This past week I had the tremendous pleasure to speak at DemandGen's Content2Conversion Conference—and they were thoughtful enough to livestream it for remote audiences. And if you're interested in watching the segment, it's featured below (run time: 45 minutes, as it's the full speech). I center on "The Mobile Revolution Meets B2B: New Content Marketing Opportunities & Imperatives." Through the speech, I review the real story on The Mobile Revolution and run through 3 tactical and strategic content imperatives for B2Bs. But with that said, B2C…
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Most Topular Stories
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B2B Mobile Marketing Speech: DemandGen C2C Conference
CK's Blog27 Apr 2012 | 7:37 pm -
Sharing "Social Business By Design" #SBBD
Being Peter Kim1 May 2012 | 5:01 amToday is the official publication date of Social Business By Design. It's been a whirlwind three-year journey from the original blog post that introduced the world to "social business" to a full book describing how to make strategy and tactics succeed. If you're starting on your social business journey, this book will provide you with a roadmap explaining the whys and hows. Last week, Dion explained why we wrote the book and outlined its key features. If you're a seasoned social business practitioner, you'll find value in the frameworks, outlines, and visual thinking. As one early… -
An Essential Resource for Building and Managing an Online Community [NEW BOOK]
The Content Marketing Revolution14 May 2012 | 5:49 pmI have always believed that a focus on truly unique and incredibly relevant content, shared in the right channels with the right customers and prospects, was the core to most corporate content marketing strategies. I’ve never focused (as much as I have needed to) on how important building and managing an online community is to an overall content marketing strategy. Two events have opened my eyes to the idea that online communities can take your content marketing and put it on steroids. First, I spoke with Todd Wheatland, VP of Thought Leadership for Kelly Services. Todd showed me how… -
Networking 101: Getting Out and About for Business
Servant of Chaos16 May 2012 | 3:57 amNo matter where you are on the career ladder – starting out, consolidating or even retiring and soaking up the sun – the process of networking is vital. But when I say “networking” I don’t mean meeting and greeting and handing out dozens of business cards – these days a great deal of networking and information gathering can take place online (after all it is called “social” media). The nice thing about this, is that you can get a sense of someone’s skills and experience via LinkedIn, understand their thought process and expertise by reading their blog and even see what they… -
Startup Swingers: Swapping Founders to Generate Fresh Ideas
ReadWriteWeb16 May 2012 | 12:00 pmRemember "swinging"? Two people in a committed relationship go to a party with a bunch of other people in committed relationships. They all separate, find new partners for the evening and get jiggy. It may sound lurid and gross, but it’s the cool new thing for startup founders. Swapping Ideas, Not Spouses First, let’s be clear. We’re not talking about sex. We’re talking about Founder Swap, a June 1 event in New York where teams from six different startups will get together, trade partners for a day and go home with an injection of fresh ideas. The tagline? “Like Wife Swap but for…
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CK's Blog
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B2B Mobile Marketing Speech: DemandGen C2C Conference
27 Apr 2012 | 7:37 pmThis past week I had the tremendous pleasure to speak at DemandGen's Content2Conversion Conference—and they were thoughtful enough to livestream it for remote audiences. And if you're interested in watching the segment, it's featured below (run time: 45 minutes, as it's the full speech). I center on "The Mobile Revolution Meets B2B: New Content Marketing Opportunities & Imperatives." Through the speech, I review the real story on The Mobile Revolution and run through 3 tactical and strategic content imperatives for B2Bs. But with that said, B2C… -
B2B Mobile Marketing Video: "CK's Mantra For B2B Mobile Success = Better, Faster, Easier"
23 Apr 2012 | 12:02 amAs I've worked to hit home during my speeches, trainings, and mobile-marketing guide on B2B mobile marketing: If you want to win mobile hearts, minds, and market share through mobile your mantra should be "Better, Faster, Easier." And through this 5-minute video clip, and supporting examples, I hope the lessons are helpful to you in developing your mobile strategies, plans, and programs. Here's the 5-minute video clip: I hope these points are helpful to you in your B2B mobile-marketing strategic planning and development. In the case you want to view more videos, please go… -
B2B Mobile Article: Featured In Article On iPad HD In Content Marketing Institute
7 Mar 2012 | 1:27 pmBig thanks to Content Marketing Institute and Michael Bay for including me in the article on the iPad HD release... and what it means for B2B Marketers.Titled iPad HD A Wakeup Call For B2B Marketers, throughout the piece I urge B2Bs to use mobile to deliver high value, create exemplary experiences, and create programs that make the lives of busy professionals “better, faster and easier”. Here's an excerpt: For content marketers, it isn’t the hardware that counts. “The magic in mobile is not the devices, though they are cool and cutting edge,” says B2B Marketing Specialist… -
Mobile Marketing and You: Featured In Print Professional Magazine
22 Feb 2012 | 12:56 pmIn the recent edition of Print Professional—through the article Mobile Marketing and You —I give insights and advice on mobile-marketing best practices across QR codes and SMS campaigns Here's an excerpt: "SMS is a very personal channel—a business is literally asking permission to send text alerts to a user's mobile device," said Kerley. "There are really two critical pieces here: Whatever communications a business is promoting via SMS must be of high value (be that value an incentive or a new product), and the business must not overload the… -
B2B Mobile Marketing: Featured In BtoB Magazine Article on Mobile Engagement
9 Feb 2012 | 12:31 pmIn this BtoB Magazine article, Mobile advertising: Make it engaging, which I'm thrilled to be a part of, explores the opportunities and challenges of mobile display advertising. My contributions urge marketers to develop engaging advertisements that focus on their customers’ needs. And I also advocate to get creative in using formats prime for the mobile environment, as with using video not just text and graphics. Here's an excerpt: Once ads are delivered, the challenge becomes matching the ad to the medium—because mobile screens are so much smaller, a typical banner ad…
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Being Peter Kim
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Sharing "Social Business By Design" #SBBD
1 May 2012 | 5:01 amToday is the official publication date of Social Business By Design. It's been a whirlwind three-year journey from the original blog post that introduced the world to "social business" to a full book describing how to make strategy and tactics succeed. If you're starting on your social business journey, this book will provide you with a roadmap explaining the whys and hows. Last week, Dion explained why we wrote the book and outlined its key features. If you're a seasoned social business practitioner, you'll find value in the frameworks, outlines, and visual thinking. As one early…
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The Content Marketing Revolution
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An Essential Resource for Building and Managing an Online Community [NEW BOOK]
14 May 2012 | 5:49 pmI have always believed that a focus on truly unique and incredibly relevant content, shared in the right channels with the right customers and prospects, was the core to most corporate content marketing strategies. I’ve never focused (as much as I have needed to) on how important building and managing an online community is to an overall content marketing strategy. Two events have opened my eyes to the idea that online communities can take your content marketing and put it on steroids. First, I spoke with Todd Wheatland, VP of Thought Leadership for Kelly Services. Todd showed me how… -
10 Ways to Optimize Your Enewsletter Landing Page
9 May 2012 | 7:19 pmI had the pleasure of presenting at the Enewsletter World workshop this week with Jeanne Jennings and Ryan Dorhn (two amazing, first-class media experts). In one of our breakout sessions, Jeanne broke down 10 specific ways to optimize an enewsletter landing page. In our new social media world, email assets are more important than ever before. As content marketers, it is critical that we develop our audiences and build our channels, with a primary emphasis on email in conjunction with social channels like Facebook and Twitter. Why? Theoretically (and legally) the customer names that sign up to… -
3 Ways to Extract Brand Stories from Inside the Company
30 Apr 2012 | 12:43 pmYou’ve done it. You’ve developed why you need the content, created and vetted the buyer personas, and identified the buying stages where this essential content will have impact on the business. As you start to dig into your content marketing channel and workflow strategy, you realize that you simply don’t have enough brand stories to meet the demands of the content marketing initiative. In many content marketing programs, the core brand stories have to deal with transforming an employee’s, customer’s or stakeholder’s passion and expertise into one or… -
6 Amazing Retail Content Marketing Examples
26 Apr 2012 | 11:18 amIn doing some research for a retail-oriented content marketing workshop, I learned one thing: retail content marketing case studies and examples are hard to find. That said, I was able to find a number of print and digital content marketing examples that impressed me. Here are six of them. …and, if you have some you’d like to share, please add them to the comments below. Lifetime Fitness – Experience Life Experience Life is the lifestyle print and online magazine developed by Lifetime Fitness, the billion dollar health and fitness company with over 100 centers around the… -
Optimizing Social, Search and Content: A Q&A with Lee Odden
18 Apr 2012 | 6:18 amI’ve had the distinct pleasure of knowing Lee Odden for more than four years now. I first started following his blog back in 2007/2008 when we launched the Junta42 Top Content Marketing blogs. During the 11 times we released the top content marketing blogs from around the world, Lee’s blog ranked #1 three times. Quite an accomplishment and a testament to Lee’s expertise around content marketing. Better yet, I’ve had the opportunity to run into Lee at dozens of events around the country (Lee will also be speaking at Content Marketing World). He is truly one of…
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Servant of Chaos
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Networking 101: Getting Out and About for Business
16 May 2012 | 3:57 amNo matter where you are on the career ladder – starting out, consolidating or even retiring and soaking up the sun – the process of networking is vital. But when I say “networking” I don’t mean meeting and greeting and handing out dozens of business cards – these days a great deal of networking and information gathering can take place online (after all it is called “social” media). The nice thing about this, is that you can get a sense of someone’s skills and experience via LinkedIn, understand their thought process and expertise by reading their blog and even see what they… -
Five Must-Read Posts from Last Week
14 May 2012 | 5:17 pmThis week there seems to be plenty of talk about disruption … about what it means and what the implications are. And while this feels true, disruption has always been the natural state in the creative industries (including advertising). It’s just that the waves of disruption now overlap and seem to hit us from all directions. Some of these articles may help you navigate this chaotic world. Stories can have a powerful transformative effect on people and on brands – but many still fail to see the link with social media. Meghan Biro explains why brand humanization is not a social media… -
Five Must-Read Posts from Last Week
6 May 2012 | 3:40 pmEach week, as I click links, follow trails and read through my ever burgeoning list of RSS feed, I leave tabs open in my browser. That often means that I will have 60-70 tabs open at one time – which also means that my browser is slow to load each morning. In an ideal world I read, cull and move on – with only the best tabs left still open at the end of the week. It is from this list that I draw my five must-read posts. Here are a few that I just can’t seem to close: In my mind there is no doubt that Search and all its variants is under pressure. We are slowly but surely coming back to… -
The Real Value in Conferences is the People
3 May 2012 | 6:04 amI just got back from a fantastic couple of days at Terrapin’s Internet Show conference. It confirmed for me how powerful in-person events can be – papering over the cracks of our fragmented online connections, interactions and identities. More than once I was introduced to a person who had previously seemed more real in 140 characters than the flesh and blood person standing in front of me. And more than once did I laugh and revel in the light of a witty observation or wry comment. There was also plenty of great food for thought. Rob Campbell was challenging and thought provoking. -
Vibewires fastBREAK Featuring Dan Ilic
2 May 2012 | 11:50 pmOn the last Friday of every month, Vibewire in partnership with the Powerhouse Museum, hosts #fastBREAK – a breakfast event featuring young innovators and creatives. This is not just a chance for people to “pitch” to the assembled audience of curious business people, artists and entrepreneurs – it goes a step deeper – challenging the speakers to share something deeper – to share a sense of purpose. Last Friday, with the umbrella theme of “Rage”, five speakers again assembled to engage and entertain the audience. On the bill was well-known comedian and performer, Dan Ilic.
