At Social Fresh East, I was tasked with helping folks harness the power of community – even if they may not have clearly defined communities. My slides can be found [...]
Selected by chrismoody
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Most Topular Stories
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Five Ways to Harness The Power of Community
Marketing + Branding + Design by Chris Moody8 Feb 2012 | 6:15 am -
Left-Hand-Turn Elimination – New York Times
ProductMarketing.com1 Feb 2012 | 7:09 pmIt seems that sitting in the left lane, engine idling, waiting for oncoming traffic to clear so you can make a left-hand turn, is minutely wasteful — of time and peace of mind, for sure, but also of gas and therefore money. Not a ton of gas and money if we’re talking about just you and your Windstar, say, but immensely wasteful if we’re talking about more than 95,000 big square brown trucks delivering packages every day. And this realization — that when you operate a gigantic fleet of vehicles, tiny improvements in the efficiency of each one will translate to huge savings overall —… -
History of beer in America [video infographic]
Holy Kaw!9 Feb 2012 | 10:49 amWorried about having enough small talk to fill tomorrow’s happy hour? Fear not, thanks to this video infographic courtesy of Visual.ly that supplies all the beer trivia you need to look like a bar-fly who knows what they’re talking about. Oh, wait, that might not be a good thing… Full story at Vimeo via Buzzfeed. Know your beer. Permalink | Leave a comment » -
Why Do Products Fail?
Tyner Blain8 Feb 2012 | 8:38 amWhy do products fail? Trying to organize all of the reasons that your product might fail is a Herculean effort. Understanding how your product did, will, or might fail will help you focus on what you need to do next. An Exploration of Product Management A personal goal for me is to become better at product management, so that I can help create better products. As a product manager, the most important thing you should be doing is understanding the problems that your customers face. If you treat “improving at product management” as the product, you should start with an… -
Join Me And Your Fellow Sales Enablement HEROes In San Francisco!
Technology Marketing3 Feb 2012 | 2:42 pmWe are putting together our final plans and the Sales Enablement Forum for 2012 is shaping up nicely. Here is a brief video update on the theme and our speakers and why I believe this is a can't miss opportunity for you and your team. I hope to see you in March. Thanks, Brad Read more
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Marketing + Branding + Design by Chris Moody
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Five Ways to Harness The Power of Community
8 Feb 2012 | 6:15 amAt Social Fresh East, I was tasked with helping folks harness the power of community – even if they may not have clearly defined communities. My slides can be found [...] -
When Larry Met Sergey – an interactive graphic
24 Jan 2012 | 7:18 amEver wanted a really cool graphic of the history of Google? Get started below. :) Created By Online PhD -
Control your social media with if / then statements
17 Jan 2012 | 7:25 amEver wished that one action or event triggered another to help you more easily manage social media (or your life)? Well, you are in luck. ifttt is coming to the [...] -
Are the Millennials the best generation ever? INFOGRAPHIC
20 Dec 2011 | 10:46 amWhat do you think? Are the Millennials the best generation ever? If not, what is your choice? Spare me the Woodstock argument. :) Created by: Online Graduate Programs -
How to transition to a new job in 5 easy steps
19 Dec 2011 | 11:23 amTransition is difficult. Most of the time, you go from being a subject matter expert with detailed knowledge of the inner-workings of your company to being a complete newbie learning [...]
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ProductMarketing.com
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Left-Hand-Turn Elimination – New York Times
1 Feb 2012 | 7:09 pmIt seems that sitting in the left lane, engine idling, waiting for oncoming traffic to clear so you can make a left-hand turn, is minutely wasteful — of time and peace of mind, for sure, but also of gas and therefore money. Not a ton of gas and money if we’re talking about just you and your Windstar, say, but immensely wasteful if we’re talking about more than 95,000 big square brown trucks delivering packages every day. And this realization — that when you operate a gigantic fleet of vehicles, tiny improvements in the efficiency of each one will translate to huge savings overall —… -
What’s the deal with Product Marketing? | On Product Management
28 Jan 2012 | 5:31 amThe fact is that both the roles of “Product Manager” and “Product Marketer” are poorly understood and implemented in the industry. e.g. There’s too much focus on what a “Product Manager” does vs. what “Product Management” does. via What’s the deal with Product Marketing? | On Product Management. -
Product Management lies at the heart of Innovation | On Product Management
28 Jan 2012 | 5:28 amAnd just to be clear — the difference is not about simply marketing or selling the invention. It’s about inventing things that solve people’s problems, and then getting those inventions into the hands of the people who can benefit from them, and ultimately improving their lives or experiences. via Product Management lies at the heart of Innovation | On Product Management. -
The Art of the Compelling Software Presentation | Sandhill
17 Jan 2012 | 7:04 amThe risk for software companies in a highly competitive market is that their marketing presentations must always “hit the mark” in order to inspire the customer. There is no place for losing listeners due to boring and ineffective presentations either in content or delivery. Software executives must start to break the cult of the average presentation habits. It is crucial to understand and put into practice proven communication skills of authentic presence and voice that will maximize results every time. Good tips on presentation technique in The Art of the Compelling Software… -
It is easy to find a Scrum Master, it is hard to find a good one
15 Jan 2012 | 5:24 amFor those of you in the Denver area, Pragmatic Marketing alum Michael Swansegar is leading an event to explore: Is a Project Manager automatically a good Scrum Master? How can a Scrum Master impact the culture of the company? How can a Scrum Master be an ‘agile champion’ with The Development Team and Product Owner? Do certificates for a Scrum Master actually carry weight? These are just some of the questions explored at the PMI event in Feb 2012. The event is in person (Denver) and online. Primary Theme: It is easy to find a Scrum Master, it is hard to find a good one.
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Holy Kaw!
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History of beer in America [video infographic]
9 Feb 2012 | 10:49 amWorried about having enough small talk to fill tomorrow’s happy hour? Fear not, thanks to this video infographic courtesy of Visual.ly that supplies all the beer trivia you need to look like a bar-fly who knows what they’re talking about. Oh, wait, that might not be a good thing… Full story at Vimeo via Buzzfeed. Know your beer. Permalink | Leave a comment » -
What’s the future of virtual sex?
9 Feb 2012 | 10:48 amComputer scientists are seeking to transmit sense data across the Internet and enable interactions with virtual entities and environments. They're steering us toward a reality previously only dreamt of: sexual congress between the material and immaterial worlds. The future is bright for virtual sexuality. After all, we're human beings. Think of any great artistic or technological achievement and chances are it winds up in the bedroom. Will it end up in yours? Full article at HowStuffWorks.com. Total aggregation of HowStuffWorks.com. Photo credit: Fotolia Permalink | Leave a… -
5 tiny countries with big space dreams
9 Feb 2012 | 10:46 amYou don't have to be a global giant to reach for the stars or to benefit from the pecuniary promise of space-age technologies. Thanks to the growing availability of public and private launch vehicles, "off-the-shelf" tech for kitting out satellites and serious opportunities for research collaboration, even the smallest nations on Earth can dream big. Which little countries have big space dreams? Lithuania Belgium Israel Full list at HowStuffWorks.com. Total aggregation of HowStuffWorks.com. Photo credit: Fotolia Permalink | Leave a comment » -
Top 5 unforgettable memory games
9 Feb 2012 | 10:43 amIt's often said that the brain is like a muscle: You have to exercise it to make it stronger. What you may never have thought about is the way many of our leisure activities -- games, both competitive and solitary -- also contribute to firming up those mental muscles. Let's talk about a few different kinds of memory -- and the games that test, stretch and improve them: Concentration: The way we play Concentration -- turning up cards, looking at them, and turning them facedown again -- strengthens our memory throughout the game the same way that studying with flashcards does. Facial… -
5 tips for getting organized at work
9 Feb 2012 | 10:39 amStarting a new job is one of the more stressful life events. From learning a new commute to mastering different skill-sets (not to mention trying to figure out if your boss finds your sense of humor refreshing or revolting), it's difficult to develop an organizational system from the ground up. In the next few pages, we'll scope out ways that you can get your space and yourself organized for optimal working conditions. From cleaning up to calming down, we'll dispel some rumors about how handling multiple tasks at a time is better than one -- and explain why a messy workspace doesn't always…
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Tyner Blain
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Why Do Products Fail?
