the US coming to an end within the next year. For starters, non-exclusivity has been profitable for Apple in other parts of the world. Moreover, even AT&T’s CEO acknowledges the deal won’t last forever. And while Verizon might be all about showing off what Droid does right now, a new report suggests it could become the first carrier other than AT&T to offer iPhone on American soil, starting in the second half of 2010. According to a report obtained by Apple… -
DocVerse Puts Google Docs-Like Collaboration Inside Microsoft Office
6 Nov 2009 | 5:20 pmThis post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. Name: DocVerse Quick Pitch: DocVerse brings the collaboration functionality of products like Google Docs to the 600 million users of Word, PowerPoint and Excel. Genius Idea: Collaboration is a key to success in any business, especially when you have a scattered team that needs to work on documents constantly. There are already a lot of options,… -
FishVille Launches on Facebook; It’s Like Underwater FarmVille
6 Nov 2009 | 3:56 pmWe were sort of surprised to discover how many of you proclaim your love for FarmVille, the social farming sim game from Zynga. We reported that the company had trademarked the name FishVille last month, and speculated that an aquatic derivative of the wildly popular social game might be in the works. And indeed it was, with FishVille launching in beta today. It’s a bit of a late contender to the aquarium games space, with Happy Aquarium, Fish World and My Fishbowl all getting a head start. Nevertheless, Zynga has enough clout in the social games space to make FishVille a quick winner… -
5 Must-Have iPhone Apps for Wine Lovers
6 Nov 2009 | 3:23 pmMegan Berry is an evangelist for Mobclix, the industry’s largest mobile ad exchange, working on social media and marketing. She also blogs at The Huffington Post and the Mobclix blog. You can follow her on Twitter as @meganberry, or through the @Mobclix handle. Unsure about mixing your iPhone with wine? Well, if you’re a true vinophile, the iPhone is an amazing device to keep you more connected to your wine. The following list of top wine apps on the iPhone will convince you that mixing the two is worth the risk of spilling some pinot noir on your phone. Like wine itself, these…
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Logic+Emotion
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A Conversation Worth Sponsoring (Thank You To The Art of Shaving)
6 Nov 2009 | 11:35 amWhen Aaron Strout approached me about participating in Movember (through the Movember foundation which facilitates donations for Mens health issues such as testicular cancer), I was a bit apprehensive. I mean, I do a lot of talks/work with clients and it's hard to be taken seriously with a 'stash that came out of nowhere. I also thought about how much work it would take to hit up my network and raise funds for a great cause. It's never easy to ask people for money. Then the "marketer" in me started thinking. Wouldn't there be a brand out there who would want to get involved with this? What… -
15 Top Social Media Agencies [del.icio.us]
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How To Create Advocates For Your Business
3 Nov 2009 | 8:47 amSo what is customer advocacy anyway? Well for starters, they don't have to be your customers—they can be any part of your entire constituency. Employees, business partners, friends—you name it. But here's the point. You need them more than ever. Right now, if you are planning social initiatives, your biggest challenge is going to be manpower. Someone has to do the listening, the outreach, the customer service, the participation, the engagement with others in the ecosystem. Some parts can be automated (such as an algorithm in a listening tool technology), but many other parts require… -
Six Social Media Trends For 2010
3 Nov 2009 | 2:00 amOriginally posted on The Harvard Business Review blogIn 2009 we saw exponential growth of social media. According to Nielson Online, Twitter alone grew 1,382% year-over-year in February, registering a total of just more than 7 million unique visitors in the US for the month. Meanwhile, Facebook continued to outpace MySpace. So what could social media look like in 2010? In 2010, social media will get even more popular, more mobile, and more exclusive — at least, that's my guess. What are the near-term trends we could see as soon as next year? In no particular order: 1. Social media begins to… -
4 Myths about blocking Internet access in the enterprise | Capping IT Off | Capgemini | Consulting, Technology, Outsourcing [del.icio.us]
Cap Gemini encourages companies to allow access to social networks while blocking it themselves
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Liz Strauss at Successful Blog
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Cool Tool: screenr - Screencasting How to Add Text to Your Twitter Background
4 Nov 2009 | 5:29 amScreencasting Fast and Easy Screencasting is recording actions on the screen with narration. It’s a great way to show people how. What it says it does: allow screencasting without software. How well it does that: screenr is easy and intuitive. Size the capture screen to the website you want to discuss. Click the record button and record. Pause if you want. Then wait, a few minutes for it to process. Embed the screencast in your eCourse, download the video as MP4, upload it to your You-Tube channel, and watch it on your iPhone! Send it to Twitter. Post it on your blog. It’s free… -
Why Can’t We seem to Keep Things Simple?
3 Nov 2009 | 6:00 amA Guest Post by Kyle Lacy I was asked to write this guest post about the power of simplicity in blog design and honestly, I was at a loss for words. What does it mean to have simplicity in blog design? Are we discussing the concepts of the layout design? Or a universal view of all things blog? I am not here to talk about the back-end coding of a blog, the rules of user interface design, or minimalistic thoughts on design…but the ability to give your readers the easiest way to read your valuable CONTENT. It is easy to say that the simpler the design the better. I mean… look at… -
Trusting Ourselves, Structure Damage, and Recovering
2 Nov 2009 | 5:12 amA Project Post by Liz Strauss and Kristi Daeda I’ve been working on a special project with Kristi Daeda, an awesome friend, writer, and career counselor. Our project will take many forms for people working on true trust and business relationships. Right now we’re working on breaks in our trust and world view. We’ve named them structure damage. What Is Structure Damage? It can happen when the world seems most in order. Suddenly, without warning, someone or something pulls the rug out of from under us. Trusting what’s next can be hard. Structure damage occurs when we are… -
Thanks to Week 210 SOBs
31 Oct 2009 | 7:32 amSuccessful and Outstanding Bloggers Let me introduce the bloggers who have earned this official badge of achievement, and the right to call themselves Successful Blog SOBs. I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs. They take the conversation to their readers, contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger. I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on. Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community. Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her to me. Thie award… -
What Jim Ericson Had to Say About Corporate Trust …
30 Oct 2009 | 6:37 amA community isn’t built or befriended, it’s connected by offering and accepting. Community is affinity, identity, and kinship that make room for ideas, thoughts, and solutions. Wherever a community gathers, we aspire and inspire each other intentionally . . . And our words shine with authenticity.
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PR 2.0
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Rumors of the Death of Blogs are Greatly Exaggerated
6 Nov 2009 | 4:02 amSource: feministingEach year at Blogworld Expo, Technorati CEO Richard Jalichandra presents The State of the Blogosphere as one of the event’s prestigious keynotes. For those who are unfamiliar with Technorati, it serves as a directory and search engine for the blogosphere as well as a benchmark for the ranking of blogs worldwide.While there has been much discussion about the relevance and even demise of blogs as the statusphere and micro updates gained traction in addition to earning prominence in the mainstream spotlight, the reality is that blogs are a vital ingredient to the media… -
RT @Twitter: New Retweet Feature Goes Live
5 Nov 2009 | 7:29 pmSource: TwitterThis is breaking news at the moment, therefore this post will update as new information trickles in.Twitter is making good on its recent promise to introduce new features to bring users back to Twitter.com.Similar to the way that it rolled out Lists, Twitter is incrementally releasing its new Retweet feature initially previewed in August 2009.As described by @Biz, co-founder of Twitter:Retweet is a button that makes forwarding a particularly interesting tweet to all your followers very easy. In turn, we hope interesting, newsworthy, or even just plain funny information will… -
Social Media Influencers are not Traditional Influencers
5 Nov 2009 | 4:19 amSourceGuest post by Damien Basille, follow him on Twitter | Read his blogAs more and more brands are moving all of their ad spend online, defining how influence affects their return on investment is necessary and must be done as soon as possible. While some are making inroads to define these calculations many are overlooking the fact that influence affects everything. Without factoring in the real issue of different types of influence you run into a number of problems, for instance focusing on one group of influencers over another or getting broad sweeping numbers instead of knowing exactly… -
The Future of the Embargo
3 Nov 2009 | 4:25 amCreditIn media and blogger relations, PR typically wields two powerful tools to help boost the effectiveness of pitching and potential placement of news: the embargo and the exclusive.In the case of an exclusive, a story is usually packaged prior to official release for one particular writer, fully understanding their style, nuances, and audience. If the story is accepted, it is not pitched to any other media outlets until after the story runs. The benefit for PR is that it can bank on the publishing of a guaranteed, high profile story. The advantage for the reporter is that they maintain a… -
Twitter Releases New Widget for Lists
2 Nov 2009 | 7:14 pmTwitter recently expanded its new Lists service to users network-wide and in doing so, injected a sense of excitement, confusion, and also utility. Lists represent a significant milestone for Twitter as it transcends asynchronous conversations and and broadcast messages into a form of intelligence gathering, education, entertainment, and news.Twitter Lists are also stirring controversy as many believe that it sets the foundation for a new level of establishing a metric for influence. Whereas prominence was measured by the number of followers as well as the friends-to-follower ratio, now the…
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HorsePigCow
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Oldie but Goodie: Marketing in the Post-Cluetrain Era
6 Nov 2009 | 9:52 pmI noticed that posts from 2003-2006 have completely been lost (except for Google Cache), so I’ll post a few of them that are still pretty applicable. This one is from January 18, 2006 when I was working at Riya.com (no longer around): A good marketer is a Community Advocate This means that you speak for your community to your company, not vice versa. Sounds scary, doesn’t it? Well, it is. Marketing isn’t the same as sales. It is the job of business development, sales, the C-suite, etc. to keep marketing on a path so that they can make money. Marketing drives forward with… -
The Disintermediation Era
5 Nov 2009 | 7:19 pmIt must suck to be the middle-man today. Everywhere they turn, it’s bad news. Democratization this. Circumventing that. There was a point not that long ago that the middle-man provided great value. The record companies brought music to the masses. The media created channels for the news to get through. The Blockbusters of the world housed thousands of movies for people to rent. Telephone companies laid the lines for us to connect with one another around the world. But now these middle-men are our modern villains – using every desperate trick in the book to hold onto customers… -
A quote to keep me grounded
4 Nov 2009 | 4:23 pm“No matter how you feel today, things will be different tomorrow.” Dr. Nicely (my former therapist) told me that. It was powerful. For the days when everything seemed to be gray and nothing was going well, I had faith that tomorrow would be better. And on the days where I was as high as a kite, it kept me grounded and nimble and never too blinded by my euphoria. I pretty much say it to myself every day and it always feels positive to me. -
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility
4 Nov 2009 | 7:08 amSo as any of you who visited HPC yesterday know, it was attacked by a malware hosting site. I’m not sure how they do it, but somehow they get in and implant iframe code to serve up malicious software for unsuspecting visitors. I think it may have been a security hole in WordPress combined with my own laziness around passwords (now fixed). Either way, it wasn’t a good day and I spent many hours cleaning out this bad code and trying to figure out what the heck was going on. Many hours were also spent by Ivan Storck (of Sustainable Websites – my host), William Dodson (from OBX… -
Confessions of a 36 year-old woman
2 Nov 2009 | 9:04 amI decided to sit down and record my trepidation/enthusiasm for being a 36 year-old woman in this changing, odd world of gender. Tell me if you relate, disagree or have something to add. _____ ADDED NOTE: The point here isn’t to flatter me (have received the ‘you have nothing to worry about’ comments from many men) – I say right in the video I feel like I look young and attractive – the point here is that ‘middle-age’ is a truly liminal, odd place to be…ESPECIALLY as a single, accomplished woman. It feels like it’s between REAL ages and not…
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Marketing Profs Daily Fix
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Paul Williams: Catch More Fish With The Right Lure, In The Right Waters
6 Nov 2009 | 5:30 amA couple of fishermen are hanging out in their local bait shop. One has a new product idea for out-of-town visitors. Sell a lake map and fishing lure combo. Take specific fishing lures and tape them to the different lakes on the map. This way the out-of-towner will know the proper bait to use at each particular lake, and will lead to a more successful fishing experience. If you're at Watermans Reservoir and want to catch a Northern Pike, you need a spinner lure. At Worden's Pond after Jackfish? Use a fish-imitation lure or cut bait.* Here comes the business segue... We marketers and business… -
Gavin Heaton: On Generosity and Grace
5 Nov 2009 | 6:35 amWe are marked each day by the casual collisions that are the artefacts of our existence. There are phone calls, messages and the relative anonymity of online interactions. And in the search for connection, communion or community, we thoughtlessly mistake message for meaning, words for action and interaction for friendship. It’s a confusion of intention – and we are the poorer for it.When I began writing my blog I did so with no expectation of return. Like a long-dead star, I felt that I was emitting the weakest of signals with no hope of a destination. The gravity of my expectations was… -
Ann Handley: What's New: Introducing Our New Mobile Marketing Newsletter
5 Nov 2009 | 6:28 amYou know the end of every calendar year brings a bounty of blog posts and articles carrying business predictions for the New Year? Year after year for the past several years, pundits have prognosticated the rise of Mobile Marketing. And then year after year, it has failed to live up to its promise. Instead, Mobile seems stuck on the sidelines, perpetually benched. But with recent developments in the mobile space, it seems the prediction is now (finally) reality. I’ll even go out on a limb and make my own prediction: Mobile Marketing is here to stay. That’s why we’ve just launched a new… -
Suzanne Lowe: Digital Versus Paper: What's The Future For Professional Services?