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ReadWriteWeb
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Startup Swingers: Swapping Founders to Generate Fresh Ideas
16 May 2012 | 12:00 pmRemember "swinging"? Two people in a committed relationship go to a party with a bunch of other people in committed relationships. They all separate, find new partners for the evening and get jiggy. It may sound lurid and gross, but it’s the cool new thing for startup founders. Swapping Ideas, Not Spouses First, let’s be clear. We’re not talking about sex. We’re talking about Founder Swap, a June 1 event in New York where teams from six different startups will get together, trade partners for a day and go home with an injection of fresh ideas. The tagline? “Like Wife Swap but for… -
Google Goes Back to What It Does Well: Finding Things
16 May 2012 | 10:00 amSurprise! Google has completely transformed the way search works again. But this time, it's a kind of search that would have made the old Google proud. Today, starting with U.S., English-language users, Google unveils the Knowledge Graph. Search now looks at the words of your query and identifies the things in it. You're not just searching the Web anymore. You're searching the world. From Words to Things Most of Google users' queries are ambiguous. In the old Google, when you searched for "kings," Google didn't know whether you meant actual monarchs, the hockey team,… -
Read/Write Daily: Bionic Eyes That Can See Clearly
16 May 2012 | 9:45 amToday's theme is improving on life. Nature did a pretty good job of engineering some hardy life forms. But now we're able to tinker with life ourselves. We're further along than you might think. Researchers have lifted the lid on turtle evolution, a perfect demonstration that technology is natural. But now we have our own genetic ideas. We're able to triple the physical endurance of mice in the lab. This paper shows that high-resolution prosthetic human eyes are possible! Here are slightly and greatly more accessible articles about these bionic eyes. We've also developed low-cost artificial… -
Why the iPad Works for Writing
16 May 2012 | 8:02 amWhen the first iPad launched in 2010, critics were quick to lampoon the device for being geared too heavily toward content consumption. The criticisms weren't entirely without merit, especially considering that the first-generation iPad didn't even have a camera, and external media slots are still nowhere to be found. Over time, the iPad has evolved into something that's much more creation-friendly. It still doesn't compare to a desktop or laptop computer for many things, but it's great for quite a few others. Writing is one of them. I happen to write things for a living, but the… -
The Truth About Why Yahoo's CEO Got Fired
16 May 2012 | 7:02 amWhat's the takeaway from Yahoo's recent CEO fiasco? Don't lie on your corporate bio, for one, and make sure no one else has lied on your behalf. But the real lesson has nothing to do with falsified credentials. Sure, the world will remember Scott Thompson as the Yahoo CEO who got fired over a fake computer science degree, but the context is crucial: A battle with Yahoo shareholder Dan Loeb for control of the company. If not for Loeb, we may never have found out about Thompson's juiced resume, and he might still be CEO. The real lesson is: Beware the activist investor. Four months…
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Logic+Emotion
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Social Business: Where It's Been & Where It's Going
6 May 2012 | 11:56 am"Chasing the past, I stumbled into the future". - T A Sachs I've always been a firm believer that in order to look to the future, we must look back to and fully grasp the past (and the present). Having had several recent engaging conversations with smart people who I respect, I've picked up a hint of exhaustion around usage of the word "social". Could it be that some who saw the "change" coming years ago are weary of having carried that torch for so many years as we move into the heavy lifting? It's natural to want to move to the next thing—but I'm convinced that today we are largely still… -
Own The Data, Own The Future
14 Apr 2012 | 9:15 amNow that some of the dust is settling around Facebook's massive acquisition of Instagram this past week, we can all take a step back and think about the bigger picture. Yes, Facebook understands the critical role mobile will play in how billions of people interact and communicate but they also understand that interactions, engagement, consumption or whatever you want to call it generates one thing. Data. Facebook wants it. Google wants it. And all businesses will want to understand it. There is huge, big business to be built around all kinds of data. Targeted marketing is the first salvo and… -
Thoughts on the Future of Social-Digital Agency Services
7 Apr 2012 | 10:29 am*The above does not reflect actual or estimated market share Now is as good a time as any to be thinking about the future of digital (and social) as defined by those of us who provide services or even products around these. If you work for any agency or consultancy—this article is relevant for you. If you're on the "client side" consider it relevant as well as ultimately it is your business model and needs which dictate the market conditions that affect your partners, vendors and professional service providers. I'm writing this piece from the perspective of having worked at several digital… -
Thoughts On Altimeter's Digital Influence Report
21 Mar 2012 | 10:13 amAltimeter's most recent report titled "The Rise of Digital Influence" revolves around the theory and practice of "digital influence". A trend that will not die despite the industry's counter movement against platforms such as Klout and the scores of imitators which have subsequently followed. (Full disclosure, I was interviewed in depth for the report). Altimeter rightfully begins the analysis of "digital influence" by calling out the distinction from how we view influence traditionally and offering a brief definition:"Traditional influence is defined as the act, power, or capacity of causing… -
Klout Targets Agencies Via "March Madness" Competition
20 Mar 2012 | 8:33 amKlout has dialed up their marketing efforts, this time placing agency individuals in a March Madness bracket style competition they are calling "Agency Insanity". Critics will scoff at it as another attempt to get individuals to pump up scores, but in actuality the effort is a straight forward marketing initiative aimed at raising awareness, generating buzz and getting Klout to show up in people's social streams. A while back, Klout's founder Joe Fernandez and I discussed something like this as part of a brand initiative and it's interesting to see it in action under a different context.
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brandflakesforbreakfast
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your life reincarnated by a computer program
16 May 2012 | 5:10 amCrap, so you've died. Now what? Well luckily for you it's the year 2052 and your conscious can be reincarnated. Getting your life back is as easy as buying an app with advertisements and licensing fees gala. -
stamps celebrating british fashion
16 May 2012 | 5:05 amJohnson Banks, an agency in London, have designed a set of postage stamps to celebrate the last 60 years of British fashion. To capture these pieces in an interesting way the studio worked closely with a highly respected fashion photographer, his assistants, stylists, and hair and wig artists. -
anti-theft moldy lunch bags
16 May 2012 | 5:02 amAh ha! That'll show those pesky lunch thieves a lesson. Fool your office lunch thief into thinking your lunch has gone moldy with these sandwich bags that have green splotches printed on them. They're reusable, recyclable, and available at the. -
how to spot an instagram junkie (infographic)
16 May 2012 | 5:00 amHello Instagram junkie. You know who you are. You're constantly on your beautiful smart phone in awkward poses, bruised up, sweating, and so stressed from your adventures in Instagram world that by the end of the day you look like you've been mulled by a bear. Yes, this infographic is for you. Via. -
junk food patches
15 May 2012 | 5:10 amDanone Corpus Light created a spoof ad featuring Junk Food patches to help people stick to their diet.Step 1: Place on Patch. Step 2: drink a Danone Corpus Light. That simple.I'll take the super-size combo sticker please. (Who wants to bet this is an actual product in say, the net 10 years?)