8 Feb 2012 | 8:38 amWhy do products fail? Trying to organize all of the reasons that your product might fail is a Herculean effort. Understanding how your product did, will, or might fail will help you focus on what you need to do next. An Exploration of Product Management A personal goal for me is to become better at product management, so that I can help create better products. As a product manager, the most important thing you should be doing is understanding the problems that your customers face. If you treat “improving at product management” as the product, you should start with an… -
Specializing Generalist
1 Feb 2012 | 7:07 amThe ideal agile team is made up of specializing generalists – but what does that really mean? The goal isn’t to prevent functional silos of expertise, it is to allow people to cover for each other. Great Conversation Elena Yatzeck (@eyatzeck) posted a comment on an earlier article about agile maturity models. In terms of refinement, I’m thinking a lot these days about “staffing the engineering team correctly.” I’m not sure I agree in practice that you can or should try to staff all teams with “specializing generalists,” or at least not as taken to an extreme. (If… -
Tally the Score – Comparing Products Part 8
19 Jan 2012 | 11:41 amAfter building an understanding of which problems are important to your each customer you want to serve, and rating each competitive product , you’re ready to tally the scores and see how your product compares with your competition. This tells you if you’re likely to crush it, and if not, lets you know where you should invest later. This series on comparing products starts here if you need to get caught up. And now, on to the finale… Overall Product Comparison Process This is a relatively long series. Each article will start with a recap of the overall process. -
Rating Your Competition – Comparing Products Part 7
12 Jan 2012 | 6:22 amAt this point in the product comparison series, you know who your customers are, which problems are important to them, and which products compete to solve those problems. It’s time to score the competing products and see how the solutions your product provides (or will provide) will stack up. This is the latest in a series on comparing products, jump back to the start of the series if you came here first, but hurry up :). Overall Product Comparison Process This is a relatively long series. Each article will start with a recap of the overall process. Getting useful information… -
Know Your Competition – Comparing Products Part 6
21 Dec 2011 | 8:08 amYou start with a point of view about what makes a minimum viable product. When your product launches, it is your customer’s point of view that matters. You must understand which problems your customers care about solving, and what solutions are available to your customers today. You need to understand your competition to make informed decisions about your product. This is the latest in a series on comparing products – jump back to the beginning of the series to catch up, we’ll wait. Overall Product Comparison Process This is a relatively long series. Each article…
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Technology Marketing
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Join Me And Your Fellow Sales Enablement HEROes In San Francisco!
3 Feb 2012 | 2:42 pmWe are putting together our final plans and the Sales Enablement Forum for 2012 is shaping up nicely. Here is a brief video update on the theme and our speakers and why I believe this is a can't miss opportunity for you and your team. I hope to see you in March. Thanks, Brad Read more -
Upcoming Keynote On Channel Enablement At Distree EMEA Next Week
30 Jan 2012 | 4:48 amPeter O'Neill here. I've been invited to speak, again, at the annual Distree EMEA event in Monte Carlo next week. Now in its tenth year, Distree gathers together top executives from tech industry vendors and distributors plus, in recent years, retailers from around EMEA for three days that include a trade show, presentation sessions, and meetings to discuss industry-specific channel topics. The 2011 event drew 950 delegates from 127 tech vendors and over 400 distributors. One of the event highlights for everybody is a process to request and set up formal one-on-one meetings between the… -
Calling All Sales Enablement Leaders, Wherever You Are: SE Forum 2012
25 Jan 2012 | 10:02 amI have the privilege of talking with many of our clients and, surprising as it may sound, many don't have titles that match their real jobs! Who does these days? Maybe the CFO. So, as we gear up for our second annual Sales Enablement Forum, I want to make sure we don't miss inviting any of our Tech Marketing friends who do a little enablement on the side, or a lot of it as their full-time focus, title or not... We chose the lead image for this year's Sales Enablement event to grab your attention because we believe you can truly be a HERO to your CEO. But it won't be an… -
Yes, Content Must Be Managed Internally As Well
17 Jan 2012 | 6:46 amPeter O'Neill here. My first report on content management came out last week and it has already generated several conversations - please keep those comments and inquiry requests coming. Content management was also a significant part of a one-day workshop I delivered to a client in Lisbon last week. They offer eProcurement and eMarketing software-as-a-service. So an interesting discussion we had was, "Do you need different content as a SaaS provider compared to a product vendor?" We concluded that the information would be the same, but the sense of urgency about delivering digital content… -
2012 Tech Marketing Priorities – From 50 Tech Marketing Execs
30 Dec 2011 | 3:18 pmUnderstanding the priorities of fellow tech marketers is a great way to tune one's own 2012 initiatives. Over the past two months, my Forrester Technology Council colleagues and I have spent quite a bit of time surveying and talking with members (~ 50 tech CMO's and VP's of Marketing) about their priorities for 2012. Before the champagne pops up here in Boston, I wanted to share a few of the priorities my colleagues and I are hearing most about for 2012:Read moreCategories:Brand Management Community Marketing Demand Generation Demand Management content marketing thought leadership
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The Accidental Product Manager
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What Can FishVille Teach Product Managers About Using Analytics?
6 Feb 2012 | 1:00 amImage Credit You can have any fish that you want in Fishville, if you are willing to pay for it… Here’s a classic product management question for you: how well do you know your customers? I mean, do you know then REALLY well? We all like to say that we know what our customers are looking for, but do we? The product managers over at the online gaming company Zynga (you know, the one that went from nothing to $600M in revenue overnight) can say that they do know their customers very well. They’ve got the analytics to prove it. Fishville: A Case Study In Product Management… -
What “What’s In Your Wallet?” Means To Product Managers
30 Jan 2012 | 1:00 amWho would have guessed that Vikings could sell credit cards? I’m sure that any product manager living in the U.S. has encountered one of the Capital One ads for their credit cards at some point in time over the last year or so. What might get lost in the blizzard of Capital One ads and promotions that seem to always be around us, is that the product managers at Capital One are very good at what they do. Perhaps we can learn something from them… It’s All About Analytics There are a lot of companies out there that are selling credit cards to consumers. Why has Capital One… -
What A Video Rental Store Can Teach Product Managers
23 Jan 2012 | 1:00 amImage Credit Can you even remember racing to the video store to avoid late charges? Not to date myself or anything, but can anyone else remember going to the video store on a Friday or Saturday night? I’d wander the aisles and take a look at every movie on the “just released” rack in order to decide which one or two videos I was going to rent. Netflix and the Internet have pretty much killed the video store these days and so what’s a video store product manager to do? (Streaming) Video Killed The Video Store To be a video store product manager in the 1990s was the… -
Is Being Yellow The Worst Product Management Job In The World – Or Not?