4 Nov 2009 | 5:50 amIn the past several weeks, I've encountered questions about the effectiveness of digital marketing versus paper-driven communications. A recent WSJ piece "Marketers Still Prefer a Paper Trail," asserts that people are motivated to go to a Web site to buy when they see an item in a catalog. Some of my marketing communication friends tell me that their professional service clients are producing print newsletters in addition to (and in some cases, instead of) digital newsletters. They say, "my clients' clients are so overwhelmed with emails that they actually appreciate print newsletters!" It's… -
Kathy Bushman: Still Questioning The Value In Social Media
3 Nov 2009 | 7:04 amI had the pleasure of attending the Social Media Business Forum (#smbf) that took place October 23rd in Durham, NC. It’s the first event that was put on by Jeff Cohen, Wayne Sutton, and Ryan Boyles of OurHashtag, and Kipp Bodnar of Howard Merrell & Partners. They are passionate about teaching business people how to benefit from using social media and are responsible for many of the social media events and tweet-ups in the “Triangle” (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) North Carolina area. Jeff Cohen told me that they recognized a real need for business people to be educated on social media and…
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PR-Squared
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4 Ways to Build Relationships with Web Content
6 Nov 2009 | 4:04 amThis is a guest post by Shannon Paul (find her on Twitter, too). A prolific online personality, in her “day job” Shannon is the communications manager for PEAK6 Online. On the PR/marketing side of the equation we know good products go unnoticed without proper promotion, but we’re often reluctant to make the same admission about content. If it makes you feel better, I’m not going to blame this problem on the proliferation of new channels of communication brought on by social media, etc. But, please know that great content does not market itself. Rather than going on… -
“Too Smart For Your Own Good?”
4 Nov 2009 | 4:03 amI’ve written more than once in the past about the need for marketers to avoid Shiny Object Syndrome and, more recently, to Think Organically when it comes to Social Media. Guess what? Not everybody reads my blog. As we have found ourselves increasingly competing not just against PR firms but against different types of marketing agencies, e.g., advertising, marcomm, branding, we have on occassion lost the bid because the Other Guys wowed the underinformed prospect with the snazziest aspects of Social Media. Will these happy-shiny approaches work? Likely not. But after you’ve spent a… -
Stop Building Microsites?
2 Nov 2009 | 4:20 amMany 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. Most brands are too “big” to allow a one-off campaign of any sort to dramatically affect their official corporate website … yet, corporations spend enough $$$ on such initiatives that they want to maximize the investment; and, for fans of the newly rolled-out campaign, a microsite is a handy, utilitarian place to show off more multimedia assets, aggregate conversations related to the campaign,… -
Is Social Media Too Boring for Advertising Industry?
26 Oct 2009 | 12:14 pmI’ve met with several advertising executive honchos in recent weeks, from agencies large and small. The topic? No surprise. Social Media. These advertising execs are gung-ho about Social Media; it is generating cool, surprising and lucrative new opportunities for their agencies. But as the “campaign” becomes the “commonplace,” challenges rear up… Here’s the gist of our conversations with the Ad Agency executives: Advertising Exec: “Thanks for coming by. We know you guys ‘get’ Social… -
Be Back Soon
21 Oct 2009 | 7:08 amI am working on a number of responses to RFPs that easily rank in the “OMFG” category, in terms of both the caliber of the prospective clients as well as the level of work required by the responses themselves. A good problem to have, and I am not complaining. But as you may already have noticed, posts to the blog and even Twitter have slowed considerably. Until I can get back to a more regular schedule, I leave you with this quick, fun video created for our clients at Movember, by the director of the recent hit ZOMBIELAND. Movember is dedicated to raising awareness of the perils…
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Managing the Gray
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7th Son – A New Kind of Marketing
27 Oct 2009 | 5:49 amMy good friend J.C. Hutchins new book hits store shelves today called 7th Son: Descent. You should buy many copies of it for every science fiction and thriller lover on your Christmas list! But, today I’ve got something special for you. A special free 10 chapter PDF of the book for your downloading, reading and sharing pleasure. Click on the book cover to enjoy. What I love about this is that is just one part of all the new things that JC is trying around marketing this book. It is being published by a major publishing company, but JC wanted to keep trying new things like this (with… -
When in Doubt, Disclose
20 Oct 2009 | 5:40 amBlogworld Expo was a lot of fun, but it seemed that every other question in any conversation was, “So what do you think about the FTC announcing they will be fining bloggers?” If you haven’t read about this there is plenty of coverage and here is the actual announcement. For me, it really is simple and not that big of a deal because I personally have always made sure to disclose any relationships. What the ruling means to me is that the people who are NOT doing this will hopefully start doing it or will be fined. I’m not sure the government needs to get involved in… -
Buckets
9 Oct 2009 | 5:46 amFresh back from Inbound Marketing Summit Boston 2009 and I’m filled with a lot of energy. The people, the conversations and the learning all filled me up and I’m ready to go. While at the conference I took part in a panel (that should be online soon I hope) and gave a presentation called “There is a Hole in the Bucket” that seemed to really resonate with people and I wanted to talk about it on the show since many of you could not be there and I’m not sure when the video of the speech will actually hit the web. Here are the slides I used to go along with my… -
Personal Price Tags
18 Sep 2009 | 5:44 amEvery person that creates content of any type online is an “influencer” in my mind and it is to you that I’m speaking today. More and more brands are looking to engaged with influencers both long term and for individual programs and I think that too many people are selling themselves short when they take part in these programs and I want each of you to start thinking more about what I am calling a Personal Price Tag. Also, here are the links to the upcoming events that I’m going to be attending. I hope to see some of you there! ANA Conference Inbound Marketing Summit… -
Campfire and Hard Work
9 Sep 2009 | 5:26 amAs you can imagine, life has been a bit busy around here since we made the big announcement about Campfire acquiring The Advance Guard. It is a big change and an awesome one and I finally get to share some thoughts with you about it. I also wanted to talk about hard work and the advice I gave a recent college graduate who was looking to land a job with a public relations firm. It was a simple answer, but the right one. I also talk about a great post from Derek Sivers on only saying “Hell Yeah!” that is already changing how I approach things and why you might want to think about…
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CHRISTOPHER S. PENN
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What you need to do next in social media for success
5 Nov 2009 | 4:24 amWhat’s next? Is it Google Wave? How should we be using Twitter? Which social networks should we be on? What’s next? Familiar questions? You hear these questions at conferences, trade shows, events, in the fishbowl, just about everywhere. They reflect a certain hunger, an almost desperate feeling from folks in the social media fishbowl, even from veteran practitioners. What’s next is a simple question to answer. As with many things, however, what’s simple is often not easy. What’s next is you. More specifically, what’s next for you is improving you, breaking… -
Advanced Social Media Course is Live!
4 Nov 2009 | 4:36 amI’m proud to announce that after several months of very hard work and significant effort on the parts of the University of San Francisco and our instructors, the Advanced Social Media certificate course is now live and available to the world! In this eight week course, you’ll get instruction from true social media experts and marketers like Jay Berkowitz, Jim Kukral, CC Chapman, and myself, plus expert legal advice from lawyers David Bates and Gaida Zirkelbach on managing the risks and best practices of social media from a legal perspective. What’s so different about this… -
Sissy words and painful mirrors
3 Nov 2009 | 3:32 amEver notice how our society and culture is slowly devaluing certain words, making them less common, making them less important, even though they’re important words? Here are some examples: - Virtue - Spirit - Valor - Moral Virtue’s turned into a kind of sissy word. Spirit’s avoided by an awful lot of people except in the contexts of church, school sports, and cloth armor for healers in World of Warcraft. Valor is so out of date that a decent number of people don’t even know what it means (beyond Emblems of Valor for iLevel 213 gear in Warcraft). Moral is either used as… -
Marketing with direct experience
1 Nov 2009 | 6:08 amSomething that’s been on my mind a great deal lately is how to integrate more direct experience into everything we do, from marketing to advertising to life itself. One of the most critical things to understand in business is the difference between exoteric and esoteric, or obvious and hidden. Exoteric is exactly what it is – surface details, things you can glean from stored knowledge alone. You can read, for example, about faraway places or follow Twitter streams from conferences and events and get a fairly hefty amount of data just from those sources. For example, if you… -
Heroism as the antidote to evil
28 Oct 2009 | 4:43 pm“When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” – Edmund Burke Go read this story on CNN about a two and a half hour rape of a 15 year old at a San Francisco high school function as nearly two dozen people stood around did nothing, or worse, joined in. No one called 911. No one got help. Very reminiscent of the Kitty Genovese case and the bystander effect. How do you stop something like this? How do you counteract something like this? How do you prevent something like this from ever happening…
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SheGeeks
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Digital Dollars Or Physical Cash?
4 Nov 2009 | 2:01 pmWhile attending PayPal X Innovate 09 in San Francisco this week, there was a very interesting theme that PayPal presented to attendees: cash is dead. Not really, but PayPal seems to think that cash is overrated and inefficient. At the end of the day, digital dollars should rule the world. It could not only be safer, but more convenient and very much easier to manage. “No cash? No problem, we accept PayPal too!” Now all you have to do is take out your phone and send the money to any of the many companies that will plug into PayPal’s new open API. This could be done via a… -
Learning Social Media: How To Create And Share Your Twitter Lists!
29 Oct 2009 | 7:56 amEarlier this month I reported on Twitter’s launch of a new feature, Twitter lists. Initially this was being rolled out in testing phases, but recently more tweeters are reporting their lists have been activate on their account. Twitter lists is a new way to group your Twitter followers. You can even add people that you don’t want to follow to a Twitter list. I listed 5 effective ways to use Twitter lists to your advantage. Using Twitter lists, you can keep track of a host of people you follow on Twitter including: Clients Brands (and their Twitter accounts) Bloggers Industry Experts… -
5 Tips To Avoid Being Filtered From Twitter Search
28 Oct 2009 | 11:39 amDid you know that Twitter is beginning to filter out tweets from Twitter Search? Did you know that you can’t twitter the same tweet twice? Neither did I until read “Recurring Tweets On Twitter Accounts Have Been Discontinued”. Joel Postman, author of Social Corp, performed a quick test that successfully verified that Twitter is filtering out recurring tweets. However, those aren’t the only type of tweets being filtered. Tweet sent from accounts marked as spam and people who are blocked by others too often will have their tweets filtered out of Twitter Search too. Whether… -
Beyond Filtering: Cut The Noise Out Of Your Networks
23 Oct 2009 | 12:14 pmFrom Google Wave to Mozilla (the makers of Firefox) recently announcing Mozilla Raindrop, developers are looking to take all of your communication platforms and turn them into one centralized inbox stream. The future is heading towards a new inbox, full of emails, tweets, direct messages, Facebook updates and whatever else they can throw in the mix, passed through a personalized filtering system. In theory, it sounds great. However in practice, it may be the most chaotic scene of communication we ever experience. Our inbox is already full of Facebook notifications, Twitter alerts and direct… -
Bing, Facebook, And Twitter: The Impact Of Social Media On Search
21 Oct 2009 | 1:28 pmThis should keep folks talking about Microsoft a lot more after Mac Tuesday’s drooling annoucements! Will Bing Replace Twitter Search? Today, Bing will integrate Twitter and Facebook status updates into their search services. Essentially, all of your updates will be available for public consumption like never before. This has the opportunity to propel your voice into the stratosphere of new outlets. Yet, pose some privacy and security concerns all in the same breath. If you head to http://bing.com/twitter you’ll notice a tag cloud of…
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B.L. Ochman
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Think There Are No More Real Heroes? Meet Zoe Koplowitz
2 Nov 2009 | 8:13 amI hope you will show this post to someone you love. This morning, at 9:30 a.m., I had the great good fortune to meet up with Zoe Koplowitz, as she approached mile 24 of her 21st NYC Marathon - on purple day-glo crutches, 27 hours after the start of the race. She, and a team of Guardian Angels who acompany her as she keeps her pace of approximately one mile per hour, were on course to finish her race in just under 29 hours. She told me she felt "fine," and we talked about her dog, as Benny - clearly recognizing a great soul - bowed before her (his best trick.) I told her she was a great… -
10 Things Social Media Can't Do
31 Oct 2009 | 11:30 amBy B.L. Ochman Amid the endless pronouncements about social media -- often shortened to "social" these days by consultants trying to sound like they know what they are talking about -- is the reality that social media is not a solution, or a sure bet. Social media can't: 1. Substitute for marketing strategy A Twitter campaign, or a Facebook page that announces your weekly specials is not a marketing strategy. 2. Succeed without top management buy-in Social media requires a way of thinking that includes willingness to listen to customers, make changes based on feedback, and trust employees to… -
Top Five Reasons Why Free is a Good Business Model & How We Plan to Use it to Retire Before We're 90
30 Oct 2009 | 9:21 amPawfun, the site I hope will one day allow me to say "I used to be a corporate social media consultant", is one year old this month. My partner, Caimin Jones, and I started out thinking we'd sell a ton of t-shirts, customized photo note cards, and personalized pet photo greeting cards to pet lovers. We've sold a bunch, but not enough to allow us to retire from consulting before we're 90. Then, Eureka! We realized that we weren't using the very community-building tools we've spent the last 10 years cajoling our Fortune 500 clients into trying. Pawfun's new focus: free We're changing our focus. -
Top 13 Guidelines for Commenting on Blog Posts
29 Oct 2009 | 9:17 amLike most bloggers, I love comments on my posts. Comments help bloggers feel like we're not talking to ourselves. I've learned a lot over the years from the smart people who comment on my posts. And I've made many friends whom I never would have met otherwise. Sometimes, I sit at my computer laughing out loud at the funny things people say. And sometimes, I just shake my head and wonder what in the world a person was thinking. Even though blogs have been on the landscape for more than a decade, it seems that some people don't understand how to comment on blog posts. So here are some… -
Ricola Cougher: a sick campaign that needs to die is baaaack!