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Brains On Fire Blog
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Stories vs. Slogans
16 May 2012 | 8:55 am<em>Stories live forever. Slogans live until the ad agency gets tired of them. Stories are real. Slogans are made up. Stories pull you in. Slogans push out a message. Stories are deep. Slogans are shallow. Stories are personal. Slogans are impersonal. Stories are passed on by word of mouth. Slogans are forced on us by ads. Stories are part of who we are. After all, you don’t share slogans about your grandfather, how your parents met or even how you were treated at a restaurant. Brains on Fire Book, page 32 The proof is in the pudding story… -
Is All of That ‘Noise’ a Bad Thing?
15 May 2012 | 7:37 amHow many times have you heard talk about the dreaded ‘noise’? The other day a friend of mine lamented about how digital camera prices have dropped to a point where ‘everyone’ is calling themselves a ‘professional photographer’ and its creating so much ‘noise’ in the industry. But it seems to be everywhere – from startups releasing a product, to companies exploring social media, to ‘content strategy,’ to hundreds of people applying for the same job opening. Everyone seems to be asking, “how in the world are we going to… -
Nostalgia, Mad Men and Emotions
14 May 2012 | 6:32 amYours truly at a Brains on Fire Mad Men Christmas party a few years back. I’ve never gotten caught up watching the show, Mad Men. But the other day someone showed me a short clip that got stuck in my heart for many reasons. Take a minute and watch it. Don’t you love that? The definition of nostalgia as a pain of or ache is wonderful. Even happy memories can create that tug. Since we’re in the word of mouth marketing business, we think a lot about the role of emotions in igniting conversation. We know that brands and organizations that evoke strong emotions and storytelling… -
The End User is Not the Only User
10 May 2012 | 6:38 amI am not a product designer. I’m not even a designer. But I noticed something recently that made me think hard about the process of developing products and experiences. My wife and I were eating at a burrito chain where one of the new Coca-Cola “Freestyle” drink machines was installed (1). I’m not a soda drinker, so I didn’t experience it for myself, but I could tell that other restaurant patrons were really enjoying the futuristic interface and the impossibly broad number of drink choices available from one machine. (I read later that the number of available… -
Hello (and some photos) From Chicago
9 May 2012 | 5:50 amWe’re at the WIT. Love the little brilliant details in this hotel, like birds quietly chirping in the halls. I’m in Chicago this week at Womma‘s womm-u with Cordell and Geno. And I’m so glad we all came. Honestly, I wish everyone from Brains on Fire could attend. Yesterday’s keynote speaker Steve Knox is shiny brilliant (he spoke at the FIRE session two years ago and was a huge hit). Every time I get the chance to be in Steve’s company, I take it. And every time I hear him speak, I learn something new. Here are just a couple of things that stuck in my mind:…
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The Future Buzz
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7 Lessons Digital Marketers Can Learn from Martha Stewart
10 May 2012 | 8:09 amThe following is a guest post by Future Buzz community memeber Matt Gratt. While many people see Martha Stewart as just another craft and cooking show host, she’s actually a brilliant marketer, founder, and executive. She’s in an exclusive club: not too many people found a company and manage to take it public while staying CEO, putting her in the company of entrepreneurs like Michael Dell, Steve Jobs, Marc Benioff, and Howard Schultz. This success is not unwarranted. In addition to being a gifted maker, Martha is a brilliant marketer. The company name alone – Martha Stewart OmniMedia… -
3 Creative Professionals Who Went Beyond The Resume
9 May 2012 | 8:11 amFor many industries it’s a tough job market out there. Everyone knows this. Rather than complain about it, some enterprising individuals are using their creativity to stand out and get positions they want. Thought I’d share 3 stories that stand out (2 recent, one from a bit ago) to inspire you to go beyond a resume next time you’re seeking a job. 1. Jeanne Hwang creatively uses the platform she wants to work for The Next Web shares the story that Jeanne put together a visual resume on Pinterest. I won’t comment on her pins about increasing Twitter followers and her… -
The Meta Factor Is Still Alive And Kicking
8 May 2012 | 7:53 amThe web has always enjoyed talking about, well, the web. That’s nothing new. It was true in the days of forums and boards, in fact some of the most heated threads stemmed from meta discussions. Back when Digg was popular the most popular submissions on Digg were about Digg. This is true on Reddit today. Several of the blogs about blogging still receive a huge amount of attention. So I especially enjoyed that the New Yorker published a humorous story on the web’s continued obsession with meta threads in today’s social platforms: First, I take a sort of new angle on… -
Be Curious, Not Dismissive
30 Apr 2012 | 8:58 amI recall a situation in 2007 (while in the consulting space) when most businesses were barely scratching the surface with digital marketing. The story goes like this: one of my clients, a national brand that is a household name was reticent to participate in social. What was interesting is very smart people were running the company. But even after we explained the situation, shared research and outlined the benefits of embracing social marketing, they still seemed ambivalent. Or perhaps a better word: dismissive. “Why would anyone want to do that?” was a common response to what we… -
On Being Creative
26 Apr 2012 | 8:08 amThis week, I traveled to LA to speak on a panel with Sonia Simone and Peter Shankman (pictured above) at the BlueGlass internet marketing conference. Our session was on the future of public relations – you can read a summary here. I wanted to bring up one part of our discussion that was particularly interesting and something I’ve been thinking about lately. We got on the subject of creativity as an audience member asked the question how to consistently come up with creative ideas. Peter and Sonia responded with some good tips on how to come up with something creative, fast. For…
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PSFK
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Experimental Art Project Generates Energy From World Currency Exchange
16 May 2012 | 12:01 pmA "poet of ideas" creates a company that captures the current between two metal currencies that mirror those being traded digitally. -
Man Implants iPad Nano Into His Arm
16 May 2012 | 11:36 amProfessional body piercer Dave Hurban causes controversy by inserting magnetic studs into his forearms that allow him to attach and detach gadgets. -
Wearable Exoskeleton Can Help Users Carry Heavy Items With Ease
16 May 2012 | 11:02 amSoon to be commercially available in Japan, the exoskeleton will help people to carry almost 90 pounds without strain. -
Steve Clayton: How To Design Technology So It Becomes Natural [Video]
16 May 2012 | 10:30 amMicrosoft expert presents a vision of the future where gesture, sound and artificial-intuition create a world that extends the possibilities of our creativity. -
Land Rover Edible Survival Guide Will Keep Drivers Alive In The Desert
16 May 2012 | 10:21 amCar company creates a book explorers can eat that also gives car owners tips about terrain, shelter, and wildlife.
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AgencySpy
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CP+B Brings Mason to LA
16 May 2012 | 6:56 amIn between all the EVP-promotion clusterfuck, perhaps one of the names got lost in the bunch. We’ve received word that the 10-year agency exec Mason Reed (maybe up there in greatest soap opera names ever), who’s now joining with CP+B’s L.A. office as EVP/managing director at said shop. During his decade-long stint, Reed worked on current and dead pieces of biz, Virgin Atlantic Airways,Hulu, Slim Jim, Method home cleaning products, Nike and Burger King. In his current role, Reed will turn his focus onto Old Navy and the MDC agency’s portion of the Microsoft biz. … -
Grey Absorbs More G2 Work
16 May 2012 | 5:37 amOk, here we go, sources familiar with the matter confirm that following the Eli Lilly account hullabaloo, Grey has soaked in another piece business in the form of Reliant, which we’ve been told was originally a conjoined operation within the Grey/G2. From what we’ve been told by sources familiar with the matter,” We had a shared relationship with Grey on the Reliant business, which has been service[d] out of the San Francisco Grey office.” From what we’ve been told, it was the Reliant direct marketing business that was at hand. You might asscociate Reliant with… -
The U…of Phoenix, That Is, Taps Arnold
16 May 2012 | 4:40 amAfter three months or so of reviewing, the University of Phoenix, which is an accredited college institution mind you, has tapped Arnold Worldwide as its new agency of record. If you remember, the Apollo Group-owned school previously worked with Pereira & O’Dell for nearly three years. Arnold’s Boston headquarters will oversee the work for University of Phoenix, which is set to debut this fall. In a statement, Arnold Boston president Pam Hamlin says, “Adult education is a fast-growing market and University of Phoenix is the largest in the category. We’re incredibly… -
Pergo Gives a Floor Durability Test Courtesy of Battlebots
16 May 2012 | 4:23 amBelieve it or not, 2012 marks a decade since Comedy Central canceled their robot fighting show, BattleBots. The show had it all, from destruction to hilarity to scantily-clad “correspondents” to cameos from Bill Nye the Science Guy. If you’re anything like me, and you consider these attributes the recipe for televised greatness, you were devastated when BattleBots went off the air. So, understand that I’m a little biased when I call the above spot for Atlanta-based agency Fitzgerald+Co a wonderfully creative way to demonstrate the durability of Pergo floors. Not only… -
Here’s Basically All You Need to Know About Last Night’s CLIOs
16 May 2012 | 3:25 amSomehow, yours truly was able to hit up three events last night (yeah, we know, it’s a hard knock life, but I’m getting old), the last being the CLIO Awards, which once again took place at the American Museum of Natural History way the hell uptown and under dreary skies in NYC. Regardless of the gloom, we felt rather uplifted from MC/plastic surgery advocate Joan Rivers and her self-deprecating humor. Despite what seemed to be laryngitis, the comedienne rallied on and made the requisite Kardashian jokes, showed off her starring spot in a BF Goodrich ad from the 1800′s and…
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Herd - the hidden truth about who we are
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Decision making landscape - towards a better map
4 May 2012 | 5:21 amIn a recent post about what BE is missing, I referred to this Crawford chart that I feel captures the individualist model clearly: it places individuals - like a Ptolemaic Earth - at the heart of things. The alternative is not a Copernican one - shifting the focus from one planet/individual to another while retaining the structure of concentric circles around the focal point. No, a better conceptual map would be more like this: a repeated pattern of Crawford's individual circles or a series of interacting individual balls: And most importantly of all, a dynamic pattern - one that… -
"All that matters in the end...