16 Jan 2012 | 1:00 amImage Credit Should A Product Manager Let Their Customer's Fingers Do The Walking? When I was first out living on my own, the arrival of the latest copy of the yellow (and white) pages was a big deal. Since my parents had always received these huge volumes, when I got mine I felt that somehow I was now a “grown up”. Fast forward to the 21st Century and man have things changed. There still are Yellow Pages®, but is it possible that owning this product is the worst product management job ever? What Happened To The Yellow Pages Once upon a time the Yellow Pages ruled the world… -
What A High-End Boutique Can Teach A Product Manager About Marketing
9 Jan 2012 | 5:00 amImage Credit Just because you are a boutique doesn't mean the big boys can push your products around… So there you are, a happy product manager creating and delivering products that meet your customer’s needs. All of a sudden (but you should have seen it coming) a big box competitor with tons of selection and low, low prices shows up in your backyard. Oh, oh – what’s a product manager to do now? It turns out that we can learn some lessons from the world of women’s fashion. Boutiques have been dealing with this very situation for awhile and they have a thing or two…
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How to Change the World
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Raising Money: What Not to Say and What Not to Believe #OfficeandGuyK
20 Jan 2012 | 10:46 amOver the past two weeks via my partnership with Microsoft and Office Web Apps, I’ve provided templates of models for you to create enchanting PowerPoint pitches, Word business plans, and Excel financial models. They are all available for you to download from my SkyDrive account. I hope these documents and blog posts help you save a boatload of time and increase the quality of your efforts.I leave you with two sets of top ten lies: one of entrepreneurs and one of investors so that you know what not to say and what not to believe. Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs “Our projections are… -
Design a Sam Adams beer
20 Jan 2012 | 8:24 amNow this is a fun project. I’m helping Sam Adams “tap” the knowledge of beer drinkers and crowd source its next brew. Join the party by getting the app and designing your beer: The final brew will be released in Austin in the first week of March. #sponsored -
How to Create an Enchanting Financial Forecast #OfficeandGuyK
17 Jan 2012 | 1:52 pmThis is the third post in my Microsoft partnership, and it’s all about numbers. The topic is crafting your financial forecast to include in your pitch. Bill Reichert, my partner at Garage Technology Ventures, created an Excel model and wrote this blog post. There’s a lesson in this too: Get the best person for the job. His grasp of financial models and how to present them exceeds mine by two orders of magnitude. The Purpose of Financial Projections When it comes to financial projections, there are two types of entrepreneurs: first, the “visionary entrepreneur” who… -
How to Create an Enchanting Business Plan #OfficeandGuyK
12 Jan 2012 | 8:16 amHere is the second post in my series about planning, pitching, and launching a new business venture. In partnership with Microsoft and Office Web Apps, I’ve created a Word document that outlines a good business plan. It’s saved to my SkyDrive folder here. Feel free to download it and use it as inspiration. And if you’re working with a partner, you can use the free Word Web App to stay in sync. I provided the PowerPoint document before the Word document because a good business plan is an elaboration of a good pitch as opposed to a good pitch being a distillation of good business plan. -
How to Create an Enchanting Pitch #OfficeandGuyK
9 Jan 2012 | 8:01 amWelcome to the first in a series of blog posts I’ll be doing as part of a partnership with Microsoft and Office Web Apps. Over the next two weeks, I’ll cover everything a budding entrepreneur needs to turn an idea into an enchanting investment opportunity—from the perfect pitch to a killer business plan to financial forecasts. I’m going to start with a little dissertation on creating effective PowerPoint pitches for your company. I embedded the sample deck for you to click through by using the PowerPoint Web App. When you’re ready to get started, you can download the…
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Church of the Customer Blog
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Playbooks and visual explanations
6 Feb 2012 | 8:30 amBy the time the New York Giants and the New England Patriots took the field Sunday for their Super Bowl matchup, the players on both teams had read, re-read and rehearsed their respective game playbooks dozens, if not hundreds of times. They'd studied each play via multiple diagrams and photographs, stats and descriptions of assignments for every player on the field. A playbook is an apt metaphor for any business team that needs concise, how-to plans to deal with the complexity of systems, processes and moving variables, especially with social business. Whether it's for one of the world's… -
People trust people
1 Feb 2012 | 12:27 pm[Click on chart to see larger version.] The latest edition of the Edelman Trust Barometer study just came out showing CEO's in the dog house when it comes to being trusted. Who do people trust? Academic and tech experts, sure. But the biggest movers in the study are "a person just like me" and "regular employee." Look at your 2012 marketing plan. Are you providing ways for your customers to get together in-person and online to encourage word of mouth? Are you showcasing your best employees in social media, at conferences, and at private events with customers? Source: 2012 Edelman… -
FedEx's apology: expertly delivered
21 Dec 2011 | 8:29 pmWe've seen this before: 1) company makes an egregious service mistake and is outed by a customer via a YouTube video, 2) video goes viral, 3) mainstream media picks up the story and amplifies it, 4) PR nightmare begins. This week's culprit is FedEx. A California FedEx driver is caught on a security-camera video flinging a package containing a computer monitor over the fence of a gated Southern California house. At no time does the driver attempt to ring the bell for delivery. Just a toss over the fence, and he jumps back into his truck. In two days, the video has over three million views. … -
The simplest definition of word of mouth marketing
28 Nov 2011 | 12:38 pmNice video from WOMMA on the basics of word of mouth marketing. Tweet -
14 new statistics about word of mouth marketing
17 Oct 2011 | 11:45 amThe Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) has a neat infographic detailing the latest stats about word or mouth marketing, online and offline. Source: WOMMA Note: the WOMMA Summit is coming up November 16-18 in Las Vegas. It's a great conference to learn the latest WOM marketing techniques from leading brands and agencies. Tweet
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Stokefire - Branding & Advertising
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An Open Letter to the Stewards of the Progressive & Democratic Brands
27 Jan 2012 | 7:28 amHello Stewards, You may not realize it yet, but you need help. I’ve been told by many in politics that there are no well-known (or even proven-effective) brand strategists focused on helping Progressive causes. (There are an astounding number of political strategists but that’s a different animal.) This may be due to the common belief that Democrats won’t pay for core brands to be developed. Dems spend a fortune on polling, message crafting, and message testing, but when it comes time to actually develop the unchanging core of progressivism or the Democratic party… -
Three Steps to an Irresistible Brand
25 Jan 2012 | 1:25 pmI know you may not think of Gandhi as irresistible, but bear with me. It’ll become clear shortly. Irresistible… It may sound impossible, or at least too good to be true. And you’re not alone in thinking that, but the great brands do achieve the impossible. They get people to change behavior in much the same way that Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Abraham Lincoln put themselves on the line to create monumental societal change. If you want to create real change there’s no more consistent way to get there. And here are the basic steps you can follow to get there… -
The Secret to Gaining Approval for Your Designs and Brands
23 Jan 2012 | 9:32 amHow to gain approval for your designs: For Strategically Focused Clients: Craft your story around how the design reflects or amplifies who they are and how they are unique. Strategic clients want to see themselves through their brand elements. For Tactically Focused Clients: Build the case for approval by showing that the brand follows industry best-practices or established design trends and solid techniques. Tactical clients want to know that there’s a long history of success before following a path. The best designers and branders ensure that they’re ready for either… -
Our Favorite Award, Ever
20 Dec 2011 | 7:52 amPosted by: Tate Linden We don’t spend much time pulling together entries for stuff like ADDYs and OBIEs. As a small shop we just don’t have the manpower, and most award programs don’t seem to factor in the impact of the work on the business or industry. We’ve been humbled on more than one occasion (and not in a good way) by having a campaign that earned tens of millions of dollars for our client pushed aside as the award-giving panel instead honored creative use of props and 3D techniques that resulted in… pretty much nothing as far as we could tell. Heck, our… -
Beautiful Design vs. Pretty Design
12 Dec 2011 | 10:17 amPosted by: Tate Linden Pretty Design is timely. Beautiful Design is timeless. Pretty Design is artifice. Beautiful Design is truth. Pretty Design is experienced visually. Beautiful Design is experienced emotionally. And now is the time during the blog post where you all know I’m going to rant about how no one should ever stoop so low as to design anything pretty. But I won’t. Because I will finally acknowledge that there’s some real value in pretty. Sure, beautiful design is what my firm struggles to deliver, and what I know helps to build and support long-term brand equity,…
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MarketingProfs How-To Articles
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Never Waste an Opportunity: The Value of Lead Nurturing
7 Feb 2012 | 7:00 amWhen new visitors arrive at your website, you have two ways to seize the opportunity and guide them toward becoming customers. Both opportunities can evaporate in the blink of an eye--if you don't have the proper systems in place. Read the full article at MarketingProfs -
Four Keyword Research Mistakes to Avoid at All Costs
6 Feb 2012 | 7:00 amIf you are serious about the words "sales," "profit," and "conversions," you must master keyword research. Learn four common pitfalls marketers make when selecting keywords--and how to avoid them. Read the full article at MarketingProfs -
The Inside Scoop on Using Twitter Lists for Profit and Sanity
3 Feb 2012 | 7:00 amThe dirty secret of Twitter is that as helpful as it can be, it's also a time sink. Learn how properly using and cleaning up your Twitter lists can help you save time--and generate leads for your business. Read the full article at MarketingProfs -
10 Hot Tips (and a Promo Campaign Planner) for Seasonal Sale Success
2 Feb 2012 | 7:00 amCustomers today expect more deals and offers during holiday seasons, so it's important to create seasonal campaigns to increase revenues. Here are 10 tips--and a campaign planner--to help you achieve seasonal sale success. Read the full article at MarketingProfs -
Five Tips for Implementing a Successful QR Code Campaign
1 Feb 2012 | 7:00 amQR codes can be inexpensive to implement and can provide you a measureable return on investment--if you use them correctly. Learn five invaluable tips for implementing an effective QR code campaign. Read the full article at MarketingProfs
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Social Business Advisor: Social CRM and Enterprise 2.0
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Do Organizations Need a Chief Collaboration Officer?