29 Oct 2009 | 7:42 amYes, the entire world is paranoid about Swine Flu. Yes, everyone is ready to lynch people who cough, sneeze or sniffle in public. And yes, The Ricola Cougher, surely one of the Top 10 most ill-conceived marketing campaigns in history, is baaaaaaaack! Since 2005, the cougher has been turning up in public places and coughing. The first person to run up and hand him a cough drop won a prize. He coughed in hair salons, movie theaters, malls, parties and parks. He's lucky he didn't cough on the subway in New York, where people kill people who look at them wrong. This year, for the first time since…
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Brand Autopsy
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No More Starbucks Gold
6 Nov 2009 | 8:04 amLots of chatter online about the revamped Starbucks “rewards” program. Starbucks will discontinue its Gold Card program it began a year ago. The Starbucks Gold Card program was designed like many membership rewards program where customers pay a yearly $25 fee and in return they receive free refills on brewed coffee, free wi-fi access, and 10% off on all purchases. Beginning December 26, Starbucks will replace its Gold Card program with a "My Starbucks Rewards" program offering customers a free beverage after 15 purchases. (There are a few other small perks in this program but it's… -
WOMMA's Creating Talkable Brands Conference
31 Oct 2009 | 5:01 am*** My WOM Enthusiast hat is on with this post. It’s a few weeks until WOMMA’s Creating Talkable Brands Conference (Nov. 18 – 20, Las Vegas). Sign-ups have been strong. And for good reason — the agenda is strong. There are over 40 sessions with 4 learning tracks and 4 keynotes addresses (.pdf agenda). For each of the breakout sessions, WOMMA is pairing up a Brand with an Agency. So you’ll hear both perspectives, the brand-side and the agency-side, in each breakout. To help make sense out of the packed agenda, I’ve been sharing highlights from Day 1 and Day 2 on the ALL THINGS WOM… -
BAKED IN | a dramatic reading
29 Oct 2009 | 5:23 pmBAKED IN: Creating Products and Businesses That Market Themselves by Alex Bogusky and John Winsor gets the Marketing Masterpiece Theatre treatment. (Yep ... it's another dramatic reading of an influential business book by Sir Wilton Norman Chamberlain III.) RSS Readers ... click here to view the video. [NOTE: I often receive free copies of biz books from publishers and publicists. However, I spent my money for my copy of BAKED IN.] -
Social Business Design (Flaw)
14 Oct 2009 | 4:57 amThe Dachis Group is ringing up successes. They’ve hired a talented team. Been backed by big dollars from Austin Ventures. Gone global with the acquisition of London-based Headshift. And, introduced a new business term: Social Business Design. Kudos to everyone involved. However, I need help with the term, Social Business Design. The current design of its definition seems flawed to me.I tried explaining/defining the term to a friend the other day but did it poorly. (I think I know what it means, but I don’t.) It’s about using online applications (like ‘social media’ tools) to help… -
Understanding the New FTC Guidelines
11 Oct 2009 | 7:56 pmClearly my WOM Enthusiast hat is on with this post. (I work with WOMMA.)Last week was a big week for marketing, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released new guidelines (.pdf document) for how businesses can use endorsements and testimonials in marketing. It’s a complicated and nuanced matter. Hopefully the presentations below will help you better understand what has happened and what marketers must be doing now. For backstory purposes ... the FTC is in the business of protecting consumers from unscrupulous business practices, the commission believes consumers must be protected from being…
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Church of the Customer Blog
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Kicking out unwanted customers
30 Oct 2009 | 10:35 am"Don't talk during the movie or we will take your ass out." If you've been to an Alamo Drafthouse, the movie theater chain in Austin, Texas, then you've seen that semi-serious warning couched in a fun "public service announcement" before a movie showing. Theater founder Tim League knows that talkers mar the movie-watching experience for everyone else, and he does not tolerate them -- even if they punch the windshield of his car.See, Tim was a customer recently at one of his theaters. A nearby loud-talker was asked by a theater waiter to keep it down. The customer protested, loudly, demanding… -
Twitter: the killer app for customer service
22 Oct 2009 | 10:31 am"Hello, this is Sam Kaufman from the AT&T Internet Executive Office, and I am calling about your tweets."That's what I heard yesterday after posting a few tweets about my less-than-stellar customer service experience with an AT&T DSL technical support rep. The rep was trying to diagnose my DSL problems and after telling me to stay on the line for 10 minutes, he never returned after 30 minutes. I hung up. He never called back.With a few hours of my AT&T tweet, @ATTJohnathon, a customer care rep on Twitter contacted me, asking if he could help. I DM'ed him my account number as he… -
Fees are penalties. Always.
19 Oct 2009 | 1:24 pmIt's a wonder why some businesses can't grasp this. Consider the U.S. airlines last month: Southwest reported an 8.8% increase in revenue passenger miles. Its load factor, the percentage of seats that were filled, increased 11% from a year ago, to 74.7% — a big increase for a month in which schools reopen and summer vacation travels stop. JetBlue saw a 9.8% jump in passenger miles. Its load factor rose about 1% from the prior year, to 77.6%. Compare those numbers to other airlines. Delta: Down 5% on its mainline operation. It also cut capacity by 5%. American: Down 2.6% domestically. It cut… -
4 questions with author Jeanne Bliss
16 Oct 2009 | 1:30 pmWhat makes the difference between having customers who like you and customers who love you? Many businesses are admired, but only an elite few have passionate, loyal, vocal fans. The kind of customers who not only come back time and time again, but rave to friends, family, and even strangers. Jeanne Bliss has been the Chief Customer Officer for Lands End, Coldwell Banker, and Allstate, to name a few. Her new book, "I Love You More Than My Dog": Five Decisions That Drive Extreme Customer Loyalty in Good Times and Bad,is her take on how companies create beloved brands. Q: You describe… -
A social media truism
13 Oct 2009 | 8:01 amWhen times are good, participate.When times are tough, participate more.(Doesn't that read better than "advertise" in that old saying?)
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Conversation Agent
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Is Your Conversation About Scarcity or Abundance?
6 Nov 2009 | 4:00 amYou need to decide now, because your results depend on the answer. I have a problem with scarcity mindset - it's myopic, unnecessarily restrictive, and in fact destructive for you and your organization. Scarcity presupposes that you're the center of the universe, that the work box is the only box available for packing a life, and it doesn't have a good ending. It's a very lonely ending. Yesterday we talked about the difference between getting recognition for its own sake and getting the idea done. The latter is in the abundance camp. Which incidentally is the same place or context where weak… -
Participation and Getting Ideas Done
5 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am[Maestro Salieri and the priest, from Amadeus, 2:35]This week, so far, we talked about setting up listening posts to serve customers better as first line of response and to be proactive, building a framework to develop valuable content to deliver as a service, and measurement. Today we focus on participation. That mix of attention, time, interaction, with a sprinkle of human thrown into it that makes relationships start and grow.What did you see in the movie clip above? [hat tip Rohit Barghava for leading me to Amadeus] Antonio Salieri was the most famous composer in Europe. He wrote 40… -
Avinash Kaushik, Web Analytics 2.0
4 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am“In God we trust, all others bring data.” — Framed plaque from the ‘60s at NASA’s Johnson Space CenterWhen it comes to deep smarts, curiosity, with practical advice and sprinkled with a healthy dose of good humor, I cannot think of anyone more qualified than Avinash Kaushik. He's not only a real dynamo in all matters analytics, he's also a genuinely passionate, interesting, and kind person. Think that he wrote the answers to our conversation while his hand was healing from an injury because he had made a promise.Every single one of his posts - and now I can say the same for the… -
Developing a B2B Content Strategy: Start with Who
3 Nov 2009 | 4:00 amBusinesses that want to create long-term sustainable growth will be increasingly moving towards connected company status. That is the place where being social benefits the business by providing insights, strengthening relationships with partners and customers, and building and connecting a community with common grounds and needs. In many organizations, the listening post resides within the marketing group. As we discussed yesterday here and on Twitter, customer service should co-own the space and collaborate to develop big ears during customer conversations and interactions. In many B2B… -
Twitter, Customer Service, and Good Brand Management
2 Nov 2009 | 4:00 amIf monitoring conversations and knowing what you're listening for is the first ingredient in good online best practices, knowing when and how to respond is much more than good etiquette. It's become an integral aspect of brand management and can mean the difference between a flop - or worse, a crisis - and a deposit in your company's reputation bank.It's easy to dismiss Twitter's usefulness as a tool. That is until you figure out that on Twitter you can find mentions of your brand and you can actually connect with customers directly and provide a first line of response. Chances are, that in…
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HubSpot's Inbound Internet Marketing Blog
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The Rank Nazi: Your Content Is Not Worthy, No Rank For You! [cartoon]
6 Nov 2009 | 6:18 amShare Looking to get more organic traffic from Google? You need to create content that's worthy! (Yes, it's that simple. Not easy, but simple). If you liked this cartoon, you can find more cartoons in the recently released book: Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs. The book's been a runaway success (I think it's because of the cartoons, but my co-author thinks its the marketing advice -- you decide).By the way, if you're a Seinfeld fan, what's your favorite episode/scene? (I'm looking for more ideas for future cartoons). Become a Fan on… -
Study Reveals That Online Searches Affect Emotions, Memory
6 Nov 2009 | 4:48 amIf you’re not creating great content to help your company get found online, you’re missing an incredible opportunity to legitimately connect with people searching for information related to your industry or product.According to a new study from the University of Missouri, out of the 73% of American adults who use the internet daily, over half of them emotionally responded and remembered content that they found “searching” instead of “surfing.” This data, published as “The Effect of Searching Versus Surfing on Cognitive and Emotional Responses to Online News” in the… -
Top 5 Inbound Marketing Stories of the Week: Social Media Strategy
5 Nov 2009 | 10:11 pmDoes your company have a social media marketing strategy? If you're inclined to answer "yes" because you have a Twitter handle and a Facebook page, you may want to re-think your answer.Our top article on InboundMarketing.com this week urges you to take a step back, do your homework and form an actual strategy for social media marketing. What are your objectives? What are the opportunities? What are your competitors doing? After all, there's more to social media marketing than tweeting and Facebooking... 1.Developing a Social Media Marketing StrategyAuthor: Bernie… -
HubSpot TV - Facebook Halloween Horror with Guest Paul Dunay
5 Nov 2009 | 10:06 amEpisode #64 - October 30, 2009 (Episode Length: 24 minutes, 43 seconds)IntroHow to interact on Twitter: @karenrubin, @mvolpe and @PaulDunay with www.HubSpot.tv in your tweet.Subscribe in iTunes: http://itunes.hubspot.tv Guest: Paul DunayBook Giveaway! Go to Facebook.com/FBMarketingForDummies! Global Managing Director of Services and Social Marketing for Avaya and author of Facebook Marketing for DummiesBlog: Buzz Marketing for Technology Question from @KirstenPetra - When I fan someone, I don't feel like I am actually their friend and that I don't actually get anything in return. How… -
You Don't Have to Be a Great Writer to Write a Great Blog
4 Nov 2009 | 11:30 pmI am an engineer by training who had very little writing experience in my career until I started HubSpot. In the early days of the company, I could not write software, so I spent a lot of time writing articles for our Internet Marketing Blog and was pleasantly surprised by how well it performed. Today, the blog has over 20,000 subscribers and over 100,000 new visitors per month.The good performance convinced me that I had been suppressing brilliant writing skills for the last 20 years! I was so excited that I sent a note to my eighth grade teacher, Tom Brown, who helped me learn…
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MarketingProfs - Smart thinking ... pass it on.