26 Apr 2012 | 4:27 am...is other people". That's what the priest said at my mother's funeral, two years ago this week. Today I'm off to another funeral (second one this week). Our dear friend John Cronk died on 12th April in the Royal Marsden. Although he'd been ill for a while, it still seems like a ghastly adminstrative mistake. A real friend, through thick and thin. A genuine 'mensch' who made our lives better just by being part of them. I'll post the professional appreciation I've done for him at a later date.= but today, just do this for me: whatever else you're… -
Blinded by the technolight
23 Apr 2012 | 5:34 amAs if by magic: Tom's cartoon explores the underlying technophilia which dogs marekting and policy-making too much. Brain porn or Digital Everything - it's all technophilia, I'm afraid -
Neuroscientism and neuroporn (updated)
23 Apr 2012 | 4:15 amAm feeling for Jonah Lehrer this weekend, following Steven Poole's review of his latest book, Imagine - How Creativity Work in the Guardian. I've met Jonah a couple of times and read his work frequently and - as is often the case - feel for the real person I've construed in my head. Unflattering reviews are never pleasant to receive (I've had a few in my time and much as I'd like to pretend they don't hurt, they genuinely do) but at the heart of this one is a critique that I have a lot of sympathy with, if it's true - namely Imagine's overwhelming… -
Habit and the HERD (I)
20 Apr 2012 | 5:06 amAm ploughing my way through Charles Duhigg's new book on Habits at the moment and - the basic point about habits and our tendency default to low-level cognitive activity aside - am finding it all rather disappointingly and over familiar territory. Not just in terms of the overkill of neuro-cartography ("we know that this is important because there's something going on in the brain here...") but in terms of the ideas of habits being shaped by rewards and repetition (in what way is this not classical conditioning?). Add to that the lionising of dead Mad Men and their…
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Greg Verdino's Marketing Blog
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The Road to the Future is Paved with Gold (AmEx Cards)
16 May 2012 | 8:28 amFor at least a few years, American Express has been leading its category in marketing innovation. OPEN Forum turned the card you carry into a robust social system membership. Members Project was social before social was hot. By putting the reigns in cardmembers' hands this program redefined corporate giving and, I'd argue, provided the blueprint for later entrants like Chase Community Giving. While many other issuers still rely on tactical promotions to bump-up fan counts, AmEx is forging deep partnerships with social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare and inventing new ways to… -
Five For Friday: May 11, 2012
11 May 2012 | 6:47 amWhat’s keeping you from moving forward? According to Forrester, it might be confusion, politics and the shock of the new. Get past that and you’re faced with a world of opportunity — to reinvent pieces of your business that haven’t traditionally been considered “marketing”, to rethink your approach to audiences and new markets, and to get creative in involving your customers in all sorts of innovation. This week’s Five For Friday is all about making change happen. Here are The Five for the week ending May 11th: How to Cure Social Media Paralysis CMOs and Marketing VPs agree that… -
Five For Friday: May 4, 2012
4 May 2012 | 5:53 amThis year, April showers aren't just bringing us May flowers. They've also brought us our first May edition of Five for Friday -- or Cinco para Viernes if I remember any of our high school Spanish. This week, we're talking about social, social and more social. What it means for entertainment and media companies. Why you may not want to get too attached to Facebook. How Google might be botching it (again). And some practical advice and provocative questions for marketers still struggling to get social right. Enjoy this week's Five for Friday. And then get out there and enjoy Cinco de Mayo. -
Five For Friday: April 27, 2012
27 Apr 2012 | 4:50 amIn this week's Five for Friday, let's take a look at social media from the perspectives of a member of traditional media's old guard, a B2B marketer, a media futurist, and a media buyer. Plus we'll look at an interesting take on why companies should focus less on what's next and do a better job of handling what's now. Put it all together, and you've got "marketing through the looking glass" -- everything looks kinda familiar but nothing is quite what it seems. Here are some of my favorite reads and interesting ideas for the week ending April 27th, 2012. Inside the AP’s Social Strategy Great… -
Chirpify Disrupts The Music Business All Over Again
24 Apr 2012 | 8:44 amMy client Chirpify is having a damn good day, today. The company, which "turns tweets into transactions" by letting any organization or individual link their Twitter and PayPal accounts to conduct super simple social commerce in 140-characters or less, just closed a $1.3 million Series A round. If that's not enough, they're also rolling out a new solution that allows entertainment companies and independent artists to use Chirpify to offer digital downloads of songs and electronic tickets straight over Twitter too. So now labels and artists can come up with all sorts of creative ways to…
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Jon Burg's Future Visions
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Succeeding Through Social Media's Trough Of Disillusionment
15 May 2012 | 11:16 pmIn Gartner's Hype Cycle, the Peak of Inflated Expectations is followed by the Trough of Disillusionment. While Social Media as a business practice is hitting that crest, I don't believe this spells doom for the industry. And it's all going to come down to one word: value. How Did We Get Inflated Expectations? Social Media is regularly being misunderstood and misreported. The digital social dynamic is in it's formative young teen years, and in the interest of growing business and driving investment we as a society may have over-promised. And as an industry, I cannot say that we have… -
Are Marketers Evil Scumbags?
12 May 2012 | 1:29 pmBefore you read this post, please read The Verge's investigational peice on internet scammers. It's a great peice and the driver of this post. Dear Popular Culture and The General Public, Marketers are not evil. Internet marketers are not evil. TV advertising as an industry is not evil. Bad people do bad things, and unscrupulous people do unscrupulous things. But they aren't marketing and they aren’t marketers, they are scammers. If a fraudster poses as a physician and harms an unsuspecting community, we do not blame doctors. We do not blame the broader practice of medicine. -
What Are We REALLY Looking For In A CEO?