8 Feb 2012 | 4:06 pmMore organizations are starting to deploy new collaborative tools and strategies as a core part of their business evolution to connect and engage employees. It’s becoming increasingly difficult (especially at large companies) to oversee these initiatives as typically there isn’t a role devoted to collaboration. Usually collaboration falls on the shoulders of employees with an existing full plate of things that need to get done (such as the CIO). So is it about time for organizations to create the role of the CCO (chief collaboration officer)? In 2010 Morten Hansen and Scott… -
Implementing Enterprise 2.0 at the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation Pt 4: Financial Impact, Future Changes, and Lessons Learned
6 Feb 2012 | 12:08 amThis is the fourth and final post in a series of posts on how the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (The Foundation), is implementing emergent collaboration strategies and technologies within its organization. You can read part 1 on Business Drivers, part 2 on Organizational and Culture shifts, and part 3 on Technology Adoption and Operational Impact. The Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing pediatric HIV infection and eliminating pediatric AIDS through research, advocacy, and prevention, care, and treatment programs. The Foundation, currently working in 17… -
Implementing Enterprise 2.0 at the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation Pt 3: Technology Adoption and Operational Impact
3 Feb 2012 | 12:08 amThis is the third in a series of posts on how the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (The Foundation), is implementing emergent collaboration strategies and technologies within its organization. You can read part 1 on Business Drivers and part 2 on organizational and culture shifts. The Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing pediatric HIV infection and eliminating pediatric AIDS through research, advocacy, and prevention, care, and treatment programs. The Foundation, currently working in 17 countries, was founded in 1988 and experienced significant growth… -
Implementing Enterprise 2.0 at the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation Pt 2: Culture and Organizational Structure Shifts
1 Feb 2012 | 12:08 amThe first part of this case study on the Glaser Foundation discussing business can be found here. The Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing pediatric HIV infection and eliminating pediatric AIDS through research, advocacy, and prevention, care, and treatment programs. The Foundation, currently working in 17 countries, was founded in 1988 and experienced significant growth in the last five years, with its employee base increasing from 200 employees in 2006 to over 1,500 in 2011. This was due in part to increased funding from new global health initiatives, such as the… -
Implementing Enterprise 2.0 at the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation Pt 1: Business Drivers
30 Jan 2012 | 12:08 amThis is the first in a series of posts on how the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (The Foundation), is implementing emergent collaboration strategies and technologies within its organization. The Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing pediatric HIV infection and eliminating pediatric AIDS through research, advocacy, and prevention, care, and treatment programs. The Foundation, currently working in 17 countries, was founded in 1988 and experienced significant growth in the last five years, with its employee base increasing from 200 employees in 2006 to over…
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Drew's Marketing Minute
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The 5 things that will derail your marketing in 2012
8 Feb 2012 | 6:37 amI don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade but the truth is — most organizations’ marketing efforts stink. And they stink for reasons well within the marketing department’s control. If you’re worried that your own efforts might fall short — beware of these five danger zones that can derail you in a blink! Inconsistency: Does your monthly newsletter go out 5 times a year? Does your copy tone/style fluctuate between somber and casual? Are your weekly sales calls happening every week? Inconsistency not only waters down your results but it also… -
Crisis communications – don’t wait to create a plan
6 Feb 2012 | 6:10 amDoes your organization have a crisis communications plan that you could actually put into action at this very moment? All of the hubub surrounding the Susan G. Komen decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood and then their reversal of that decision following a 72+ hour firestorm of public outrage should have scared the bejesus out of you. If an organization as large, powerful and well respected as Komen can get into that much hot water — and is that ill-prepared to handle it then what in the world would happen to you if there was an accident on your job site, if your CFO embezzled… -
Don’t add frill until your core is rock solid
2 Feb 2012 | 6:15 amA couple times a month a cleaning company comes into our house and does a deep clean. Every time I walk into the house after they’ve cleaned… the toilet paper rolls and tissues sticking out of the boxes are folded in some sort of origami art. Sometimes, they leave a truffle on the kitchen counter. I get what they’re trying to do. And it’s a lovely little extra. Unfortunately, I also find things like: Every waste basket in the wrong spot (they’ve been cleaning the house for over a year) The back door unlocked or a window left open A few lights left on… -
What you don’t know about your sales funnel
30 Jan 2012 | 5:56 amWe all think and talk about our sales funnel a lot. We’re always saying things like: We need to keep it full. We need to stay active with the prospects that have been in it for awhile. On average, it takes a prospect X months to move through it. And so on…. But consider the statistic to the right. 60% of your sales efforts are what happens before you have actively put someone into the funnel. In other words — it’s not you who is doing the selling. Who is? Your existing customers The customer who left and is working with your competitors Your vendors Your website… -
What’s your purple goldfish?