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Four Case Studies: How These (Very Different) B2B Organizations Are Succeeding With Social Media
3 Nov 2009 | 8:00 amEven though B2C companies get the lion's share of coverage about the benefits of social media, B2B organizations of vastly different sizes and industries are making striking gains in employing these technologies to increase their market share and solve revenue challenges. -
The Three Most Popular Social Networks for Business (and Why You Should Use Them)
3 Nov 2009 | 8:00 amAn ancient proverb states that a "cord of three strands is not easily broken." By way of analogy, I hypothesize that the more individual connections to a particular person you have, the stronger your overall relationship with that person will be. In constructing my social graph (i.e., my network of connections), ... -
Marketing: Beware of 'Outkicking the Coverage'
3 Nov 2009 | 8:00 amAlthough football metaphors abound in business, this article explores the idea of "outkicking your coverage," which is when an overly strong player can actually be harmful to a team's performance. "Outkicking" refers to when an exceptional punter kicks the ball so far down the field that the runner for the receiving ... -
Making Your Email 'Social-able'
3 Nov 2009 | 8:00 amTake a minute and think about the folks with whom you socialize. You may have a professional network (LinkedIn) and a personal network (Facebook). You may tweet for fun or business, or for both—or maybe you just follow some sports figures on Twitter to keep up to date on the ... -
Proving ROI for Search-Engine Optimization
3 Nov 2009 | 8:00 amSearch-engine optimization (SEO) provides several return on investment (ROI) measures that can have a positive impact on a company's bottom line far more visibly than most marketing tactics. Yet despite all the potential, and the many SEO success stories, it can still be surprisingly difficult to make a case for investment ...
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Micro Persuasion
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Five Incredibly Useful Things You Can Do Without Ever Leaving Facebook
6 Nov 2009 | 5:31 pmI have been spending a fair amount of time on Facebook since they updated the news feed feature, mostly because I can get a quick read on what's new. I like how they show you "trends from friends." In the process, I am discovering that it's becoming a one-stop shop for many of my day-to-day activities. Here are five things that I recently found you can do right from within Facebook without having to leave...1) Read, search and post tweets via Twitgether, a full-featured Twitter client2) Watch TV streams via Hulu 3) Catch up with the local weather, using WeatherBug4) Read… -
Moms More Influenced Offline, While Kids Are Online
6 Nov 2009 | 4:53 pmTwo new studies point to a growing divide in how moms and kids communicate and are influenced...First up, Nielsen/Pete Blackshaw's Pocket Guide to Social Media and Kids: "In the hands of children and tweens, today’s cell phones are primarily used as text messaging devices, cameras, gaming consoles, video viewers, MP3 players, and incidentally, as mobile phones via the speaker capability so their friends can chime in on the call." And, via AdAge, parents are relying more on offline conversations to make decisions: "A study due out next week from the Parenting Group found that while… -
PR Pros on Press Releases - Meh
3 Nov 2009 | 4:01 pmMarketingCharts uncovers some fresh data on how PR people feel about press releases. It's ugly."(only) 49% of today’s professional communicators say they think press releases are 'as useful as ever,' according to recent poll of corporate communicators conducted by Ragan Communications and PollStream."And on why we can't kick the drug..."The poll also found that another 33% of the the 401 respondents see press releases as 'a necessary evil that won’t go away soon,' in large part because of disclosure rules for public companies set forth by the US Securities and Exchange Commission."And how… -
Three Ways to Thrive in the Age of Streams
3 Nov 2009 | 10:12 amThe images above should strike fear in any one who seeks attention - be it a brand, a politician or an individual. They come from Nielsen. The first (87) is the number of domains the average American visits in a month. The second (2600) is the number of web pages the average American visits in a month. This funnel is small when you think about the infinite choices we have today - an era of information abundance. And given that human attention doesn't scale, I anticipate these stats will remain stable. So how do you break through? Here are three steps I am considering in my work as a… -
Defining Media, Cross-Mating Elephants and Zebras
3 Nov 2009 | 9:34 amFive years ago there was media and social media and the two were distinct. You know what was what. It was like there elephants and zebras. You knew the difference. Today all media is social, all social is media. It's impossible to separate the two. The media all actively use social technologies to innovate, converse and collaborate with their audiences. Meanwhile, social content from friends - be it tweets or status updates or videos - all should be considered media. Yes, the elephants and the zebras have cross-mated. My colleague overheard me say this and he drew this little doodle for…
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The Viral Garden
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Stop asking the wrong blogging questions
2 Nov 2009 | 6:47 amWhether you are a new or seasoned blogger, many of you likely have many of the same questions:"How do I get more readers?""How do I get more comments on my posts?""What about blog subscribers? How do I get more of them?""How can I use Twitter to drive more traffic back to my blog? Or Facebook, or Friendfeed?"Notice that all of these questions are focused on YOU, the blogger. How YOU can get something.What if you instead asked this question: "What superpower will I give my readers?"I'm totally channeling Kathy Sierra here, but think of your blog as a telephone booth, and your reader is Clark… -
Social media needs fewer rockstars, and more rockstar ideas
26 Oct 2009 | 6:00 amLast week at the Marketing Profs Digital Marketing Mixer, I was struck at how many amazingly deep and brilliant conversations I had with so many people. Well this is to be expected, you might say, when you spend a few days in the company of such social media smarties as Ann Handley, Beth Harte, David Armano, Jay Baer and Amber Naslund.But here's the thing; most of those great conversations didn't happen with these people. In fact, they were with people that most of you probably haven't heard of. Heck I hadn't heard of many of them till I was introduced to them at the event.And that's been… -
Marketing Profs Digital Marketing Mixer: Recap
22 Oct 2009 | 8:00 pmIt's officially 'The Morning After' the latest Marketing Profs conference, the Digital Marketing Mixer. People are always asking me 'What are the best social media conferences to attend?' and the Marketing Profs' events are always at the top of my list.I think if there was a general theme at this year's event for me, it was 'How do we integrate social media into what we are already doing?' And this is a progression from where we were last year, which was still 'What the hell is Twitter/Facebook, anyway?' The problem I see (and this is in general, definitely not just at this event) is that too… -
Marketing Profs Digital Marketing Mixer : Day One
21 Oct 2009 | 8:31 pmMy brain is full of social media and marketing goodness from the Marketing Profs Digital Mixer, but I wanted to give you my takeaways and thoughts from Day One.The day for me started with the Blog Hot Seat Lab, and in talking with the attendees, I think blogging companies should keep these points in mind:1 - Assume every visitor to your blog arrived there by accident, has never heard of your blog, and has no idea what it's there for. The point is, you need to organize your blog so within 3-4 seconds, any visitor can see who you are, what you do, and why the blog is there. Make this info very… -
Social media is worth making time for
20 Oct 2009 | 12:40 pmThis is my current view as I sit in the airport waiting for my flight to Chicago for the Marketing Profs Digital Marketing Mixer. The past couple of months have been a very busy time for me professionally, and work with clients has taken up a lot of my time. Which is a great 'problem' to have, and I am grateful for it. But I've often caught myself putting my writing here and at my business site on hold, to spend more time helping my clients get their social media efforts off the ground.And I realized that I was doing exactly what I've told clients and others that they cannot do. I was putting…
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Being Peter Kim
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Binary thinking
3 Nov 2009 | 6:03 amA couple months ago after Snow Leopard was released, I was speaking with a friend about base 2, base 10, and base n numbers in general. Over the past month, I've been thinking about the definition of Social Business Design and considering the range of reactions from supporters and detractors. All business discussions can be reduced to a single binary argument focusing on the bottom line. Does it improve profitability, yes or no? In practice, the range of decisions a manager must make consists of a multitude of choices better described by real options theory and system dynamics. To make a… -
A conversation with Gary Vaynerchuk
27 Oct 2009 | 6:01 amA couple weeks ago, I had a public, online conversation with Gary Vaynerchuk aka @garyvee. He’s on a PR blitz to promote the release of his new book “Crush It.” If you’re not familiar with Vaynerchuk, he’s a self-trained wine expert who has used social media, online video in particular, to drive exponential growth in his family's wine business. At the same time, he's built a kingpin personal brand, signing a seven-figure, ten-book deal in Spring 2009. Vaynerchuk stands as proof of how participating in one’s customer ecosystem leads to business success. To view the entire… -
Defining Social Business Design: Style vs. Substance
26 Oct 2009 | 7:26 amSince communicating the definition of social business design earlier this month, I've noted a wide range of reactions to the concept. For the most part, people understand that we're talking about what's on the horizon for business. However, most detractors seem to take issue with the style of the idea's communication rather than its substance. Some say they don't understand. I'll take that at face value and suggest they try harder. Others ask why simpler words weren't used. Well, as a certain bald-headed guru told me, "words matter." Words do matter. When I began my stint as a Forrester… -
How open are you?
19 Oct 2009 | 6:19 amA couple weeks ago, my company launched its online presence, The Collaboratory. Part of the site contains a feed of our communications activity - whether public tweets, private "yams", or messages emailed. Each channel carries a varying level of opacity, for good reason. After operating the live stream in public view for a couple weeks, each of us has reflected upon the experience and shared our thoughts. My take: The Collaboratory made me rethink my perspective on authenticity in social media. For the most part, people live by the old T.S. Eliot quote, "prepare a face to meet the faces you… -
Enterprise 2.0, Social Media Marketing, and Social Business Design
14 Oct 2009 | 6:01 amHow do you refer to "this space"? If you're from a marketing or communications background, you likely refer to "Social Media Marketing." If you're from an IT background, you likely refer to "Enterprise 2.0." Recently, thought leaders have been shifting focus to "social business." This evolution is natural - and fully anticipated. There's nothing wrong with these terms, but it's time for us to straighten out terminology, especially when it comes to Social Media Marketing, Enterprise 2.0, Social Business, and Social Business Design... Continue reading on the Dachis Group Collaboratory
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PR-Squared
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4 Ways to Build Relationships with Web Content
6 Nov 2009 | 4:04 amThis is a guest post by Shannon Paul (find her on Twitter, too). A prolific online personality, in her “day job” Shannon is the communications manager for PEAK6 Online. On the PR/marketing side of the equation we know good products go unnoticed without proper promotion, but we’re often reluctant to make the same admission about content. If it makes you feel better, I’m not going to blame this problem on the proliferation of new channels of communication brought on by social media, etc. But, please know that great content does not market itself. Rather than going on… -
“Too Smart For Your Own Good?”
4 Nov 2009 | 4:03 amI’ve written more than once in the past about the need for marketers to avoid Shiny Object Syndrome and, more recently, to Think Organically when it comes to Social Media. Guess what? Not everybody reads my blog. As we have found ourselves increasingly competing not just against PR firms but against different types of marketing agencies, e.g., advertising, marcomm, branding, we have on occassion lost the bid because the Other Guys wowed the underinformed prospect with the snazziest aspects of Social Media. Will these happy-shiny approaches work? Likely not. But after you’ve spent a… -
Stop Building Microsites?
2 Nov 2009 | 4:20 amMany 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. Most brands are too “big” to allow a one-off campaign of any sort to dramatically affect their official corporate website … yet, corporations spend enough $$$ on such initiatives that they want to maximize the investment; and, for fans of the newly rolled-out campaign, a microsite is a handy, utilitarian place to show off more multimedia assets, aggregate conversations related to the campaign,… -
Is Social Media Too Boring for Advertising Industry?
26 Oct 2009 | 12:14 pmI’ve met with several advertising executive honchos in recent weeks, from agencies large and small. The topic? No surprise. Social Media. These advertising execs are gung-ho about Social Media; it is generating cool, surprising and lucrative new opportunities for their agencies. But as the “campaign” becomes the “commonplace,” challenges rear up… Here’s the gist of our conversations with the Ad Agency executives: Advertising Exec: “Thanks for coming by. We know you guys ‘get’ Social… -
Be Back Soon
21 Oct 2009 | 7:08 amI am working on a number of responses to RFPs that easily rank in the “OMFG” category, in terms of both the caliber of the prospective clients as well as the level of work required by the responses themselves. A good problem to have, and I am not complaining. But as you may already have noticed, posts to the blog and even Twitter have slowed considerably. Until I can get back to a more regular schedule, I leave you with this quick, fun video created for our clients at Movember, by the director of the recent hit ZOMBIELAND. Movember is dedicated to raising awareness of the perils…
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Techno//Marketer - Matt Dickman on Digital Marketing and Social Media
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MySpace Strives to Recover Its Cool [del.icio.us]
Interesting move, but is it too late? MySpace still is the leader in music, but can they get traction again? -
Where you at, Matt?