9 May 2012 | 6:54 amIs the purpose of a CEO to lead a company or to lead investors? Is the purpose of a CEO to manage public perception or lead internal direction? Must a high level position like CEO demand a deep technical knowledge of the details of the worker-bee side of the business? Must the CEO of Kraft Foods be able to bake? Can the CEO of Brooks Brothers wear Levis jeans on vacation? Would it ever be acceptable for the CEO of Baskin Robbins to be lactose intolerant? Over the past week Yahoo! and Facebook have both been called out by the press for their CEO-related dramas. And both of these… -
Modern Relevancy In Aging Tragedy
18 Apr 2012 | 12:21 pmHow should we, the third generation, commemorate The Holocaust? Nobody wants to remember or contemplate massive death, atrocity and desperation. There are few alive who can still personally recall and mourn for the millions of individuals lost to this tragedy. So how are we to carry the torch? A few short hours ago my newfound homeland began 24 hours of national mourning over the 6 million Jewish souls lost in the Holocaust. Radio stations stopped blasting their normal music, TV stations halted their regularly scheduled programming, restaurants and health clubs closed up early and… -
Outstanding Kickstarter Success Is A Liability
18 Apr 2012 | 4:15 amKickstarter is a brilliant concept. But a runaway success may be their all-to-soon undoing. What Is Kickstarter? Visionaries post their ideas and the general public gets to contribute towards funding these ideas. In addition to donating towards what the micro-investor considers to be smart innovation, investors will often receive a nominal return such as early access to the theoretical finished product, recognition as a contributor in the finished video project and occasionally even an actual physical product once it's produced. Kickstarter is to investing as Kiva is to banking - making…
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Social Media Explorer
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Introducing The Rebel’s Guide To Email Marketing
16 May 2012 | 10:20 amIf you joined DJ Waldow and me today for our 22-minute webinar on five secrets to email marketing, you learned that one of the secrets was that he and I have written a book. I’m proud to tell all of you that The Rebel’s Guide To Email Marketing is now available for pre-order on Amazon and will be in your local book stores late this summer. This is my second book (thanks to all of you who have supported No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide To Social Media Marketing) but DJ’s first. And if you know both me and DJ, you know he’s truly the subject… -
Social Media Sucks for Businesses and Here’s Why
16 May 2012 | 6:00 amLet’s just get straight to the point… social media sucks. Plain and simple. For years it’s been “business as usual” and then suddenly everyone is bouncing around words like “social”, “engage”, “community” and all kinds of other blather. Some of the biggest companies in the world such as Ford, Starbucks, Dell, American Express and many others have fallen for the trap. I’m here to warn you before you do anything stupid. Social media sucks and here’s a few reasons why … Social media shifts the limelight from… -
Choosing and Weaving Social Within a Multichannel Marketing Program
15 May 2012 | 6:00 amEditor’s Note: Today’s post is of the guest variety and offered up by my friends Gini Dietrich and Geoff Livingston. Their new book, Marketing in the Round, is out and available. They are smart. It is good. Pay attention. The world of marketing in small and large businesses is a siloed one. Companies have ad campaigns, PR plans, social media strategies, and websites built independently and bolted together in a haphazard manner. It’s surprising how rarely these disciplines work together to achieve corporate objectives like establishing a second vertical for a product, or… -
The Irony Of Measuring Marketing Now
14 May 2012 | 6:00 amI once provided counsel for a company that had little confidence in social media marketing. It begrudgingly decided it would hire a consultant, go through some strategic exercises and probably prove that social media was bullshit and it would be better off sticking with its traditional guns. The brand’s insistence with my work, as is with most clients I’ve dealt with, was that we measure everything as infinitely as possible. Skeptics are like that. They want to know how many clicks, how many re-tweets, how many milliseconds the time-on-site number increases each month, even if… -
How To Engage In Online Forums For Your Brand
11 May 2012 | 6:00 amEditor’s Note: In light of our recent affirmation that forums and message boards are a bountiful home for consumer interaction and engagement around brands and products, I thought it appropriate to invite some solid expertise here to help advise us on how to proceed in exploring online forums for marketing purposes. Today’s guest post is by the person I regard as the foremost expert on managing online forums in the U.S., if not the world, Patrick O’Keefe. I regularly find myself in the position of having to defend online forums, without actually wanting to be put into that…
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louisgray.com
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The "Archive" Button Can be Your In Box's Best Friend
30 Apr 2012 | 2:39 pmYou practically can't open your RSS reader or spend a day on a social network of your choice without running into complaints about email. Nobody likes it. Everybody says they have too much of it. People gloat over mass deletions of unread items, or sporting a full in box four or five figures deep. Some people take vacations from it or swear they'll pound through their to-read list in what could be an eventually futile journey toward the improbable in box zero. But for many of those people, it's likely the impenetrable in box is symptomatic of something else - the inability to make a decision… -
Private Companies, Stock Splits and Taxes
14 Apr 2012 | 11:33 pmFrom 2001 to 2009, I worked at a private company in various roles, from marketing manager to director. Over my eight years there, I gained stock options from my hire date in January of 2001, to my last option grant in the fall of 2008. In addition, I purchased stock as an individual in 2005 and 2006. While we filed to go public in 2007, we eventually had to withdraw this plan, and the company never did see those options become public. Last fall, after I joined Google, the company was finally acquired, for cash. I was given some payout from my time there, and separate investing, but due to… -
Measuring Up at Life's Checkpoints
8 Apr 2012 | 11:36 pmAccording to my blog history, I turned 30 years old five years ago. So that correspondingly means that today marked my hitting 35. When I got the somewhat congratulatory call from a high school best friend this morning, I asked what in the world could possibly be different at 35 than 34, aside from being qualified to run for president. He quickly said that when you hit 35, your back goes out... you become incontinent... so yeah, not great stuff.Any time life passes an arbitrary number, it becomes second nature to do a self-evaluation and compare where you are against life goals, or where… -
Writing for Social, Defending for Court
30 Mar 2012 | 10:39 amEarlier this month, I had an interesting experience, being asked to participate in a deposition, taking questions from a legal team as part of an ongoing case. While I’ll skip the details out of deference for confidentiality, there were aspects of the morning that serve as a reminder for those of us who participate online that often, content we post is permanent, and it can be discovered and used for means far beyond those we originally intended.For those unfamiliar with the process of a deposition, it’s essentially when an individual is called as part of a fact-finding mission, to bring… -
Fitbit: Virtual Badges Influence Real Behavior
9 Mar 2012 | 5:27 pmI am not going on a diet - and I have no interest in going to the gym, even if Google makes it incredibly easy to eat healthy on campus, and gym membership is free with equipment abundant. It's just not me. But despite this clear disinterest in my making any kind of physical life change, I have been wearing a Fitbit the last week, obsessively counting my steps, climbing the stairs and tracking how many miles I make on foot. I've even been wearing the lightweight tracker at night to see how long and how well I sleep - working to optimize that as well.So why would I resort to such silliness?
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Danny Brown
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Your Value
15 May 2012 | 12:44 pmElectricity is free, but we pay energy companies to harness it. Water is free, but we pay for the privilege of filtering. Air is free, but we pay for the solution of conditioning it for summers in our homes. Natural gas is free, but we pay for the importance of safety in its use. Oil is free, but we pay for the welling and distribution. When we get down to it, all the things we could have for free we’re willing to pay for, because where needs are met, value is gained. If you meet the needs of your audience, why would the value you bring be free? Your Value originally appeared on Danny… -
Join @GaryVee and @AmberMac in Toronto July 26 for Social Mix 2012 #SoMix2012
14 May 2012 | 8:02 amIf you’re in the Toronto, Ontario area on July 26, make sure you keep the day free for what promises to be one of the city’s leading social media and business events this year. Top business and marketing folks Gary Vaynerchuk and Amber Mac will be keynoting at the inaugural Social Mix, presented by Jugnoo (hey, that’s where I work!). They’ll be sharing their insights and expertise on what it takes to succeed both online and offline, and how to build your business for long-term success. Alongside Gary and Amber, we’ll also be bringing the highly respected Gini… -
Everything Is Dead
12 May 2012 | 6:29 pmThe print industry is dead, yet we still use a version of ink for the ebooks that killed print. The news release is dead, yet we still count print publication mentions as a measure of success. Advertising is dead, yet we still spend almost $120 billion every three months. Blogging is dead, even though the platforms reporting this are built on blogs. PR is dead, despite it pervading every part of a business from customer service to branding to HR and more. Seems everything is dead, even though we continue to use all of these corpses today. Great to be alive, eh? Everything Is Dead originally… -
Social Media, Self-Proclamation and the Wanky Word
10 May 2012 | 7:45 pmWe all want to be famous, whether we admit it or not. We all want the glory of recognition for our work; our media; our creations; our results. To say otherwise is to lie. Of course, the thing is, there are different levels of what we want and how we want it. Thankfully for those that want it, whether it’s deserved or not, social media allows us to live out our narcissistic fantasies and be as famous as we believe we should be. Fame, though, can come in many forms. There’s the type of fame that Mike talks about; but that’s where we seek fame but don’t really say as much. Then… -
27 Highly Recommended WordPress PlugIns As Used on Here
9 May 2012 | 6:39 amOne of the great things about self-hosted WordPress blogging is the amount of plugins available to help you make your blog just the way you want it. For anyone not on WordPress, plugins are additional solutions that you can install to your site’s admin area, and they then offer extra functionality to your blog and how your readers interact with it. These can range from social sharing options, design tools, subscription options, e-commerce solutions and much more. In my last post, I spoke about the process that went into the redesign here, and Ken Mueller (an awesome part of…
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SmartBrief on Social Media
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Study: More Brits contact brands via social media
16 May 2012 | 9:28 amUp to 18 million Web users in the U.K. -More- -
Developer plans to build underwater hotel in Dubai
16 May 2012 | 9:28 amA hotel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, will guarantee an ocean view to every guest -- because the hotel itself will built on -More- Bloomberg Government Marketing Analyst Bloomberg -
We still like Facebook, Ford exec says:
16 May 2012 | 9:28 amFacebook is a "growing and critical part" of Ford's marketing, says Matt VanDyke, the automaker's director of marketing commu -More- 7 Whiteboard Sessions for every social strategist. Learn how to implement & scale a social program across your enterprise company with this 36-page framework by Spredfast by delivering good customer experience, adopting social media company-wide, gaining insight into your social customer, & showing an ROI on social. Download 7 Whiteboard Sessions. -
Does your company archive its social media activities?