11 Jan 2012 | 11:30 amGet your free copy of Stan Phelp’s book! A few years ago, I met Stan Phelps, another marketing guy, online (I think he commented on my blog and we started chatting via email) and before I knew it — we were friends. He was just dipping his toe into the blogging waters and I tried to be helpful along the way. Fast forward to today, January 11, 2012. Stan’s first book, What’s Your Purple Goldfish*, is being released today. I’ve read it and know you’re going to love it. Really love it. I’m also very humbled to say that Stan asked me to write the…
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Andy Beard - Niche Marketing
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ACTA? Dead Man Walking
26 Jan 2012 | 2:06 pmApparently 22 member states wasted a huge amount of resources signing the ACTA treaty. If the current version had in some way been publicized previously they might have had a vague chance of it not causing a multinational revolt across Europe. The internet population already know how to mobilize… they are SOPA trained. It is easy to slip something past novices who are timid. The internet is now full of battle veterans confident in their ability to use the skills they have learned and the power of their voice to take on governments. The guy from the European Parliament assigned to… -
Dear @twittercomms – A Basic Search Query For Your Engineers
23 Jan 2012 | 10:34 pmI am not sure why Twitter engineers are struggling with this, and potentially misleading tech journalists (and even some well respected SEOs) with the SEO issues hampering the indexation of Twitter.com This is all pretty basic technical SEO Here is a very simple cleaned up Google search query that will bring up some interesting results https://www.google.com/search?q=site:twitter.com+inurl:andybeard&filter=0 It doesn’t exclude a subdomain such as www.twitter.com or fr.twitter.com or api.twitter.com Twitter splits their domain authority between lots of different subdomains which… -
Really Evil – The “Don’t Be Evil” Bookmarklet
23 Jan 2012 | 5:56 pmIt is not as benign as you might think. Here is a link to the original 720p mp4 Some of the points raised in the video We need to avoid a cartel of top sites with limited access, especially with Ggoogle and Facebook currently buying ads from each other in the free market. Identity is important and both Twitter & Facebook fail to provide a method of bi-directional ownership – the “Don’t Be Evil” bookmarklet fails by linking Mark Zuckerberg’s Google+ to a Quora topic page about him… not his actual profile (if he has one) – it is possible for Google… -
Tech Blogging Triple Rainbow
13 Jan 2012 | 3:45 amI just had to share this achievement by Mike Masnick as he might not see it himself. The Techmeme page updates extrememly frequently pulling in stories algorithmically with some additional human curation but I have never seen one writer with a lead story and 2 additional reference posts without any additional “noise”, unless you count the larger child branch below. He has one post in that child branch as well. I am not going to link to the posts… that would most likely spoil the “triple rainbow”. Even more remarkable:- none of the articles were… -
Updated: Facebook & Twitter – Lucky To Be In Google At All
11 Jan 2012 | 4:14 pmFacebook & Twitter have some of the worst landing pages on the web. At least if you look at it from a search engine perspective, who should assume that every visitor isn’t a member of the site they are referencing in the search engine. It should also be understood that both Facebook & Twitter are bursting at the seams with former Google engineers & execs – they can’t claim they were unaware of what Google is looking for from content owners on the web, webmaster guidelines etc. Twitter You can’t look at the Google cache and see exactly what Google sees,…
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Branding Strategy Insider
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Time For Brand Marketers To Lead A Comeback
7 Feb 2012 | 9:10 pmIt’s a good thing the game between the NFL's New England Patriots and the New York Giants was exciting because this year’s Super Bowl commercials were dull, and what a weird thing to say about the Super Bowl. Generally, it’s the very opposite of that. Perhaps it’s best not to read too much into Super Bowl ads vying for viral buzz (many of which adopted a new pre-game, social media preview approach to generate buzz, albeit some have argued it was poorly done). But there was one thing that stood out. In a noticeable departure from the tradition of Super Bowl Sunday, this year’s crop… -
When To Reposition Your Brand
6 Feb 2012 | 9:10 pmBrand repositioning is necessary when one or more of the following conditions exist: Your brand has a bad, confusing or nonexistent image. The primary benefit your brand "owns" has evolved from a differentiating benefit to a cost-of-entry benefit. Your organization is significantly altering its strategic direction. Your organization is entering new businesses and the current positioning is no longer appropriate. A new competitor with a superior value proposition enters your industry. Competition has usurped your brand's position or rendered it ineffectual. Your organization has acquired a… -
How To Transform An Under-Performing Brand
5 Feb 2012 | 9:10 pmOnce the decision has been made to continue to invest in an under-performing brand, brand owners will be faced with a new set of challenges completely foreign to them. The temptation is always to do more of what got you there. That rarely works when brands face reinvention. By that I mean brand relevance. The main reason brands begin to under perform is that people no longer care. When that happens, like it or not, you’ll be starting over from scratch. This is a hard pill for brand owners to swallow, particularly if the brand was once an iconic leader in its category. For brand owners… -
Logo Design Requirements
4 Feb 2012 | 9:10 pmA brand’s identity is a combination of visual, auditory, and other sensory components that create recognition, aid in memory encoding and decoding, represent the brand promise, provide differentiation, create communications synergy, and are proprietary. The logo is one key component. Here is what we look for when we evaluate logo design: Memorable – highest recognition and recall (both of which can be tested for) Including recognition at maximum distances (can be tested for) Aesthetically pleasing Timeless quality - the logo will not become dated Appropriate for the product/service… -
Brand Tagline Requirements
3 Feb 2012 | 9:10 pmIn definitive global research, The Conference Board has found the development and consistent use of a tagline to be a key factor in brand strategy success. A tagline that succinctly and powerfully communicates the brand’s promise is one of the quickest, easiest and least expensive ways to communicate the brand’s new position to internal and external audiences. It should consistently accompany the brand’s logo in situations outlined by the brand architecture. I believe that developing brand taglines (and elevator speeches) are the most important next steps one can take once a brand has…
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Wallpaper* News Feed
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Artist's palate: Donatella Versace
9 Feb 2012 | 12:57 pmMuse, critic, designer, entrepreneur, company saviour and first lady of fashion, Donatella Versace may have tempered the sex and theatricality of the family brand a little, but there's still glamour galore in her output and appearance. Her favourite dish of pasta and caviar -
Nicolas Le Moigne exhibition at Gallery Libby Sellers, London
8 Feb 2012 | 1:14 pmIf there were a visual equivalent of a double entendre, the work of Nicolas Le Moigne would define it. The Swiss designer goes to incredible lengths to make his designs seem at once greater and less than the sum of their parts. His meticulously crafted cast-off concrete stools for Eternit, for example, have the lowbrow appearance of compacted rubbish. His simple spool table is elevated like art on a podium. Most compelling, perhaps, is his 'Reflecting Ring', the diamond in which faces a mirror that makes it look twice its size and value. Le Moigne's talent for trompe l'oeil… -
Book: The Table of Power 2, by Jacqueline Hassink
6 Feb 2012 | 12:41 pmIn 1996 when Jacqueline Hassink first published 'The Table of Power', her photo-essays of the boardrooms of Europe's largest industrial multinationals, she was just 27 and the world was a very different place. It was a landmark project, the first time most of these rooms had ever been seen by the general public. In the spring of 2009, with the world already in the grip of financial crisis, the Dutch-born, New York-based artist decided to take another look at Europe's economic landscape through its boardrooms, and to see how boardroom design, revenue and employee numbers in… -
'The nature of things' at Artists' House, UK
3 Feb 2012 | 11:56 amIt's been just over ten years since London architect Stephen Marshall built Artists' House, the contemporary cottage on the grounds of the New Art Centre in Wiltshire and a modern foil for the grand 1804 mansion and Orangery at Roche Court. Originally conceived as a residence for artists putting in long days in the sculpture park, it was repurposed a few years ago by curator Sarah Griffin for the centre's first design exhibition. This weekend Griffin will launch a second design show, which features work by three Britain-based artists - a juxtapostion of domestic household items with… -
Saatchi Gallery collection at Hyatt Regency London
3 Feb 2012 | 12:00 amWhile hotels often double as platforms for new art, few of them can lay claim to a selection picked from one of the most influential contemporary art galleries today. Settling in until 30 April at London's Hyatt Regency Churchill is 'One Giant Leap' - the first of a series of three exhibitions taking place during 2012 at the hotel, featuring an assortment of works from the Saatchi Gallery collection. Predominantly scattered around the ground-floor lobby and restaurant, the mix of paintings, sculptures and installations - most memorable being a life-sized hippopotamus by Christina Mackie -…
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TREND HUNTER - The Latest Trends
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Stallion-Inspired Side Tables - 'Hoof' by Samuel Wilkinson is Inspired by Horse Shoes (TrendHunter.com)
9 Feb 2012 | 10:42 am(TrendHunter.com) Hoof by Samuel Wilkinson is a new line of tables whose legs look as if they've done some time in a pencil sharpener. The sharpened legs of Wilkinson's tables are surprisingly not pencil-inspired; they... -
Alien Child Photography - The Francesco Sambo Alien Collection is Innocent and Eerie (TrendHunter.com)
9 Feb 2012 | 10:32 am(TrendHunter.com) For years, scientists, novelists and filmmakers have tried to imagine just what kind of living things lurk beyond our planet, and now, Francesco Sambo has captured them. Francesco Sambo, an artist from... -
Futuristic Medieval Fantasy Females - XiaoBo Tong Renders Warrior Women that Transcend Time (TrendHunter.com)
9 Feb 2012 | 10:22 am(TrendHunter.com) Just because people no longer wear clunky metal armor on modern battlefields, doesn't mean XiaoBo Tong can't adorn his warrior women in body protection inspired by the Middle Ages. But Tong doesn't just... -
Enthusiastic Social Media Fingers - The 'Like Foam Hand' Combines Real Life with Facebook (TrendHunter.com)
9 Feb 2012 | 10:01 am(TrendHunter.com) Letting go of social media lingo when you're off the computer can be hard; the Like Foam Hand lets you stay connected to your favorite Facebook feature at all times. The foam hand lets you "like" anything... -
Romantic Geeky Cards - The Valentines Pixelated Popup Card is a DIY Display of Love (TrendHunter.com)
9 Feb 2012 | 9:50 am(TrendHunter.com) If you're not so keen on all the lovey dovey stuff that Februrary 14th brings, then this Valentines Pixelated Popup Card may just be the perfect solution for you. The card contains just the right amounts...