15 Oct 2009 | 8:09 amA number of you have noticed that I have been scarcely around the blog and Twittersphere over the past couple of months. I have a lot going on and wanted to step back and gather my thoughts. I just wanted you to know that I am not gone, I am just on a short hiatus. I have a couple of big announcements coming up as well as a little branding overhaul for Techno//Marketer. Long story short, I'm going to be back soon, better than ever (I hope), so thank you for reading and I'll be back in the conversation with you very soon. If you liked this post, you can subscribe to the Techno//Marketer RSS… -
Facebook Connect Goes Mobile [del.icio.us]
Facebook is extending its Connect data portability technology to developers of mobile sites and applications, following its launch six months ago for iPhone developers, the company announced Thursday in an official blog. -
Want better digital strategy, ban seven dirty words
8 Aug 2009 | 2:13 pmIf you love strategic planning as much as I do then I am sure that one of your biggest pet peeves is when people jump to tactics straight away in a planning meeting. Despite your most desperate attempts to steer things back on course, and define what the overall strategy looks like, you die a little when someone blurts out "Let's set up a YouTube channel and Tweet about it!". How do you get around this? Here is what I have started doing in my initial planning sessions and it seems to be working well so far. I've banned what I consider the seven dirty words of digital strategy. They are:… -
Financial Times Confirms Apple Tablet for September | Gadget Lab | Wired.com [del.icio.us]
Interesting. Competes with iPod and Kindle.
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B.L. Ochman's blog
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Think There Are No More Real Heroes? Meet Zoe Koplowitz
2 Nov 2009 | 8:13 amI hope you will show this post to someone you love. This morning, at 9:30 a.m., I had the great good fortune to meet up with Zoe Koplowitz, as she approached mile 24 of her 21st NYC Marathon - on purple day-glo crutches, 27 hours after the start of the race. She, and a team of Guardian Angels who acompany her as she keeps her pace of approximately one mile per hour, were on course to finish her race in just under 29 hours. She told me she felt "fine," and we talked about her dog, as Benny - clearly recognizing a great soul - bowed before her (his best trick.) I told her she was a great… -
10 Things Social Media Can't Do
31 Oct 2009 | 11:30 amBy B.L. Ochman Amid the endless pronouncements about social media -- often shortened to "social" these days by consultants trying to sound like they know what they are talking about -- is the reality that social media is not a solution, or a sure bet. Social media can't: 1. Substitute for marketing strategy A Twitter campaign, or a Facebook page that announces your weekly specials is not a marketing strategy. 2. Succeed without top management buy-in Social media requires a way of thinking that includes willingness to listen to customers, make changes based on feedback, and trust employees to… -
Top Five Reasons Why Free is a Good Business Model & How We Plan to Use it to Retire Before We're 90
30 Oct 2009 | 9:21 amPawfun, the site I hope will one day allow me to say "I used to be a corporate social media consultant", is one year old this month. My partner, Caimin Jones, and I started out thinking we'd sell a ton of t-shirts, customized photo note cards, and personalized pet photo greeting cards to pet lovers. We've sold a bunch, but not enough to allow us to retire from consulting before we're 90. Then, Eureka! We realized that we weren't using the very community-building tools we've spent the last 10 years cajoling our Fortune 500 clients into trying. Pawfun's new focus: free We're changing our focus. -
Top 13 Guidelines for Commenting on Blog Posts
29 Oct 2009 | 9:17 amLike most bloggers, I love comments on my posts. Comments help bloggers feel like we're not talking to ourselves. I've learned a lot over the years from the smart people who comment on my posts. And I've made many friends whom I never would have met otherwise. Sometimes, I sit at my computer laughing out loud at the funny things people say. And sometimes, I just shake my head and wonder what in the world a person was thinking. Even though blogs have been on the landscape for more than a decade, it seems that some people don't understand how to comment on blog posts. So here are some… -
Ricola Cougher: a sick campaign that needs to die is baaaack!
29 Oct 2009 | 7:42 amYes, the entire world is paranoid about Swine Flu. Yes, everyone is ready to lynch people who cough, sneeze or sniffle in public. And yes, The Ricola Cougher, surely one of the Top 10 most ill-conceived marketing campaigns in history, is baaaaaaaack! Since 2005, the cougher has been turning up in public places and coughing. The first person to run up and hand him a cough drop won a prize. He coughed in hair salons, movie theaters, malls, parties and parks. He's lucky he didn't cough on the subway in New York, where people kill people who look at them wrong. This year, for the first time since…
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Six Pixels of Separation
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Email Still Matters
7 Nov 2009 | 5:34 amEmail is dead. Right. Along with Blogging, Podcasting and everything else. But how true is that statement when it comes to getting business done? Do teens email as much as they text? Probably not. Teens have not been culturally stewed in the ways of going to an office and working on a computer. Most teens start down their technology road with a mobile device. It's also not mission critical for teens to manage, store and evaluate text messages or tweets from the day, week or month before. But, make no mistake about it, email still matters. And, it would matter to the younger generation if they… -
Marketing Is More Important Than You Think
5 Nov 2009 | 6:26 amDo you think that this is a Blog about technology? Others have said it's about New Media. Some have even suggested that it's about what's happening right now in the world of Social Media. The truth is that this Blog is about marketing. It's about how your business connects in a world where everybody is connected. It's also about how your messages are created and spread. We no longer have the luxury of communicating to consumers as we see fit (mostly through the muscle of mass media), because now there are many online channels where thousands (actually millions... actually billions) of people… -
Is All Of This Social Media Making You Hungry?
1 Nov 2009 | 5:05 pmI was stuck, and it was my own fault. After a long flight delay, I found myself in New York City, walking toward one of the most challenging places in which to find a healthy meal: Times Square. Beyond pizza, hot cashew nuts and a pastrami sandwich bigger than my head, I had no idea where to turn. So I turned to Twitter and sent out a request to my online community for a healthy, fast and fairly priced meal. I wasn't expecting much. Maybe "What? Are you saying that the Carnegie Deli is not fat-free?" But within a few minutes, I had the information I needed and, based on multiple… -
Tweetbait
1 Nov 2009 | 11:40 amIn the old day (like two years ago), linkbait was one of the best ways to get recognition, attention and comments for your Blog, but things are quickly changing. Several months ago, I sat down with Avinash Kaushik and recorded an audio conversation for my Six Pixels of Separation Podcast. Kaushik is the author of Web Analytics - An Hour A Day, a Blogger over at Occam's Razor and the Analytics Evangelist at Google (I'm also proud to call him a friend). In that conversation, he announced that his new book, Web Analytics 2.0, would be coming out (in fact, it's available this week!). In Web… -
The Post-Recession Consumer
31 Oct 2009 | 6:55 pmJohn Gerzema is the co-author of the book, The Brand Bubble. He spoke at TEDx KC about what the Post-Crisis Consumer will look like. These 17-minutes will make you think differently about how you sell and market - especially when you consider that your consumers are no longer the same people they were prior to the recession: TEDx KC - John Gerzema: The post-crisis consumer. Tags: brand bubble consumer john gerzema post-crisis consumer recession ted ted talks tedx kc
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Seth Godin
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Take what you can get (?)
7 Nov 2009 | 3:34 amWhen you're just starting out or when your organization is struggling or when the economy isn't hot, it's very tempting to take what you can get.You just graduated from law school and you have a lot of debt and the best job you can get is doing collections work. Should you take it?Your consulting firm is organized around providing high-value work for large corporations, but the only gigs you can get in the consideration set for are small, struggling companies looking to spend a few hundred dollars a day. Should you take them?The list goes on and on.There are two things worth remembering here:… -
Everyone is clueless
6 Nov 2009 | 2:29 amThe problem with "everyone" is that in order to reach everyone or teach everyone or sell to everyone, you need to so water down what you've got you end up with almost nothing.Everyone doesn't go to the chiropractor, everyone doesn't give to charity, everyone has never been to Starbucks. Everyone, in fact, lives a decade behind the times and needs hundreds of impressions and lots of direct experience before they realize something is going on.You don't want everyone. You want the right someone.Someone who cares about what you do. Someone who will make a contribution that matters. Someone who… -
The unclicking 84%
5 Nov 2009 | 2:36 amMark points us to this great set of stats.Basically, all of the clicks for all the ads online come from only 16% of the surfers, and most of them come from just 4% of all internet users.So, if you optimize your ads for clicks, it means you're ignoring a huge population.If your business is built around the kind of person who clicks, you win. If it isn't, you either need to not buy ads online or buy ads optimized for attention and familiarity, not clicks.Imagine that only left-handed people clicked on ads (it's about the same percent). What are you going to do if you make a product for the… -
When data and decisions collide
4 Nov 2009 | 2:54 amUntil recently, most of the decisions we were called on to make were based on hunches, insight and a little bit of data. Occasionally, a field like direct marketing would develop into something quite data-driven ("I don't care if you like mailer one, Smythe, mailer #2 did three times, better! Number 2 it is.") but not often.It took Ignaz Semmelweis more than twenty years (he died before it happened, actually) to persuade doctors that washing their hands could save the lives of mothers giving birth. He had the data, he had the proof, but that wasn't enough to change minds.Data mining and the… -
Limited edition boxed set available today SOLD OUT!
3 Nov 2009 | 7:41 am[We ended up selling more than three a minute. You guys are so cool. We had a few counter problems, but it didn't effect the number we sold...they're all gone, 800 in total, and I won't be able to sell any more. Thank you for the energy and support!]It seems as though the Apple tablet is unlikely to be ready in time for the holidays... what to get? How about a boxed (a wooden box) set of five of my books? Very limited (only 800 will be sold, ever). Sold at a discount from retail, with cool packaging, assembled by elves, delivered by Martians, blessed by enlightened goats. My goal was to make…
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The Altimeter by Charlene Li
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Wanted: Your opinion on book titles (Part 2)
27 Oct 2009 | 11:16 amPreviously, I asked for help in naming the book, and we’re done to the wire in terms of finalists. I’m hoping you can take two minutes to complete a very short survey on our title possibilities. I realize that asking an audience of people who are pre-disposed to being open is probably not the most scientific way to do this! So taking a page from Tim Ferris, I’m also running the title possibilities against specific search keywords to see which ones get the most clickthroughs. I’ll post the results from both the survey and the search engine test shortly. Book Title… -
International examples of “open” organizations and leaders needed
27 Oct 2009 | 10:51 amI’m wrapping up work on my next book “Open” and am in need of a few examples of organizations and leaders outside of North America. In particular, I’m looking for examples of organizations that have put in place more open information sharing or decisions making processes or technologies, and as a result, have seen substantial business impact. In particular, I’m interested in learning how they went through the journey of letting go of control, and in the process, transformed the relationship they have with customers and/or employees. Here are a few examples: -… -
Social Search: Customers Influence Search Results Over Brands
22 Oct 2009 | 9:42 amThis post was collaboratively written (in real time) on a wiki by Charlene Li who maintains a focus on Leadership Strategy and Jeremiah Owyang, who maintains a focus on Customer Strategy. Together, we’re covering the convergence of emerging technologies at the Altimeter Group Twitter brokers a deal that offers search engines Microsoft Bing and Google Search access to their real time data streams. Also, Facebook, offers up public status updates to be searched and served up to Microsoft’s Bing. This trend towards micro media requires companies to pay attention to the real time and… -
Can you control your customers?