16 May 2012 | 9:28 am-More- -
Analysis: Google+ needs to leverage search to catch Facebook
16 May 2012 | 9:28 amIf Google can harness an "integrated socially enhanced search engine," it has a shot of activating all those inorganically gr -More-
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chrisbrogan.com
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Create a Setting and Connect With Emotions
13 May 2012 | 10:26 pmI recently moved the delivery time of my beloved newsletter to be Sunday morning (well, that’s when it launches here, though my New Zealander and Australian friends all get it on Monday). In the process, I talked to people about sharing this information over breakfast, and with a “second cup of coffee” sometimes. I basically set a scene in the reader’s head that we were having a personal chat over breakfast. Ask yourself this: in trying to reach others for whatever your goal may be, is it facts or emotions that will win them over? Which do you think plays the bigger… -
Nobody Reads Agency Blogs- Or Why You Need Skin in the Game
7 May 2012 | 6:57 amThanks to Jason Falls, I just read this post about how many marketing agencies are closing down their blogs and tweeting and Facebooking instead. “Nobody reads agency blogs, and there are so many out there it’s impossible for people to keep up anyway,” said Sam Weston, director of communications at digital agency Huge. Nobody Reads ANY Blogs- If They’re Boring I’ll tell you without even having to look why nobody reads a blog: because it’s boring. Because it’s poorly written. Because it’s utterly self-referential. Nobody has time to read junk. Why would you? -
Constraints
5 May 2012 | 9:43 amI was at a live performance the other night where Jacq sang and played with Girish, and I had a great conversation with Reggie, the drummer for the night. (I am SO sorry that I don’t know your last name, Reggie.) We talked about the fact that his typical drum kit for events is usually like 30 or so pieces, but that he decided to go minimal for the event. He had a kick drum, a snare, a tom, two cymbals, and a cowbell. What Reggie said was something like this, “I really enjoy this, because it means I really have to use what I have to get the expression I’m aiming for. I… -
Pattern Break
2 May 2012 | 9:17 pmWhen you wake up in the morning, you check your emails, probably from your phone. First thing. Yes? Why? There’s no good answer to why. Even brain surgeons can wait until they’ve done other things before checking in on the world outside of your immediate proximity. So why do you do it? Because it’s a habit, a pattern. Do you read the top tech and marketing blogs? Why? Why do you read this blog? Because you’re subscribed? Are you getting something from it? If no, then why are you still doing it? Twitter and Facebook are hugely pattern-driven. They thrive off the same… -
Where Should You Put Your Content?
30 Apr 2012 | 7:44 amI’ve been asked by subscribers of my personal newsletter how I decide what goes on my blog and what goes into my newsletter. I think the answer differs depending on your strategy, but I’m more than happy to tell you how I view it. I put information that sells on my blog, and information that nurtures in my newsletter. Information that Sells My job, because people seem confused these days as to what exactly it is I do or am selling, is to help mid-sized to larger companies build business (revenue and growth) by improving their use of the human digital channel (social media, email…
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PR-Squared - Social Media Marketing and Public Relations
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Seven Principles of Content Marketing
14 May 2012 | 11:20 amNow that we’ve all agreed that “Content is King (Again),” and Content Marketing is all the rage, maybe it is time to think about some easy-to-follow tenets. Let’s keep this simple. Follow a 70/30 Rule – 70% of content curated, 30% branded. Why? Because the rest-of-the-world is at least 70% more interesting than your brand; and, promoting external content builds social capital, makes grateful fans of influencers. All content should be SHAREWORTHY. Don’t publish junk. Better to be quiet than to queer the signal-to-noise ratio. All content should benefit… -
Seriously, This Is Gonna Be Cool: The Corporate Social Media Summit
4 May 2012 | 7:05 amNext month I’ll be moderating a panel at the Corporate Social Media Summit, which is being held June 13-14 at the New Yorker Hotel in NYC. It’s gonna be a great time, with an impressive list of corporate attendees, including SHIFT clients such as McDonalds and H&R Block, among many others (Whole Foods! Dell! Lego! Mercedes!). I’ll be moderating the panel on “Reputation preservation and enhancement: Use social media to maximize the impact of your brand.” I’ll be joined by McDonald’s Heather Oldani, Director of U.S. -
Never Give Up, Never Surrender!
29 Apr 2012 | 5:22 am -
SHIFT Communications Named Digital/Social Agency of the Year
24 Apr 2012 | 9:00 amShameless self promotion time. Hang on. Wow, wow, wow. We are busting at the seams over here. Today the Holmes Group named SHIFT Communications the 2012 Digital/Social Agency of the Year – with “honorable mentions” in the category going to behemoths like Edelman, Ogilvy and Weber Shandwick. This marks the 3rd time in the last few years that SHIFT has nabbed “agency of the year” honors. We were the “Agency of the Year” according to the American Business Awards, and the “New Media Agency of the Year” (again via Holmes) back in 2008. Both times we were psyched. But this… -
What’s Old is New Again: Earned Media Can Be Your Hub
23 Apr 2012 | 6:17 amI was catching up with a former client recently. We launched their company a coupla years ago, and by almost any measure, it is now considered a hot commodity. They have tons of social media fans, lots of inbound media requests, do a lot of great content marketing, etc. We originally parted ways, very amicably, because they had reached a degree of success that no longer warranted as much proactive effort (and, being a startup, they were wisely watching their burn rate). During our catch-up session, this company representative described a newfound fever within the company to get more…
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@ProBlogger
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5 Effective Tricks to Create a Killer Call to Action
16 May 2012 | 7:04 amThis guest post is by Greg Digneo of Sales Leads in Thirty Days. Here’s the dirty little secret: there are actually two steps to building an extremely popular blog. The first and most popular step is to drive traffic by guest posting, social media, and SEO. The far less sexy step is to convert that traffic into loyal readers who will become the backbone of your community. Who will share every piece of content you produce with their friends. And who will ensure that every post sparks an engaging discussion. But most of all, they will be the first to buy your products and services. The… -
Get Obsessed with Your Message
15 May 2012 | 1:01 pmThis guest post is by Danielle LaPorte of DanielleLaPorte.com. Blog = up? Posts = rolling? It’s time to get obsessed with your message. A quick dictionary moment, to differentiate between your voice, your topics and your message. Your voice is what makes your writing distinctive, compelling, unmistakably you. You’ll carry your voice from your blog, right into your book. Seamless, identifiable. Individual. Your topics are the categories or subjects you write about (Eco-luxe weddings on a shoestring budget! Savvy corporate management, with heart and soul! Thrifty vegan recipes!) Your… -
On the Elusive “Next Level” of Blogging
15 May 2012 | 7:04 amWe’ve all heard of it—the elusive “next level” that so many bloggers talk about online. But what is the next level? How many levels are there? Is there an end point in leveling up? These are all worthwhile questions—especially for more experienced bloggers who have spent a lot of time and energy in reaching the level they’re already at. For these bloggers, trying to reach the next level can involve a degree of risk, so the steps that get us toward the next level might be taken slowly and with care. On the other hand, the web isn’t exactly undersupplied with… -
Grab Your BWE Virtual Ticket for $100 Off—24 Hours Left
14 May 2012 | 5:09 pmWish you could get to Blog World Expo this year, but can’t make it to New York? Me too. I’ll be in Queensland with the winners of my blogging competition, but I know there are plenty of bloggers from other countries, as well as within the States, who won’t be able to attend Blog World this year. Fortunately, you and I don’t need to miss out on the information and fun of the Expo (and if the speaker list for this year is anything to go by, the conference is going to be really impressive). We “remote” bloggers can still “attend” on a BWE virtual… -
Install Your First WordPress Theme
14 May 2012 | 7:09 amThis guest post is by Karol K of ThemeFuse. Seeing a headline like “How to Install a WordPress Theme” on ProBlogger might seem strange at first. This doesn’t sound like a “pro”-thing at all, right? If you’ve been dealing with WordPress for a while then this is probably even more than obvious to you. However, everyone starts somewhere, and there are plenty of experienced bloggers who haven’t ever installed a WordPress theme—but would like to give it a try. Maybe you’re installing your first theme right now, and you’re searching for a…
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Convince and Convert Blog: Social Media Strategy and Social Media Consulting
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6 Great Conferences to Attend Before the End of 2012
15 May 2012 | 6:00 amAmy Schmittauer is the Founder & Face of Savvy Sexy Social. She is a “social media frenzy” working in social relations consulting, blogging, and, of course, vlogging about life on her YouTube channel. Connect with her on Twitter. If there’s anything I’ve learned throughout this crazy ride of working in digital marketing, it’s that reading all the blog posts ever written, staying up-to-date on all the latest news, and watching all the how-to YouTube videos you can find is still not enough. There’s no doubt that all the information you need to learn about… -
6 Reasons to Make Your Big Idea Small
12 May 2012 | 1:20 pmBrad Van Orden is the most interesting man in the world. It’s not the Dos Equis guy, it’s Brad. Sheena Navigates the Market in Nebaj, Guatemala A former product engineer for WL Gore & Associates, Brad is an expert telemark skier, mountain biker, mechanic, cook, humorist, and explorer. I got to know Brad and his wife Sheena when I lived in Flagstaff, AZ (where they’re from). I met Brad and helped him with some Web strategy when he took an interest in sustainable energy (as a hobby) and taught himself C++ and a bunch of other programming languages to build a company called… -
Social Pros 15 – Marcus Sheridan, The Sales Lion
10 May 2012 | 9:05 amThis is Episode 15 of the Social Pros Podcast : Real People Doing Real Work in Social Media. This episode features Marcus Sheridan of The Sales Lion. Read on for insights from Marcus, and our Social Media Stat of the Week (this week: email opens on smartphones and tablets have grown by 82% in the last year). Listen Now Click the play button to listen here: Download the audio file: http://socialpros.podbean.com/mf/web/ic763t/SocialProsEpisode15.mp3 The RSS feed is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/socialprospodcast Find us on iTunes:… -
The Rise of the T-Shaped Agency Model
9 May 2012 | 3:00 amDaniel Lemin is Strategy & Analytics Lead at Convince & Convert. He also runs the consulting firm Social Studio where he provides analytics, PR and integrated marketing strategy to his clients. Agency owners, take note: your traditional team structure – the one that divides your agency into “digital”, “account management” and “creative,” among others – may be restraining capacity to innovate and expand your client capabilities. We work with a lot of agencies and have come to recognize the challenges that leaders are facing in… -
The Five Reasons Why Most Facebook Brand Pages Aren’t True Communities
8 May 2012 | 3:00 amJessica Malnik is a PR/marketing coordinator, social media specialist, videographer and an avid blogger. Visit her blog for social media, technology, public relations and marketing ramblings. What are the defining characteristics of a community? It’s a topic I’ve been pondering more and more lately. Is it about geography, common interests, socio-economic similarities, or similar viewpoints? The list goes on and on. To get to this point, it becomes necessary to define what a community is. According to dictionary.com, a community is…
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Debbie Weil's Blog
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Can You Really Write a Short Book in 8 Weeks?