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ReadWriteWeb
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[STUDY] 61% of Social Media Users Feel So Close To You
9 Feb 2012 | 10:30 amSometimes little things like a sweet comment on Facebook or a Twitter friend calling your tweet a "favorite" can really make a social networker bee's day. A new study from Pew finds that for the most part, adults are kind to each other on social media sites. In fact, 85% of adults say that most of the people they come across on social media are rather kind; only 5% say that people are "mostly unkind," which would imply rude or mean. An additional 5% say that it's all situational. On the whole, adults have positive experiences on social networking sites. A total 68% of SNS users had an… -
[Infographic] Mapping the Tools in the Mobile Development Ecosystem
9 Feb 2012 | 10:00 amThe mobile development ecosystem is a large, complicated space. There are innovative startups making tools for native and mobile Web apps along with large enterprise-grade companies that offer solutions from cloud support to frameworks and developer environments. For a mobile developer, it can be confusing to know where to turn and what to use to make the best app possible. Mobile "backend-as-a-service" startup Kinvey created a map for ReadWriteMobile to help developers understand the ecosystem. Kinvey brackets the mobile ecosystem between two primary pillars: the service providers and the… -
Harry Reid Wants a Bigger, Badder Version of SOPA/PIPA
9 Feb 2012 | 9:30 amSenate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., still licking wounds from last week's defeat of the Protect IP Act and its House counterpart the Stop Online Piracy Act, is reportedly working on an even more sinister, Internet-regulating bill. Few details have been publicly disclosed about the latest push by legislative Democrats to expand executive-branch authority over the Internet, but the Daily Caller has pieced together publicly-available clues suggesting that Reid's newest bill is even broader than President Barack Obama's cybersecurity proposal. Sponsor Released last May, Obama's proposal… -
Keep Track of your AWS Expenses With Cloudyn
9 Feb 2012 | 9:02 amWith the number of individual Amazon Web Services now seemingly approaching infinity, it makes sense for third parties to get into the act of trying to keep track of what you are actually spending and whether you have over-provisioned your services. Enter Cloudyn.com, an Israeli based company that announced its services this week. Sponsor The idea is to have a dashboard similar to what you see below (mine isn't very interesting, sorry, I have taken down all of my machines at the moment) where you can track your projected annual costs, which accounts you have on AWS and what your running… -
A Look at Steve Jobs' FBI File
9 Feb 2012 | 8:16 amYes, it's true. The FBI had a file on Steve Jobs. It's not what you might think, though. The FBI performed a "level III" background investigation on Jobs as a potential presidential appointee in 1991. He was described by most witnesses as an "individual of good character and integrity" that would be suitable for a "position of trust and confidence with the Government." Jobs also had a brush with the FBI when Apple received a bomb threat in 1985. Sponsor According to one of the filings, Jobs was being considered for an appointment to the President's Export Council in early 1991. This was while…
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Mashable!
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U.S. Wants You to Test Terrorist Tracking With Social Media Game [VIDEO]
9 Feb 2012 | 10:26 amThe U.S. government wants to more aggressively track terrorists on social media — and it’s asking for your help. The U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Embassy in Prague are sponsoring a social media gaming contest to test ways social media and open source data can be used to track terrorists and locate missing children. The FBI announced last month it plans to develop an app to monitor public social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter, and this game shows the government is still looking for ways to expand its social media tracking abilities. Tag Challenge, the social media… -
Obama Campaign Releases Official Spotify Playlist
9 Feb 2012 | 10:14 amPresident Barack Obama, or rather the Obama 2012 campaign, is using Spotify to share tunes with voters and constituents. The campaign tweeted a link to its official 2012 playlist created using Spotify. It includes tunes picked by members of the campaign staff, as well as a few of President Obama’s favorites. Spotify is just the latest service to get the Obama 2012 seal of approval. In addition to the requisite Facebook and Twitter accounts, the campaign is also active on Instagram, Google+ and Tumblr. A little Wilco, a bit of No Doubt—check out what else made it onto the new official… -
Instagram Co-Founder’s Girlfriend Launches Lovestagram for Valentine’s Day
9 Feb 2012 | 9:52 amInstagram co-founder Mike Krieger is about to receive one of the Internet’s most thoughtful Valentine’s Day ecards from his girlfriend Kaitlyn Trigger. Trigger, who has been dating Krieger since before he launched the hugely popular iOS app, is launching Lovestagram, an interactive Valentine’s card maker that uses the Instagram API, as a Valentine’s Day gift. Lovestagram creates a slideshow of all Instagram photos shared between you and your special someone, through mutual username tags, photos shot in the same location within an hour or comments exchanged. All you do… -
An Olympic-Style Torch Relay … With Lightsabers [VIDEO]
9 Feb 2012 | 9:33 amEach day, Mashable highlights one noteworthy YouTube video. Check out all our viral video picks. The fine folks at Nerdist are teaming up with Lucasfilm, Octagon and Machinima to do the first ever “Lightsaber Run” in the days leading up to San Diego Comic Con. That might be the geekiest thing we’ve ever written. Considering our penchant for robots, that’s saying a lot! Dubbed “Course of the Force,” the Olympic-style lightsaber relay will take place on July 7 to 11 and cover the trek from Santa Monica to San Diego. At each quarter-mile marker, participants… -
Kickstarter Project for Adventure Game Raises $600,000 in One Day
9 Feb 2012 | 9:18 amA video game developer’s Kickstarter project has raised more than $600,000 in just 24 hours. When game veteran Tim Schafer put up a Kickstarter Wednesday night, he wanted to answer the question: are adventure games still viable and popular? Adventure games, mostly seen on PCs and some consoles in the late ’80s and ’90s, were known for their creative stories, immersive worlds and difficult puzzles. Schafer was responsible for designing and writing of the most popular ones, including Full Throttle, Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle and The Secret of Monkey Island. He has…
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TechCrunch
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Glancee: A Nice-Guy Ambient Social Location App For Normal People
9 Feb 2012 | 10:44 amSome of us can’t be bothered to check in, but still want to find interesting people nearby. The challenge for developers is how to do this in a way that is both useful and not creepy. Glancee, available for both iOS and Android, gets closer to solving these problems than most I’ve seen. The app lets you sign in with Facebook, then it shows you people within 100 yards, or one, two, or ten miles who have things in common. In some ways this sounds similar another app I recently covered, Highlight — but there are key differences, that will make each app appeal to different sets… -
Pixloo Helps You Sell Your Home With Free Virtual Tours, Exports To Zillow, Trulia & More
9 Feb 2012 | 10:28 amIn December, Eric covered Open Home Pro, a startup that lets realtors sell homes via their iPads. Today, there comes a similar effort from Pixloo, except this service is designed for use by anyone – realtors and homeowners alike. With Pixloo, you can upload information about your home, including text, photos and even videos and then immediately export that data to major real estate sites including Trulia, Zillow, Realtor.com and others, all for free. OK, technically, Pixloo is freemium. The pricing tiers depend on whether you need one virtual tour, the number of exports per tour and… -
Avast, Me Hearties: How The Pirate Bay Changed The Way We Steal