15 Oct 2009 | 6:09 amI just received an interesting email promotion for an upcoming conference. At the top of the email, in big bold letters was this: “It’s time to take back control!” Now that definitely caught my eye, as I’m writing a book about being open. That’s because the number one concern I hear from executives — and especially marketers — is how out of control they feel these days. Here’s some more text from the email: “Reaching today’s consumers is more challenging than ever. Both savvy and wary of marketing, they control when, where and how… -
Revealing Google’s Stealth Social Network Play
7 Oct 2009 | 8:37 amThis post was collaboratively written on a wiki by Charlene Li, who maintains a focus on Leadership Strategy and Jeremiah Owyang, who maintains a focus on Customer Strategy. Together, we’re covering the convergence of emerging technology at the Altimeter Group. Google has quietly been launching a social network right under our own chins. No, it’s not about Google extending Orkut, a social networking platform they developed a few years ago, or growing Google groups, or even launching their own version of a twitter. Instead they’ve been releasing small bits of social…
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John Battelle
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Twitter Incorporates Retweeting (Beta Launch)
6 Nov 2009 | 12:50 pmSaw this greeting me whilst on Twitter.com today (gotta love WiFi on a plane): Nice to see Twitter rolling out so many new things, like Lists, which seems to be taking off (though I find the lack of a discovery interface vexing, for now). Retweeting is integrated in an elegant way, tweets that have been retweeted have a little cycled arrow icon, which identifies tweets that folks you've followed have retweeted. Another signal (as are Lists) that Twitter will be able to use as core data to drive its unique value. Watch that space, it's where Twitter will win (or lose). Twitter also added the… -
A Step Toward Realizing the Data Bill of Rights Vision
5 Nov 2009 | 4:19 amDanny was kind enough to ping me about this story, which breaks the news about Google's new "Dashboard," which is, in essence, a first start toward realizing the "privacy dashboard" I asked for so long ago (and again here), back when I was posting ideas like a madman (I'm going to be doing that again shortly, so watch out...). It's a big deal I think, even if most of us never use it. And it's very smart of Google to lead here. It really had no choice, when you think about it. And it's kind of cool to see stuff I wrote about here over three years ago happen in the real world. -
OK, What the Real Phone Map Should Be
3 Nov 2009 | 3:05 pmThe sphere is abuzz with today's news that AT&T is suing Verizon over those apparently quite effective ads which borrow heavily from Apple's tagline - "There's an App for that..." Verizon has created a map that compares AT&T 3G coverage to Verizon's, and then uses the tagline "there's a map for that." (Above is the commercial, here's the map.) Well, I've been ranting about a real carrier mapping application (executed as a marketing campaign, natch), for nearly three years, and while I've told just about everyone I can about it, so far it's still not done (I know, I know, we should… -
Twitter Lists
2 Nov 2009 | 7:12 pmThere's much to say about Twitter's slow to roll out but much discussed Lists feature. I'm a fan of it, in short, for many reasons. Lists is a pretty simple idea - it lets anyone make and share a list of folks on Twitter. But it's also a powerful new signal that will help Twitter solve two of its most vexing problems - first, that of discovery, and second, that of authority. Not to mention it gives everyone a chance to add value above the level of a single "follower", more on that later. In short, if done right, Lists will provide the Twitter ecosystem a third dimension that might just propel… -
What "Tweet" Needs to Become: To Share a Moment
27 Oct 2009 | 11:14 amLast week was big for Twitter. After years of speculation about whether the company was going to have a business model, Twitter announced two deals at our Web2 conference - first with Microsoft's Bing, and second with Google. Details of the deals were not disclosed, but as Google's Marissa Mayers admitted onstage, there were indeed financial terms. What those terms might be strike me as secondary to the fact the deals got done in the first place. Sure, they probably consist of some combination of data services fees and revenue sharing, but the fact remains that monetizing a real…
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John Jantsch
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3 Sources of Grammar Inspiration
6 Nov 2009 | 6:20 am3 Sources of Grammar InspirationThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing About once a week I amuse the grammar troops by torturing some aspect of the language in my writing. Hey, I don’t do it on purpose and I love that I’m able to provide an otherwise cuddly group of individuals with a steady flow of chuckles. I’ve had this post in the back of my mind for some time, but I was prompted to write it today by a LinkedIn status update I saw yesterday. (Name of victim withheld) – “Excited to attend my first titter conference today.” In the always on, say… -
Trust Me: Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma
5 Nov 2009 | 3:16 amTrust Me: Four Steps to Authenticity and CharismaThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing Marketing podcast with Nick Morgan (Click to listen, right click and Save As to download – subscribe now via iTunes Trust – can’t get enough of that as a brand, business, or person these days. Everyone knows that, but what they may not know is that there are things each of is doing that may be unintentionally eroding trust – particularly when it comes to the topic of speaking and presenting. In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast Nick Morgan, author of Trust Me, talks… -
Social Media Training Course Beta Testers Needed
3 Nov 2009 | 5:03 amSocial Media Training Course Beta Testers NeededThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing This whole social media thing for small business can be confusing, I know, I speak to groups of small business owner routinely and hear things like – “I’m overwhelmed, I’m tired of the hype, what do I do first, how do I find the time.” Update: The good news is a lot of people really want to beta test this program – over 125 left comments for the 10 spots, but I guess that’s the bad news too. Here’s what I’ve decided to do – I will choose 20 beta… -
Biznik Blends High Tech with High Touch
2 Nov 2009 | 1:13 pmBiznik Blends High Tech with High TouchThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing Fortunately, it’s starting to feel like the wave of social media hype has crested and small businesses can turn their attention to understanding social media “best practices” rather than obsessing over next week’s new tool. Today’s greatest small business opportunity awaits those who learn to skillfully blend the awareness creating, automating, and filtering aspects of social media platforms with the trust and customer building aspects of education based, face-to-face networking. -
Weekend Favs October Thirty-One
31 Oct 2009 | 5:20 amWeekend Favs October Thirty-OneThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing I’ve added a weekend post routine that I hope you enjoy. Each weekend I write a post that features 3-4 things I read during the week that I found interesting. Generally speaking it doesn’t involve much analysis and may range widely in topic. (Flickr image included here is also fav image of the week) Enjoy! Good stuff I ran across this week: Twitter Gallery - Nice collection of free twitter backgrounds. This is an asset that should be branded, but at least dress it up a bit. KnowEm – Search over 340 popular social…
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Tom Peters
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New "Mini-MASTER"
5 Nov 2009 | 4:07 pmI've been fooling around with a lot of formats for recent events in the likes of Luanda, Riyadh, Dhahran, Mumbai, New Delhi, and Toronto. I've also been folding some of the stuff in the new book into my presentations. For my own use, I created a 525-slide monster I titled "Mini-MASTER." Here it is, FYI. -
King Fahd University
5 Nov 2009 | 8:26 amTom's public seminar yesterday was hosted by King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals in Dhahran. "KFU is as good as it gets in its field," Tom reports. "I had a lovely time. I think we got some good work done—and had a lovely time along the way. As an engineer, I have great fun poking fun at my brethren." He adds, "If it gets any better than Saudi hospitality, I don't know where." (At Tom's request, spaces at the seminar were made available for "a couple of dozen students.") As always, please let us hear from you, and you can get the PPT slides here. -
The Little BIG Things video series
4 Nov 2009 | 8:33 amAs mentioned previously, Tom's been busily working on a new book. The Little BIG Things: 163 Ways to Pursue Excellence will be published early next year. Our talented friends at Enterprise Media captured Tom's thoughts during an early draft stage of the book. The words in the book will have little resemblance to the words Tom uses in these videos, as there have been numerous draft revisions, but the concepts are the same. Our new video feature can be found at the top right of the front page under the banner. The video series starts off with the topic of the recession, the first being… -
Excellence Slides
2 Nov 2009 | 4:53 amTom's on the road again, this time speaking to the International Conference on Administrative Development: Towards Excellence in Public Sector Performance, in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. If you attended the event which took place earlier today, please let us hear from you in the comments. If you would like to get the PPT slides, you can do so here: Excellence Always, Riyadh Riyadh, Long Version -
Psychology By Any Other Name
29 Oct 2009 | 6:26 amI love the book Nudge—the content's pretty good, the title even better! But I hate—literally hate—the title of the genre. Namely, "behavioral economics." Oh for God's sake. Behavioral economics? Translation? Psychology! (Or as I like to call the field, "Economists discover humans.") But that's actually not the topic of this post. As I write I sit in a beautiful British Airways Club Class lounge in Heathrow's opulent Terminal 5. The lounge is big. The lounge is well appointed. There are two parts. There is no distinction between the two parts in terms of access. The "half"…
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Brian Solis
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Rumors of the Death of Blogs are Greatly Exaggerated
6 Nov 2009 | 4:02 amSource: feministingEach year at Blogworld Expo, Technorati CEO Richard Jalichandra presents The State of the Blogosphere as one of the event’s prestigious keynotes. For those who are unfamiliar with Technorati, it serves as a directory and search engine for the blogosphere as well as a benchmark for the ranking of blogs worldwide.While there has been much discussion about the relevance and even demise of blogs as the statusphere and micro updates gained traction in addition to earning prominence in the mainstream spotlight, the reality is that blogs are a vital ingredient to the media… -
RT @Twitter: New Retweet Feature Goes Live
5 Nov 2009 | 7:29 pmSource: TwitterThis is breaking news at the moment, therefore this post will update as new information trickles in.Twitter is making good on its recent promise to introduce new features to bring users back to Twitter.com.Similar to the way that it rolled out Lists, Twitter is incrementally releasing its new Retweet feature initially previewed in August 2009.As described by @Biz, co-founder of Twitter:Retweet is a button that makes forwarding a particularly interesting tweet to all your followers very easy. In turn, we hope interesting, newsworthy, or even just plain funny information will… -
Social Media Influencers are not Traditional Influencers
5 Nov 2009 | 4:19 amSourceGuest post by Damien Basille, follow him on Twitter | Read his blogAs more and more brands are moving all of their ad spend online, defining how influence affects their return on investment is necessary and must be done as soon as possible. While some are making inroads to define these calculations many are overlooking the fact that influence affects everything. Without factoring in the real issue of different types of influence you run into a number of problems, for instance focusing on one group of influencers over another or getting broad sweeping numbers instead of knowing exactly… -
The Future of the Embargo
3 Nov 2009 | 4:25 amCreditIn media and blogger relations, PR typically wields two powerful tools to help boost the effectiveness of pitching and potential placement of news: the embargo and the exclusive.In the case of an exclusive, a story is usually packaged prior to official release for one particular writer, fully understanding their style, nuances, and audience. If the story is accepted, it is not pitched to any other media outlets until after the story runs. The benefit for PR is that it can bank on the publishing of a guaranteed, high profile story. The advantage for the reporter is that they maintain a… -
Twitter Releases New Widget for Lists
2 Nov 2009 | 7:14 pmTwitter recently expanded its new Lists service to users network-wide and in doing so, injected a sense of excitement, confusion, and also utility. Lists represent a significant milestone for Twitter as it transcends asynchronous conversations and and broadcast messages into a form of intelligence gathering, education, entertainment, and news.Twitter Lists are also stirring controversy as many believe that it sets the foundation for a new level of establishing a metric for influence. Whereas prominence was measured by the number of followers as well as the friends-to-follower ratio, now the…
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Conversation Agent
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Is Your Conversation About Scarcity or Abundance?
6 Nov 2009 | 4:00 amYou need to decide now, because your results depend on the answer. I have a problem with scarcity mindset - it's myopic, unnecessarily restrictive, and in fact destructive for you and your organization. Scarcity presupposes that you're the center of the universe, that the work box is the only box available for packing a life, and it doesn't have a good ending. It's a very lonely ending. Yesterday we talked about the difference between getting recognition for its own sake and getting the idea done. The latter is in the abundance camp. Which incidentally is the same place or context where weak… -
Participation and Getting Ideas Done
5 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am[Maestro Salieri and the priest, from Amadeus, 2:35]This week, so far, we talked about setting up listening posts to serve customers better as first line of response and to be proactive, building a framework to develop valuable content to deliver as a service, and measurement. Today we focus on participation. That mix of attention, time, interaction, with a sprinkle of human thrown into it that makes relationships start and grow.What did you see in the movie clip above? [hat tip Rohit Barghava for leading me to Amadeus] Antonio Salieri was the most famous composer in Europe. He wrote 40… -
Avinash Kaushik, Web Analytics 2.0
4 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am“In God we trust, all others bring data.” — Framed plaque from the ‘60s at NASA’s Johnson Space CenterWhen it comes to deep smarts, curiosity, with practical advice and sprinkled with a healthy dose of good humor, I cannot think of anyone more qualified than Avinash Kaushik. He's not only a real dynamo in all matters analytics, he's also a genuinely passionate, interesting, and kind person. Think that he wrote the answers to our conversation while his hand was healing from an injury because he had made a promise.Every single one of his posts - and now I can say the same for the… -
Developing a B2B Content Strategy: Start with Who
3 Nov 2009 | 4:00 amBusinesses that want to create long-term sustainable growth will be increasingly moving towards connected company status. That is the place where being social benefits the business by providing insights, strengthening relationships with partners and customers, and building and connecting a community with common grounds and needs. In many organizations, the listening post resides within the marketing group. As we discussed yesterday here and on Twitter, customer service should co-own the space and collaborate to develop big ears during customer conversations and interactions. In many B2B… -
Twitter, Customer Service, and Good Brand Management
2 Nov 2009 | 4:00 amIf monitoring conversations and knowing what you're listening for is the first ingredient in good online best practices, knowing when and how to respond is much more than good etiquette. It's become an integral aspect of brand management and can mean the difference between a flop - or worse, a crisis - and a deposit in your company's reputation bank.It's easy to dismiss Twitter's usefulness as a tool. That is until you figure out that on Twitter you can find mentions of your brand and you can actually connect with customers directly and provide a first line of response. Chances are, that in…
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OPEN Forum by American Express OPEN
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What We Can Learn From Designers
6 Nov 2009 | 2:23 pmFrom Matthew E. May: Warren Berger is the author of Glimmer: How Design Can Transform Your Life and Maybe Even the World, just published by Penguin Press. I found the book to be a breed apart from all of the many design thinking books hitting the shelves, and worth a further look. Question: Why did you write Glimmer? Answer: This book started with me trying to answer for myself the basic question, “What is design?” I’d been writing about it on and off for years, for magazines like Wired, and it was always interesting to me that the term was used in so many different ways. As… -
Market Using Your Grandfather's Business Model: Barter
6 Nov 2009 | 2:15 pmFrom Shira Levine: No overhead is quite the pleasant notion for small businesses struggling to stay alive and profitable in this economy. Often times advertising, marketing and PR budgets are the first to be slashed when times get tough. Yet those are the very legs that bring more business. Businesses that think outside of the box and even a bit Old Country, using the classic old school barter and applying it online and using social media are finding it easier to keep costs down and their communications departments alive. Bottom line: Hustling an online barter can remove the exchange of… -
The 40-30-30 Rule: Why Risk is Worth It
6 Nov 2009 | 2:07 pmFrom Michael Schwalbe: Many of the strategies employed in competitive and recreational sports are often applicable in business and our personal lives. One lesson I learned from alpine ski racing was the "40-30-30 Rule." During training, early on, I tried to go fast and I also focused on not falling. On a ride up the ski lift, my coach told me I was missing the point. He explained that success in ski racing, or most sports for that matter, was only 40% physical training. The other 60% was mental. And of that, the first 30% was technical skill and experience. The second 30% was the willingness… -
Student Entrepreneurs Turn Dorm Rooms into Business Offices
6 Nov 2009 | 1:52 pmFrom Jill Fehrenbacher: Few stages in life are as ripe with learning and experimentation, curiosity and exploration, as one’s college years. College used to be viewed as the last rite of passage prior to entering the ‘real world’ -- the last stop before figuring out what you really wanted to do with your life before taking the plunge. But an increasing amount of enthusiastic college students are pairing their diploma earning efforts with entrepreneurial endeavors, resulting in lofty, passion fueled businesses with dorm room roots. Boldness is a crucial element required… -
Choose the Right Metrics...or Make the Wrong Decisions
6 Nov 2009 | 1:43 pmFrom John Mariotti: Have you been ill and had a temperature lately? You probably compared your temperature to “normal” which you were taught for years was 98.6 F. Wrong. The correct human body temperature is closer to 98.25F (and that is an average, because there are variations from person to person). The 98.6F reading was developed in 1868, when Carl Wunderlich published a seminal paper on body temperature in 25,000 adults. But his study was done using imprecise measuring devices and techniques of that era, yet it has been widely accepted over 100…
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Neuromarketing
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Emsense Raises $9 Million
3 Nov 2009 | 9:09 amNeuromarketing firm Emsense has raised $9 million in additional capital. The new round was led by an investment from Technology Partners with existing investor the Foundry Group also participating. This funding will allow EmSense to continue its global expansion in support of its many market research partners. The funds will also enable the company [...] -
Want Some Emotion with That Website?