27 Apr 2012 | 5:46 amYes, if you start with a bunch of great content you can draw from: blog posts, articles, notes, lists, research. And are ruthlessly focused on shipping something in 8 weeks. But the fact is, it probably does take 10,000 hours to learn how to write well. If not 10,000, then a lot of time over a period of years. -
Why a Short Book? Hint: Quicker to Write and Delivers Same Business Benefits
8 Feb 2012 | 10:30 amThe cool thing about writing a short book and self-publishing it on Amazon Kindle is that you can think of yourself as a Beta Author. Why Beta? Think of it as an Agile Book Launch. Your short book will be provocative, smart and well-written. It will have a sizzling title and a click-inducing cover. But it may be the first in a series of books. You may want to write a longer book later. You may want to revise it. No problem. As an entrepreneurial author, you're in charge. You don't need permission from a big New York publisher. The theory beyond agile software development and lean… -
My Three Words for 2012: Alignment, Quiet and Compassion
1 Feb 2012 | 1:17 amInspired by a number of other bloggers and authors, including Chris Brogan (Temple, Untangle, Practice), Jonathan Fields (Serve, Inspire, Transcend) and Chris Guillebeau (Finishing), I am starting 2012 with three words. I was tempted to say "launching" 2012 because that's what it feels like. More about that in a minute. First, my words: Alignment Quiet Compassion Alignment 2012 is going to be a year of adventure, excitement and hard work. Oh, and lots of unknowns. Why? Because I have launched a new company, Voxie Media. Voxie Media is a new hybrid. It's a next-generation publishing… -
Wake Up and Write For Your Existing Readers (Don’t Look for Readers Later)
27 Jan 2012 | 12:22 pmSeth Godin reminds us - again - of the new way to think about writing a business book. You are writing for the fans and followers you already have. Your tribe. They are the ones who will celebrate with you and kick off word-of-mouth sales if you set your launch price on Kindle at $0.00. As Seth puts it: "Wake up in the morning thinking about what (you) can write for (your) readers." Not the other way around. The old mindset went like this: write your book, get it edited, get blurbs from big names, design a great cover, print, distribute, launch and hold your breath for sales. In other words,… -
Is Publishing a Kick-ass eBook for Kindle One of Your Goals for 2012?
29 Dec 2011 | 12:44 pmWe're betting it is. And there are one spot no spots left to pre-register for the next Beta Author Boost, starting in March 2012. Beta Author Boost is a unique writing workshop that enables up-and-coming business authors to write and publish a short, kick-ass eBook for Amazon Kindle in 8 weeks. The first Beta Author Boost sold out in less than 12 hours. The program is currently in full swing with 10 subject matter experts working on a wide variety of book topics. We are having a blast. Writing a book, even a short book, is hard. What if a drop-dead deadline propelled you to finish your…
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Dave Winer's "Scripting News" weblog
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Should you learn to code?
16 May 2012 | 9:08 amI have to weigh in on this. You should learn enough about anything to find out if you love it. I had no idea I was good at writing software until, on a lark, I enrolled in a Computer Science class at Tulane University in 1975. So I'd say, looking back, that was a good thing. If it worked out for me, why not give it a shot. But programming is at one end of a spectrum. It's like mountain climbing or spelunking, not like bungee jumping or hiking in the Alps. Programming is hard. And it's definitely not for everyone. I think the reason well-intentioned programmers get irritated by the sudden rush… -
Quick idea for Quora
16 May 2012 | 8:51 amQuora just raised $50 million. Quora is a very nicely done piece of software. Almost everyone thinks so. But I also think they're too late. There are already plenty of corporate blogging silos for people to write into. And the demand for them never was that high. So I think it would be interesting, with all their money and nice software, if they tried a pivot. Here's the idea... 1. Position relative to wordpress.com. A simpler more modern, better-designed version. Updated. 2. If possible release the back-end as open source, so you can complete the picture. If not, start work on that, and make… -
Chrome is better, day 2
16 May 2012 | 8:23 amI'm now four days into using Chrome as my primary browser, after switching from Firefox. Top-line review: My work is better. Not just in the browser, everywhere. Having a strong competent tool in web browsing brings confidence to all my writing and programming work. I started a thread about this yesterday. A story. When I got angel funding for my first company, the lead investor arranged for the company to get me a car. I had been driving a rented Dodge Omni, month to month, a real piece of shit. I didn't have credit, or money for a down payment. So every month I scraped together the rent for… -
Run against the Republican Party
15 May 2012 | 9:59 amI saw Romney interviewed on Fox, and all the arguments about him being awkward and a flawed human being, to me, are unconvincing. To balance those, I look at what I know about the President. Honestly, measuring one man against another, it's a draw. The reason I'll almost certainly vote for Obama in the fall is that he is not a Republican. The thought of them controlling the government again, is a real motivator. I saw what they did in August with the debt ceiling. And I see it coming again and again. This is a party that's taken a very wrong turn. I think a United States run by Republicans is… -
Chrome is better
15 May 2012 | 8:34 amI've spend a couple of days working fulltime in Chrome, and it's improved my workflow.
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MarketingProfs Daily Fix Blog
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Should Your Marketing Message Require Reading Between the Lines?
16 May 2012 | 10:28 amYears ago, the political philosopher Leo Strauss wrote an essay entitled, “Persecution and the Art of Writing,” in which he advocated reading some philosophers “between the lines.” For a host of reasons, the philosopher felt that the truth he had to speak could only be spoken surreptitiously or “by means of brief indication.” Of course, one can run into a lot of trouble scholastically when arguing that a philosopher meant to say something other than what he explicitly stated. I mean, how are you supposed to prove that? Strauss insists that a “between… -
Learn These Four Classic Approaches to Marketing Campaigns
16 May 2012 | 7:03 amA guest blog post by Geoff Livingston and Gini Dietrich. A classic marketing strategy mistake is to select tools because they are new or talked about frequently in the media. Fascinated with the latest tool, marketing rounds (what we like to call your team) forget to select media and methods to achieve an objective. Measurable objectives, however, often require selecting a primary approach towards the customer, after which tools are selected based on budget, time, and other resources. There are four common approaches to marketing campaigns today. Direct Community Interaction With… -
Four Tips for Breaking Out of Your Slump Just Like Albert Pujols Did
15 May 2012 | 7:03 amA guest blog post by Maranda Gibson of AccuConference. Former St. Louis Cardinals powerhouse first baseman Albert Pujols traded the Midwest for the West Coast when he accepted a record-breaking deal from the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. His start for the Angels was highly anticipated, so many people were shocked that Pujols had done more striking out than anything else since the beginning of the season. That’s right. A lot of money was invested in a man who could hit a home run off any pitcher in either league, but all he had managed to do lately was strike out—until May 6,… -
What the Evolution of Marketing Automation Looks Like [Infographic]
14 May 2012 | 7:03 amA guest post by Irv Shapiro of Ifbyphone. The term “marketing automation” often conjures up images of people waiting on hold or receiving out-of-office responses. However, smart business owners know that marketing automation equals measured results. The term “marketing automation” includes lead management, Web analytics, email marketing, voice-based measurement, inbound marketing, and social media. And marketing automation contains a wealth of opportunities for businesses to… Measure ROI and lead quality Streamline the leads-to-sales process Enhance user interaction… -
Content Management for Marketers: What’s the Difference Between Open Source and Cloud Platforms?