9 Feb 2012 | 9:41 amThe Pirate Bay, in many ways, is disappearing. It is one of the most popular torrent sites on the web and its database of millions of torrent files – essentially pointers to pieces of files hosted elsewhere – has long been the go-to spot for budding pirates around the world. While it still exists in spirit, the admins are now moving all of the torrent files off the site and are instead offering magnet links. This is an important distinction that will move the locus of general piracy from a single site to any number of sites, reducing the Pirate Bays importance as a source. First,… -
Cinemagram Turns iPhone Photos Into Animated Gifs In Seconds
9 Feb 2012 | 9:07 amRemember when the iPhone app GLMPS launched last summer, seemingly heralding the start of a new image format that blended static photos and video? No? That’s OK. Today, there’s a new twist on the idea of reinventing the mobile photo, this time by turning static photos into animated ones. With the newly launched app called Cinemagram, you can turn your iPhone pics into animated gifs in a matter of seconds. Cinemagram isn’t quite the same as GLMPS, to be clear. “The GLMPS app embedded an entire video as a picture-in-picture onto the image,” explains… -
Google, Microsoft Search Queries Grow In January While Yahoo Continues To Slide
9 Feb 2012 | 8:56 amcomScore has released its ‘explicit’ U.S. search data for January of this year and while Google and Microsoft Bring’s search share continues to grow, Yahoo’s share dropped both year over year and month over month. This comes after Bing overtook Yahoo in terms of search queries for the first time in December. While Bing grew slightly from December 2011 to January, Google reached its highest share since December 2010 this past month. Google search queries increased 6% year over year in January, to 66.2%, compared with 65.9% in December 2011 and 65.6% in January 2011.
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@ProBlogger
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6 Powerful Guest Post Tactics that No One’s Talking About
9 Feb 2012 | 6:05 amThis guest post is by Tom Ewer of Leaving Work Behind. Guest posting is a hot topic amongst startup bloggers. It is one of the most widely-adopted blog promotion strategies in existence, and has been made perhaps even more popular by the success of “serial” guest posters such as Danny Iny of Firepole Marketing. His “blitzkrieg” strategy may come across to some as a triumph of quantity over strategy, but nothing could be further from the truth. He understands the key concepts that we will be exploring in this post, and executes them in a highly effective manner. Whilst… -
How to Succinctly Report a Blog Issue to Tech Support
8 Feb 2012 | 6:07 amThis guest post is by Matthew Setter of Malt Blue. How often do you find it happening to you? You discover an issue with your site, or one of your community members emails you to tell you about it, and soon you start to see tweets about it too. Maybe it’s as simple as an error message that detracts from the professional appearance of your site. Perhaps the contact form doesn’t send messages to your contact email address. Or is it that the whole site just displays as a blank page, otherwise known as the white page of death? You’re not a programmer, a software engineer or a seasoned… -
Make Your Blog Load Faster than ProBlogger: Part 2
7 Feb 2012 | 12:05 pmThis guest post is by Devesh of WP Kube. A few months ago, I wrote a guest post here called How to Make Your Blog Load Faster than ProBlogger. Today, I’ll go into some more detailed advice to help you speed up your site even more. If you’re a blogger, you already know about the importance of blog loading speed, and the role it plays in search engine rank and marketing your blog. But if this is new territory for you, here are three quick reasons why you need to speed up your blog: Google includes website loading speed as an important metric in their ranking algorithm. If you want… -
How I Beat my Best Month Ever by Doing Something Good, Better [Case Study]
7 Feb 2012 | 6:04 amMid-December 2010: on my photography site, we launched a new campaign—our first ever 12 Days of Christmas promotion. The result was my biggest month of earnings ever up to that point. The idea was simple: offer discounts on 12 products over the 12 days leading up to Christmas. I used a mix of my own ebooks and products from other photography sites with affiliate commissions. The result was massive. Not only did we see some great revenue generated, it created some lovely buzz on the site. Due to the success of the 2010 campaign, in mid-December 2011 we launched our second 12 Days of… -
Six Steps to Make Sure Your Site Is Ready to Go Viral
6 Feb 2012 | 6:00 amThis guest post is by Nancy Sathre-Vogel of Family on Bikes. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Surely Google Analytics was confusing my site with another, way more popular site. There was no way my visitor numbers could be so high! And yet they were. One of my posts had taken off and was spreading like wildfire. Those viral post phenomena that happen to others were now happening to me. The first day, 17,000 visitors came to my website. The next day we topped out at 56,000. Readers were coming in droves. It was exciting. It was exhilarating. My site, viral! Wow! And then I took a…
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chrisbrogan.com
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Throw Away the Maps
6 Feb 2012 | 1:30 amPeople judge us by the path they’ve seen us walk before. They can’t anticipate our future steps. We, ourselves, look to how things have been, what seems to be the lay of the land, without realizing that the maps are not the territory. Want to succeed at work? Then don’t try to do your job. Instead, work towards something larger, more meaningful, and something that blends your convictions internally with your best ability to help others externally. Want to create something new? Then throw away the old, or maybe join two disparate old things together into something new. The… -
The Next Social Networks
5 Feb 2012 | 1:30 amThe rage in social networks right now is Pinterest, partly because it’s probably the first social network that has a much higher adoption rate by females than males, and partly because it’s an interesting concept: somewhere between visual social bookmarking and scrapbooking. What also might not be immediately obvious is that it’s just “easier” to interact there. In that way, Pinterest has something in common with Instagram, which is community around photos. What I’m interested in, though, is Gentlemint, which I keep calling “Pinterest for… -
Learn From Adele – Build Your Platform
3 Feb 2012 | 1:30 amJacq and I just watched Adele Live At The Royal Albert Hall (amazon affiliate link), and though every song was just wonderfully done, I found myself fascinated by what Adele was doing in between each song. Because even though most people would be interested in hearing her belt out her amazing repertoire of hits, what I took away from the performance was Adele’s real magical ability: the ability to resonate with her audience. What Adele Could Teach You About Impact I’m writing something about this right now for my upcoming book with Julien Smith, but I had to share some of the… -
Rob Gokee is a Musical Wizard
2 Feb 2012 | 8:05 amI had such a great experience working with award winning musical composer Rob Gokee. We did some musical work together, and the process was so amazing. Rob helped me create my theme song for Shhh! The Secret Show. So anyhow, he and I sat down to do an interview, and it’s a bit long, but it’s totally worth it. We talk about what collaboration feels like at a distance, what it takes to get music like this made for your own show, and a lot more. Rob’s a hero to me, and has been part of the community for a while. I was so fortunate to have worked with him. Can’t see the… -
Build Your Platform – Start
30 Jan 2012 | 1:30 amThe following is part ONE of a series called Build Your Platform. If you find it interesting, please consider subscribing for free to get the rest of the series. This post is long. You might want to bookmark it for later. The age of social media oversaturation is upon us. People are declaring Twitter bankruptcy to go along with their email bankruptcy. They cite not wanting to start on yet another social network as their reason for not getting more involved with Google+. And just as soon as you start getting into Pinterest, you hear about Path, but wait: there’s Gentlemint, which is…
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JasonKeath.com
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5 Great Ways to Use Pinterest