3 Nov 2009 | 5:01 amAs a web community guy, one of the most common problems I see is the failure to communicate emotion properly when people interact online. A remark intended as humorous can be perceived as a personal attack, or an expression of sympathy can be taken as cruel sarcasm. While I always suggest caution (particularly [...] -
College Branding: What if Harvard Moved Next Door?
2 Nov 2009 | 5:06 amWhy do most college branding efforts end up as meaningless pablum? I think it’s because most colleges have been relatively insulated from the effects of devastating competition. In fact, historically there have been major barriers to competition in the cozy world of higher education. The biggest have been geography, cost, and reputation. [...] -
Scent Marketing vs. Social Media
30 Oct 2009 | 5:23 amThe other day, Ad Age’s CMO Strategy Section ran a column by Harald Vogt on scent marketing. Vogt may not be entirely impartial on the topic – he is the founder and chief marketer of the Scent Marketing Institute – but he makes some good points when he questions why so few marketers employ [...] -
Sugar as Brain Food
29 Oct 2009 | 5:22 amThis isn’t great news for dieters, but sometimes sugar can be a good thing. Roy Baumeister, a psychologist at Florida State University, had subjects perform a mentally taxing task – watching a video while being careful to ignore random words scrolling across the bottom of the screen. (Apparently, it takes quite a bit [...]
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Make the Logo Bigger
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My dog is delish!
6 Nov 2009 | 10:44 amIn spirit, according to the sample of Rachael Ray dog food I got in the mail. Nutrish! The package looks like bad candy design from the 1970s, and the actual sample bag inside looked even more odd. Felt like the back of a recipe card for some reason. (Dog ate it so I suppose it’s okay from a “dogs will eat anything’ perspective. Of course, dogs also eat their own puke and sniff each other’s butts.) Have to wonder if this move puts her regular brand on par with dog food too much though. Ya think? -
“Hy-Tech Autobaby, may I help you?”
6 Nov 2009 | 7:31 amAs brilliantly as I think Rhett & Link have put “bad” local on the map, they still can’t replicate the well-meaning intentions of the DIY small business crowd. Oh sure, E*TRADE has CGI coming out of it’s diapers, but it’s hard to beat an auto baby operator. Experience the difference!(Via Mat. O.) -
“First, ya gotta know your product.”
5 Nov 2009 | 9:14 pmChevy trucks didn’t just fly out the door in 1941 by themselves—you had to sell them, mister! -
Hot Pockets—It’s what’s for viral.
5 Nov 2009 | 9:07 pmThey’re back. But lose the mascot and just let the skaters do cool shit while eating... Hot Pockets. -
Flickr represent.
5 Nov 2009 | 9:04 pmOld school jazz vinyl covers from the 1960s? Nailed.(Tip to Zeke.)
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PR2.0
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Rumors of the Death of Blogs are Greatly Exaggerated
6 Nov 2009 | 4:02 amSource: feministingEach year at Blogworld Expo, Technorati CEO Richard Jalichandra presents The State of the Blogosphere as one of the event’s prestigious keynotes. For those who are unfamiliar with Technorati, it serves as a directory and search engine for the blogosphere as well as a benchmark for the ranking of blogs worldwide.While there has been much discussion about the relevance and even demise of blogs as the statusphere and micro updates gained traction in addition to earning prominence in the mainstream spotlight, the reality is that blogs are a vital ingredient to the media… -
RT @Twitter: New Retweet Feature Goes Live
5 Nov 2009 | 7:29 pmSource: TwitterThis is breaking news at the moment, therefore this post will update as new information trickles in.Twitter is making good on its recent promise to introduce new features to bring users back to Twitter.com.Similar to the way that it rolled out Lists, Twitter is incrementally releasing its new Retweet feature initially previewed in August 2009.As described by @Biz, co-founder of Twitter:Retweet is a button that makes forwarding a particularly interesting tweet to all your followers very easy. In turn, we hope interesting, newsworthy, or even just plain funny information will… -
Social Media Influencers are not Traditional Influencers
5 Nov 2009 | 4:19 amSourceGuest post by Damien Basille, follow him on Twitter | Read his blogAs more and more brands are moving all of their ad spend online, defining how influence affects their return on investment is necessary and must be done as soon as possible. While some are making inroads to define these calculations many are overlooking the fact that influence affects everything. Without factoring in the real issue of different types of influence you run into a number of problems, for instance focusing on one group of influencers over another or getting broad sweeping numbers instead of knowing exactly… -
The Future of the Embargo
3 Nov 2009 | 4:25 amCreditIn media and blogger relations, PR typically wields two powerful tools to help boost the effectiveness of pitching and potential placement of news: the embargo and the exclusive.In the case of an exclusive, a story is usually packaged prior to official release for one particular writer, fully understanding their style, nuances, and audience. If the story is accepted, it is not pitched to any other media outlets until after the story runs. The benefit for PR is that it can bank on the publishing of a guaranteed, high profile story. The advantage for the reporter is that they maintain a… -
Twitter Releases New Widget for Lists
2 Nov 2009 | 7:14 pmTwitter recently expanded its new Lists service to users network-wide and in doing so, injected a sense of excitement, confusion, and also utility. Lists represent a significant milestone for Twitter as it transcends asynchronous conversations and and broadcast messages into a form of intelligence gathering, education, entertainment, and news.Twitter Lists are also stirring controversy as many believe that it sets the foundation for a new level of establishing a metric for influence. Whereas prominence was measured by the number of followers as well as the friends-to-follower ratio, now the…
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Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing
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3 Sources of Grammar Inspiration
6 Nov 2009 | 6:20 am3 Sources of Grammar InspirationThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing About once a week I amuse the grammar troops by torturing some aspect of the language in my writing. Hey, I don’t do it on purpose and I love that I’m able to provide an otherwise cuddly group of individuals with a steady flow of chuckles. I’ve had this post in the back of my mind for some time, but I was prompted to write it today by a LinkedIn status update I saw yesterday. (Name of victim withheld) – “Excited to attend my first titter conference today.” In the always on, say… -
Trust Me: Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma
5 Nov 2009 | 3:16 amTrust Me: Four Steps to Authenticity and CharismaThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing Marketing podcast with Nick Morgan (Click to listen, right click and Save As to download – subscribe now via iTunes Trust – can’t get enough of that as a brand, business, or person these days. Everyone knows that, but what they may not know is that there are things each of is doing that may be unintentionally eroding trust – particularly when it comes to the topic of speaking and presenting. In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast Nick Morgan, author of Trust Me, talks… -
Social Media Training Course Beta Testers Needed
3 Nov 2009 | 5:03 amSocial Media Training Course Beta Testers NeededThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing This whole social media thing for small business can be confusing, I know, I speak to groups of small business owner routinely and hear things like – “I’m overwhelmed, I’m tired of the hype, what do I do first, how do I find the time.” Update: The good news is a lot of people really want to beta test this program – over 125 left comments for the 10 spots, but I guess that’s the bad news too. Here’s what I’ve decided to do – I will choose 20 beta… -
Biznik Blends High Tech with High Touch
2 Nov 2009 | 1:13 pmBiznik Blends High Tech with High TouchThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing Fortunately, it’s starting to feel like the wave of social media hype has crested and small businesses can turn their attention to understanding social media “best practices” rather than obsessing over next week’s new tool. Today’s greatest small business opportunity awaits those who learn to skillfully blend the awareness creating, automating, and filtering aspects of social media platforms with the trust and customer building aspects of education based, face-to-face networking. -
Weekend Favs October Thirty-One
31 Oct 2009 | 5:20 amWeekend Favs October Thirty-OneThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing I’ve added a weekend post routine that I hope you enjoy. Each weekend I write a post that features 3-4 things I read during the week that I found interesting. Generally speaking it doesn’t involve much analysis and may range widely in topic. (Flickr image included here is also fav image of the week) Enjoy! Good stuff I ran across this week: Twitter Gallery - Nice collection of free twitter backgrounds. This is an asset that should be branded, but at least dress it up a bit. KnowEm – Search over 340 popular social…
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Business is Personal
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A not so little reason why American Airlines loses millions
7 Nov 2009 | 5:30 amphoto credit: typicalgenius While it would be easy to squeeze them off one by one, I won’t go into all the obvious reasons. This one is a bit more subtle but just as deadly to a company. The really poisonous thing is that attitudes like this come from the top down and they are CYA’d all the way up the food chain. Further comment on this whole airline thing will come in a future King For A Day, but for now, just check out Dustin’s experience in today’s triple feature guest post from Dustin Curtis. Dear American Airlines Dear Dustin Curtis Incompetence Your takeaway? Two… -
King for a Day: Verizon
6 Nov 2009 | 11:07 amDownload audio file (KingForADayVerizon.mp3) photo credit: Sister72 I‘d like to introduce a new series called “King for a Day“. For the acronym-challenged, you might see me refer to it as KFAD now and then, so don’t assume I’m talking about a local radio station. King for a Day is a series that will discuss some steps I’d take or issues I’d address if I was to become what else… “King (of a particular business) for a Day”. The idea is to use big companies that many are familiar with and allow you to extrapolate from there to your… -
100 things waiters, real estate agents and mechanics should never do, Part 2
5 Nov 2009 | 10:45 amphoto credit: paintMonkey Yesterday, we went over the first 50 items on the NY Times’ “100 things restaurant staffers should never do”, and mentioned a few other folks that might also use those things even if they don’t own a restaurant. Today, the NYT published the next 50, and once again – they might be focused on a restaurant staffer’s duties but you have similar, little tiny, insignificant things in your business that matter JUST AS MUCH. Hopefully this list from a restaurant will help you find them in your place and do what makes sense for the… -
100 things waiters, real estate agents and mechanics should never do, Part 1
4 Nov 2009 | 5:09 amphoto credit: goldsardine If you don’t own a restaurant, the temptation might be to turn the page and blow past part one of the NY Times’ “100 things restaurant staffers should never do” story. Or maybe you’d read it like a diner, thinking “Yeah, #2, 13 and 34 really annoy me”. Don’t waste it like that. The list is all about whatever *you* do, no matter what that is. I guarantee that your oil change store, dry cleaning store, clothing store, bar, coffee shop, software business or consulting firm can adapt most of these for your business. You… -
Taken a pulse lately?