26 Jan 2012 | 9:01 amOriginally published at Social Web Daily What do sculptors, jet setters, philosophers, foodies, and collectors have in common? They can all make great use of Pinterest, the pinboard-channeling new social network. With a stream-lined interface, and plenty of opportunity to engage with and get inspiration from other Pinterest users, there are an endless number of creative ways to use the new site. Here are five of our favorites: 1. Collector’s Showcase Hobbyists and special-interest enthusiasts can put Pinterest to good use by uploading pictures from your personal collection, or collecting… -
Checking out the downtown NYC coworking space @Hiveat55 today
10 Jan 2012 | 11:31 amIt is across from the NY stock exchange. Nice quiet space. And I got a free day pass thanks to my Foursquare checkin. -
How to Spot a Yelp User, The Definitive Chart
5 Jan 2012 | 4:36 pmvia flowtown.com -
Pinterest Is Perfect For Your Dear Santa Letter
21 Dec 2011 | 9:55 amSocial image bookmarking site Pinterest is very hot right now, even though the site is still invite only. If you have not tested it out, Pinterest is simply a place to save and share images from around the web. You “pin” images to a “board” and anyone that follows you or that board sees it. Even better, all images on Pinterest are links to whereever you found them, by default. So if you want to buy that cool pair of shoes your friend pinned, click through. If you want to see more info on an inspirational poster or what beach your friend took a photo of, click through. -
How Not To Provide Customer Service, A JCPenney Story
20 Dec 2011 | 5:02 pmSo, maybe I am spoiled by Amazon and Zappos, but the last few days, I have been trying to buy a couch from JCPenney.com and have failed on 3 occasions. The couch in question: Here’s the thing, this is an awesome couch and it was on sale. But we need the chaise portion of the couch to be on the left when you are sitting down. But it was unclear to me how to order it. I either had to order LAF (left facing arm) or RAF (right facing arm). I had no idea what those two terms meant. Did LAF mean the chaise was on the left when facing it or when sitting on the couch? I was also curious about…
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Logic+Emotion
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Permission To Fail
9 Feb 2012 | 10:15 amI love my job. Seriously. The skeptical among you may read this as shameless corporate cheer-leading, or a PR ploy (given I work at a PR firm). It's not. You have to understand that I work for a very unique company—in fact, it's been the most unique career experience in my life. A sixty year old company—technically family owned (not public) with over four thousand employees globally and the CEO of the company wears the last name of the founder, his father. Which brings me to the video above. I had the opportunity to interview our CEO, Richard Edelman on the topic of trust as it relates to… -
Will The Real Social Business Experts Please Stand Up?
7 Feb 2012 | 10:23 amStop what you're doing and check out this thread (on Google Plus of all places) started by Francine Hardaway. She started it off with a simple question. "Who are the best experts in social business?"What followed was a robust discussion on what social business is, isn't and who's driving the agenda forward in the space both in thought and action. If you're interested in the emerging definition of social business (aka the convergence of enterprise 2.0 and social media) I highly recommend you taking a look. Some of my favorite thoughts:"the thread that social business is not the same as social… -
People, Places & Events
3 Feb 2012 | 11:01 amA few significant events happening over the next few months—here's where I'll be: Chicago: February 6th, Social Media Club, An Interview With Richard EdelmanOur I'll be interviewing Richard Edelman our CEO in our new office space as we host the Chicago Social Media Club. We will be discussing this Year's Trust Barometer findings. If you can't make it to Chicago, we will be live streaming video the interview at 5:00 CST. London & New York: February 13-16, Social Media Week Our London office is hosting a panel titled "Social Business In Action". A topic I'm very passionate about—then… -
How To Be A Social Media Self-Righteous Jerk
1 Feb 2012 | 4:28 pmThe scale above shows the many stages one has to go through in order to become a bona fide self-righteous jerk in social media. Still, there are many people who aspire to reach this peak, but fall short in executing against it. Given this observation, I thought it would be worthwhile to piece together a few best practices which will ensure your status as a social media self-righteous jerk (or SMSRJ). In no particular order: 1. Join The Klout GestapoAll social media SMSRJ's know that Klout is simply evil incarnate and requires a organized force to take on this evil axis of influence wherever… -
Launching a Social Command Center (Without The Center)
27 Jan 2012 | 8:05 am"Social command centers" are all the rage today and it's not without some merit. Many organizations now find themselves in a real-time business environment where news travels faster than sound, and information is set free. As a result, some forward thinking companies have put "monitoring" in place either in-house or in combination with partners. This isn't enough. And to make matters worse, I've seen companies make the classic mistake of buying a tool BEFORE putting any thought into the design that goes into effective monitoring and response, forgetting the 3P's (People, Process, Platforms).
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Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing
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How to Use a WordPress Blog as a Referral Generator
9 Feb 2012 | 5:19 amHow to Use a WordPress Blog as a Referral GeneratorThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing I’ve seen and heard this scenario countless times. Two perfectly suited strategic partners determine they should start doing some things together in an effort to create referral opportunities for each other. They shake hands and agree that it’s a fabulous idea, but then nothing happens. Mostly nothing happens because there’s no catalyst to get the ball rolling in a way that makes sense. I mean, sure, they could both send out a mass mailing to their clients professing how great the other is, but… -
Turn Your Business Into a Community Building Platform
8 Feb 2012 | 5:36 amTurn Your Business Into a Community Building PlatformThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing I believe the future of business and commitment building resides in the idea of viewing your business as a platform for your community. The notion of a platform is one that receives a fair amount of play in various contexts. An author is said to possess a platform when they have built a following. Consultants might work with a business owner to build a platform through speaking, writing, blogging and connecting in social media. And finally, many tech firms have built platforms by creating open source… -
Is Your Marketing Producing the Results You Expected
7 Feb 2012 | 5:58 amIs Your Marketing Producing the Results You ExpectedThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing Quipol Image:One-Fat-Man via Flickr CC The poll question above is a bit loaded and, not that I want to skew the results, the answer for most lies in the fact that they don’t really know what results they expected or what result they are actually getting. Mostly they know the results aren’t what they had hoped for, but that’s another issue. Setting expectations One of the simplest, yet most effective, things you can do is set expectations or goals for your marketing. You can create… -
This Is a Message from Your Heart
6 Feb 2012 | 5:51 amThis Is a Message from Your HeartThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing I had a heart scan the other day – mainly because I’m old and my spouse is convincing in the most loving way. a4gpa via Flickr CCIf you’ve never done it, it’s a pretty incredible experience to get to watch the awesome mechanical miracle that is you heart spray blood in and out through a series of valves, tubes, chambers, levers and doors that any engineer would be challenged to recreate. More often than not the heart is the subject of poems and songs about romance and love but in addition to being a physical… -
Weekend Favs February Four
4 Feb 2012 | 5:32 amWeekend Favs February FourThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week. I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from Flickr or from my own travels. First run of the day Telluride Good stuff I found this week: Quipol – Easily create and embed social polls that are very easy to use and very good looking Transcribe – free online tool that makes it much easier…