3 Nov 2009 | 5:00 amphoto credit: TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ Ten months of 2009 are gone. Take the pulse of your business and ask yourself: “Is the business where I wanted to be by now?” Before you think this is all about the finances, it isn’t. It’s all about where you wanted to be. Maybe it’s about finances, but there might be more important indicators. It’s easy to be profitable and still heading in the wrong direction, for example. If you’re behind, what can do add, change, delete, correct or adjust to get your progress back on track to meet/exceed your…
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Web Ink Now
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To gate or not to gate? Data from an ebook offer
5 Nov 2009 | 11:21 amAt my keynote speeches, one of the most frequent questions I get is around my position that it is almost always best to make valuable content (such as white papers and ebooks) totally free vs requiring an email address to download. The essence of this raging debate is that with a gate, each person downloading becomes a valuable sales lead, however making the content totally free with no registration required means many more people will download and spread your content via email, Twitter, blogs, and the like. Frequent readers of this blog know that I write about this topic from time to time,… -
Grateful Dead at the forefront of marketing technology
4 Nov 2009 | 6:14 amThis week I had a chance to hang out with Jay Blakesberg, long-time Grateful Dead tour photographer, in his San Francisco studio. We discussed how the band (now called The Dead) is at the forefront of using technology for marketing. This video is about 9 minutes and includes highlights from the discussions. Please take the time to hear Jay describe what a true marketing powerhouse of a band is doing more than 45 years after they originally formed. I suggest letting the video load before watching. Direct link to the video here. Details of what we discussed in the video: :00 - 1:50 Through a… -
Stupid press release spam
29 Oct 2009 | 12:24 pmI want to know why companies insist on sending me press releases via email in areas that I clearly do not cover. What a pain in the butt to have to wade through these things in my inbox every day. Don't get me wrong. I'm a fan of using press releases as a tool to reach buyers. You can read more about that in my free ebook The New Rules of PR. Press releases can be a valuable way to communicate. I'm also a fan of sending personal messages to people to alert them to things that they may find interesting. I really do welcome the many emails and direct messages that people send me… -
Who the hell ARE these people?
26 Oct 2009 | 6:14 amMaybe you can help me. I really want to know: Who the hell are these people? Who are these young, happy, pretty, multi-cultural people with great teeth and even better hair who hang out with notebook computers in sleek and modern conference rooms on B2B company Web sites all over the world? Who are these international inhabitants of virtual corporate locales? The reason I ask is because I've personally been inside hundreds and hundreds of B2B company offices in over 20 countries and have spent time in probably a thousand conference rooms over a 25-year career. Yet I have never seen these… -
The new rules of business-to-business marketing & PR
23 Oct 2009 | 7:23 amBack in June, I keynoted the Business Marketing Association annual conference. Fortunately, the BMA made a video of my presentation and gave me permission to put it onto Vimeo. This 45-minute keynote presentation The New Rules of Marketing & PR for B2B Businesses is the first time my entire keynote for a B2B audience has been made available in this way. After the keynote, I answer a few questions for another ten minutes. I hope you can find time to watch. Direct link to the video here. More information about my keynotes and a speaking calendar here. Gary Slack, BMA Chairman says of this…
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davefleet.com
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Book Review: Six Pixels Of Separation
5 Nov 2009 | 4:00 amAs I mentioned recently, I’ve been working my way through the book/audiobook of Mitch Joel’s Six Pixels of Separation for a while now. Well, I’ve finally finished it… here’s my take… The Good Well-written – Six Pixels of Separation is written in Mitch’s usual friendly, candid style. Though the 270+ pages of content took me a while to get through, it certainly wasn’t because it was a hard read. Well-targeted – social media is reaching a point where small businesses can effectively use it to build a presence online. There are a lot of… -
Think “Over Time,” Not “Point In Time”
2 Nov 2009 | 4:00 amA hypothetical scenario for you: your communications director comes to you and tells you that thanks to their department’s activities, there were 200 mentions of your brand online, of which three quarters were positive in tone. Is that good news? Is it bad? My answer: I have no idea. Why? Because there’s no context. Context, please As social media begins to mature as a communications opportunity, the pressure to demonstrate measurable results will only increase. However, that measurement needs to have context. Having three quarters of conversations about you be positve may… -
Be Wrong
29 Oct 2009 | 5:00 amI’m going to take a guess and say that around 5-10% of what I write on this site misses the mark. Maybe I’m wrong about something, or I write something to which people don’t relate, or I write badly. I know when this happens because on those posts I’m deafened by the silence in the comments. When I get it really wrong, people will tell me but for more things it usually just gets really quiet. For many of us, especially those thinking from a corporate perspective the fear of the consequences being wrong online is a little greater than that associated with a personal… -
When Search Can Make Or Break You
26 Oct 2009 | 5:00 amIt’s hard to argue nowadays that search isn’t important. It’s not often, though, that you see a real-world product completely base its advertising around it. Check out these ads for the movie 2012, being launched on November 13: No website on either of them – just an instruction to “Search: 2012.” If the website for this movie didn’t make it onto the top few pages of search results, through either organic or paid search. The movie would be in trouble, as the URL isn’t obvious either (whowillsurvive2012.com). Fortunately for the studio, the movie… -
Where The Personal Brand Falls Short
23 Oct 2009 | 5:00 amThe concept of the “personal brand” is still quite controversial. Not in whether it’s possible to build a significant personal brand (it clearly is), but in whether it’s the right thing to do. Over the past few years we’ve seen lots of people develop strong personal brands through social media, and levered those brands to develop their careers. Recently, I’ve noticed what seems like an increasing use of auto-reply emails by many people with strong personal brands. They usually read something like this (but far more eloquent): “Thanks for your email.
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The Future of Ads
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Indie iPhone Developers Collaborate For Character Cameos
2 Nov 2009 | 5:00 amSize often dictates what a company can and can’t do with their advertising: Larger companies can use their larger budgets to make a big splash if needed, and smaller companies can get away with scrappier methods that larger companies can’t even consider. One example of the small and scrappy side of advertising is the recent trend among iPhone game developers of collaboration, in which they will swap character cameos as a way of cross-promoting each game to the other game’s audience. Examples include: Minigore’s John Gore swings through the worlds of Sway. Enviro-Bear 2010’s… -
Amnesty International Uses Eyeball-Aware Ad To Enhance Message
17 Aug 2009 | 6:00 amAmnesty International’s bus stop ad is a great example of how interactivity and eyeball-aware ads can be used to engage viewers and add another level of meaning to the overall message. The ad is for a campaign that aims to bring awareness to the problem of domestic violence, and uses a small camera to detect faces. When no one is looking, the screen shows a man abusing his wife. When the camera detects a face, the ad waits a few seconds for the message to sink in, and then the couple stops fighting and does their best to look normal. It’s a subtle message, but definitely drives… -
Sharpie Gets Uncapped And Embraces The Social Web
29 Jun 2009 | 6:00 amSharpie’s new Uncapped Gallery is a great example of how a company can embrace the social web, encourage word of mouth and show off what its products can do in the hands of actual customers. The gallery is set up like a Sharpie lifestream, and pulls in content from the Sharpie Showcase, the Sharpie Blog, Flickr, YouTube and the web. Each item is color coded to indicate where it came from, and clicks out to the original version so that users can interact and explore. Once a user clicks on an item and leaves the Uncapped Gallery to view the original, a navigation bar pops up so that they can… -
Google And Virgin America Spent A Day In The Cloud
26 Jun 2009 | 2:00 pmQ: What do Google Apps and Virgin America have in common? A: Clouds. Usually, bringing together two major companies for a single campaign is at best a challenge, and at worst impossible, because the companies are either too closely related to one another and so they compete, or they’re not related enough, and so they don’t add anything to the overall value of a larger campaign. For The Day In The Cloud Challenge however, Google and Virgin found a commonality in the ‘clouds’ (you can use Google Apps and their cloud services while flying through the clouds on a Virgin America flight)… -
Carl’s Jr. Uses YouTube Stars For Online Video Success
17 Jun 2009 | 9:00 amOne of my advertising rules of thumb is this: Content that works well online is not the same as content that works well on television. To see why, let’s look at Carl’s Jr.’s latest ad campaign for their Portobello Mushroom Six Dollar Burger. First, their television commercial: Next, one of the videos created for their online campaign: See the difference? While their heavily produced, perfectly scripted, hero-shot filled 30-second commercial managed to acquire more than a quarter million views in under a week, less than 200 people rated the video during that time, and less than 500…
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Better Closer
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Lead management metrics, measuring “sales pursuit”
28 Oct 2009 | 7:31 amNothing is more important to a marketer or lead generation company than lead acceptance. Sales needs to like your lead for it to have any chance of converting. Every other lead conversion metric is irrelevant until you get this part right. Brian Carroll, of the B2B Lead Generation Blog nails it: For this reason, I think cost-per-opportunity measurements are the most effective metrics. The most common metric, cost per lead, is irrelevant unless we can answer other fundamental questions first, “What is our rate of lead acceptance (a.k.a. sales pursuit) into the sales pipeline” and then… -
Turning up the Heat! Motivating Your Sales Team
27 Oct 2009 | 5:40 amYou learn the best lessons from the simplest experiences. Here’s mine… Last night I crashed about 11:00 p.m., never even cracking my MacBook to take my typical final pulse for the evening. I was exhausted. My work is a bit chaotic (my business is in a full scale client-led strategic shift because of our new Eavesdropper product), every night is spent walking door-to-door (I’m running for School Board in Flat Rock, MI), and I played a late-night volleyball game in my church league. I even missed tucking in my little angels last night. My life is busy these days. The last… -
Free Lead Management Software
26 Oct 2009 | 6:54 amImage via Wikipedia Looking for free lead management software? It is possible. The basic principles of lead management can be cobbled together with free tools. Depending on your sales goals and quotas, these just might do the trick. Let’s build a free lead management system. Lead Capture: Email, Contacts, and Spreadsheets Most sales leads are coming from business cards, website contact forms, or phone calls. These are easily captured in email, contact databases, or spreadsheets. The key is centralizing that process. Consistently use one method or the other. Lost or misplaced leads are… -
GTD for Sales: Batch Processing Leads
21 Oct 2009 | 6:33 amImage by travisepoling via Flickr I was an early follower of David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) productivity philosophy. It immediately synced with my observations of what makes sales people productive. Allen’s techniques in personal productivity are most effective with busy people. Sales is a numbers game. Processing high volumes of opportunities–efficiently–makes GTD a bulls eye strategy for sales. When I started applying GTD to my sales teams I was struck by how counter cultural it was. Then I tried to get my sales software to enforce the principles. It was… -
5 Tips for Sales Improvement This Week
19 Oct 2009 | 6:26 amImage by AlexWitherspoon via Flickr Too often we are looking for silver bullet systems or recipes for success, while ignoring the basics. In my experience 90% of big sales improvement comes from getting back to the basics. These basics will have an immediate, measurable impact on your sales numbers. Let’s put it to the test. Here are five fundamentals of sales. If you focus on them they will increase your sales this week. Breakthrough the Fear of Failure Jeffrey Gitomer, a sales guru and best-selling author, is famous for saying “fail faster.” This is a critical concept for…
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Holy Kaw!
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25 wackiest NYC Marathon costumes
6 Nov 2009 | 11:01 pmRunning 26.2 miles while sucking down polluted urban air wasn’t quite difficult enough for some jogging fools competing in the New York City Marathon last week, so a handful of creative folks decided to extend Halloween an extra day and run the race while donning costumes. Photogs spotted clowns, super heroes, Uncle Sam, nuns and even an apparently alive Michael Jackson. Lucky for you, you didn’t have to travel all the way to the Big Apple to check out all the shenanigans because Buzz Feed has collected images of the 25 best costumes at the 2009 NYC marathon. Enjoy (and feel lazy… -
Tech that refuses to die
6 Nov 2009 | 10:26 pmCall them the Jason Vorhees of technology -- gadgets that just won’t die, no matter how many times you kill ‘em with a chain saw. Tech moves fast, -- remember, like 10 years ago you probably had a pager in your pocket -- but why is it that some technology seems completely resistant to kicking the bucket? From cables that remain tangled under your desk to the hipsters’ audio format of choice, vinyl, CNet highlights eight tech items that refuse to meet the Grim Reaper. Even Twitter makes a surprise entry on the list. Check out the full list, including why the sans business… -
How to change
6 Nov 2009 | 10:09 pmWant to change? Then, according to Peter Bregman, just change one thing. In his case he stopped consuming large amounts of sugar. For me, it would be carbohydrates. But the article isn’t really about dieting—it’s about how to become a better business person, so read it and reap. More Lifehacks. Permalink | Leave a comment » -
Guess who is a Glamour woman of the year?
6 Nov 2009 | 9:56 pmIt’s going to be a long time before I post about anything in Glamour, but this is a special occasion. The magazine named Google’s Marissa Mayer as one of the women of the year for 2009. Joining her is “refuse to use Bluetooth” Maria Shriver and others. The only reason Matt Cutts didn’t win is that he’s a man—despite the concerted efforts of SEO consultants around the world to game the voting.. More, albeit less glamourous, news about Google. Permalink | Leave a comment » -
Generation Y flocking to Twitter
6 Nov 2009 | 9:37 pmIn 18 short months, Facebook has aged seven years. No, Zucks and crew didn’t spend too much time crisping at the tanning salon; new data from Pew says the median age for Facebook users has gone from 26 in May 2008 to 33 today. So, where have the late 20-somethings started hanging out online? Look around and you’ll find them tweeting away. In December 2008, only 20 percent of people in the 25-34 age bracket used Twitter, but now 31 percent can be found DMing and @ replying. Twitter now claims the second youngest users with a median age of 31. Only MySpace has a younger fan base at…