11 May 2012 | 10:49 amA guest post by Roland Benedetti of Nuxeo. Ten years ago, if you asked a group of marketing professionals which content management systems (CMS) they encountered most often, you would probably get a few blank stares. Nowadays, however, everyone knows what a content management system is because marketers use them nearly every day to create content, edit websites, and manage projects. But is there only one type of CMS? Do they all operate the same? Which type is best for which function? One of the biggest differences in CMS solutions is what is called open source vs. cloud-based solutions. Do…
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Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik
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Excellent Analytics Tips #20: Measuring Digital "Brand Strength"
14 May 2012 | 3:05 amA lot of digital analytics focuses on direct response (conversions, leads, etc.). But there is an additional valuable, and sexy, focus of our marketing we don't give enough analytical love: Branding! It is sad that we spend so little time on brand analysis, primarily because 1. there is such little accountability to brand marketing and 2. it is such a strategic part of any business. So let's fix that problem in this blog post. Let's become BFFs with a lovely hidden gem that helps you leverage one of the largest source of data on the planet to understand the strength of your… -
You Are What You Measure, So Choose Your KPIs (Incentives) Wisely!
23 Apr 2012 | 2:54 amYes, data is important. Helps make marketing better. Makes for smart organizations. Blah, blah, blah. You know the drill: Measure. Find insights. Take action. (Or die trying.) Ascend to corporate heaven. While there is a great deal of appreciation for the power of metrics/data, I've come to realize that Sr. Leaders don't quite appreciate the deep, and often corrosive, consequences of choosing metric x over metric y as a key performance indicator (KPI). [Sidebar] A key performance indicator is a metric that helps you understand actual performance against preset business objectives. -
Multi-Channel Attribution: Definitions, Models and a Reality Check
2 Apr 2012 | 2:47 amA wise person said: "To guarantee success, spend 95% of your time defining the problem and 5% of the time solving it." I believe deeply in that quote. In my life I spend an extraordinary amount of time understanding the problem and attempting to define it clearly. As if by magic, I find that it is then much easier to find the optimal solution (or realize none exists!). Multi-Channel Attribution is a red hot topic in our industry, and yet it is so poorly understood. I'm convinced that the resulting problems (confusion, FUD, angst, daily prayers, and wasted budget) are due to the… -
A Big Data Imperative: Driving Big Action
12 Mar 2012 | 2:15 amIs there anything in the analytics space that is so full of promise and hype and sexiness and possible awesomeness than "big data?" I don't think so. So what is big data really? No one quite knows. As I interpret it, big data is the collection of massive databases of structured and unstructured data. The data sources include traditional (now considered puny) sources like corporate ERP/CRM systems and non-traditional (massive) sources like every technical ping from every human or mechanical sensor, all web behavior by everyone across the entire Internet, increasingly digital… -
The Biggest Mistake Web Analysts Make… And How To Avoid It!
20 Feb 2012 | 2:19 amThe single biggest mistake web analysts make is working without purpose. We work very hard. We torture SiteCatalyst. We send out a lot of data. Then we resend it again and again. And yet our work results in very little impact on the business in terms of action taken by company leaders. Why this sad state? Almost always we dive into the ocean of data first. Sadder still, we don't ask questions later. We never ask questions. No questions. No tie to what's important. No impact from the data. Result? Our work lacks purpose. It is that simple. My normal recommendation to address this…
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Web Strategy by Jeremiah
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Keynote: Three Future Trends of Social Business (Slides)
16 May 2012 | 8:33 amI’m presenting here at Webcom in Montreal, sharing the State and Future of Social BUsiness. In fact, I think the Cluetrain as we know it, while right for many years, needs modification to represent how the social web is changing. I took the first three theses of the mainfesto and translated it to represent how I see advertising integrating with social as well as optimization and Social Performance software. The three trends that I see impacting the social business space include (but are not limited to): Trend 1: Corporate Websites Reborn. I asset that corporate websites as we know them… -
Video: Scaling your Social Business
13 May 2012 | 6:34 pmA few days before the hectic 2012 SXSW storm (my analysis here), The Dachis Group hosted the Social Business Summit (catch one in your city) with some of the world’s top brands to discuss social business. Kicking off the day, I shared Altimeter’s research on how advanced companies are scaling their programs –and avoiding programs that will slow them down. A few key points we iterated: Being prepared in advanced with: the proper policies, teams, roles, and education programs. These are the foundation needed to build a Center of Excellence. Advanced corporations have… -
People on the Move in the Social Business Industry, May 11, 2012
11 May 2012 | 4:00 amBoth the submissions on this job announcement board, as well as available social media positions at corporations continue to pour in. In this continued digest of job changes, I like to salute those that continue to join the industry in roles focused on social media, see the archives, which I’ve been tracking since Q4, 2007. People on the Move in the Social Business Industry: Although I’m a few months behind this, first of all, congrats to Mia Dand (twitter, linkedin) is Director, Global Social Media at Symantec, focused on building and leading social media strategy for… -
A New Category Defined: Social Performance Software
4 May 2012 | 6:32 amA new software category has emerged to bring performance marketing to social channels. After interviewing over 10 software companies and 10 agencies, a new trend has emerged that will change the social business landscape. What is this trend? The marketing performance techniques to refine TV, Radio, SEO and other marketing mediums are now moving to the social space. Read my definitive post on Mashable to learn how this impacts not only brands, but also Facebook and my long term predictions on how this will play out. Market Needs Companies are struggling to scale to keep up with all the… -
Podcast: Why The Term “Social Media Agency of Record” Will Dissolve
30 Apr 2012 | 7:08 pmI’m honored to be a guest on Mitch Joel‘s famed podcast, Six Pixels of Separation, to discuss my latest post that’s caught the Industry’s attention how Social Media Agencies are Turning to Ads. Mitch invited me on the podcast to discuss this further. One of the assertions I make is the term “Social Media Agency of Record” (aka SMaoR) will eventually go by the wayside, as those pure play agencies are starting to move into advertising (starting with social ads), digital, interactive, and more. My take? We’ll just have a broader focus as social becomes…
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brandflakesforbreakfast
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your life reincarnated by a computer program
16 May 2012 | 5:10 amCrap, so you've died. Now what? Well luckily for you it's the year 2052 and your conscious can be reincarnated. Getting your life back is as easy as buying an app with advertisements and licensing fees gala. -
stamps celebrating british fashion
16 May 2012 | 5:05 amJohnson Banks, an agency in London, have designed a set of postage stamps to celebrate the last 60 years of British fashion. To capture these pieces in an interesting way the studio worked closely with a highly respected fashion photographer, his assistants, stylists, and hair and wig artists. -
anti-theft moldy lunch bags
16 May 2012 | 5:02 amAh ha! That'll show those pesky lunch thieves a lesson. Fool your office lunch thief into thinking your lunch has gone moldy with these sandwich bags that have green splotches printed on them. They're reusable, recyclable, and available at the. -
how to spot an instagram junkie (infographic)
16 May 2012 | 5:00 amHello Instagram junkie. You know who you are. You're constantly on your beautiful smart phone in awkward poses, bruised up, sweating, and so stressed from your adventures in Instagram world that by the end of the day you look like you've been mulled by a bear. Yes, this infographic is for you. Via. -
junk food patches
15 May 2012 | 5:10 amDanone Corpus Light created a spoof ad featuring Junk Food patches to help people stick to their diet.Step 1: Place on Patch. Step 2: drink a Danone Corpus Light. That simple.I'll take the super-size combo sticker please. (Who wants to bet this is an actual product in say, the net 10 years?)
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Influential Marketing
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Yahoo's CEO And The Modern Believability Crisis
15 May 2012 | 4:02 pmI don't actually have a degree in Irish Poetry. I share this because recently at a few events I may have mistakenly mentioned that I did. See, I studied English literature at Emory University in the late 90s. While there, I took exactly two elective classes specifically on Irish literature and as most people who study that field already know - Emory has one of the best collections of Irish literature and poetry in the world. So I did focus on Irish Poetry, but the degree that I earned in 1997 was a BA in English Literature. Why am I telling you all this? Well, you can hardly blame me for… -
Why I Don't Want You To Buy Likeonomics (And This Isn't A Marketing Trick)
6 May 2012 | 8:36 amA few days ago I got the first shipment of my new book Likeonomics to my house. Right now the book is sitting in front of me and I really want to ask each of you to go out and buy it - but I can't. In fact, it really helps me if you DO NOT buy it yet - and the reason why explains a lot about the nature of timing, business, and what is broken with the publishing industry itself. Book sales, like movie sales, are reported on a weekly basis through a reporting system called called Bookscan. The Bookscan number is a key factor in helping to determine which books make "the lists" (NY Times… -
5 Marketing Lessons From Uber (The World's Best Travel App)
3 May 2012 | 9:28 pmSeveral weeks ago I was standing on a street corner in New York. (This is not the sentence I thought I'd start this post with, but go with me ...) After unsuccessfully trying to hail a cab, I decided to try out an app I had heard about called Uber. I had heard it was useful for those kinds of situations. From the moment of signup - a process which took way less time than I expected, to the actual act of immediately booking a car and heading happily on my way to LaGuardia Airport just 15 minutes later - the experience transformed my NY trip. Experience itself is getting lots of great media… -
Greensurfing - The Rise Of Voluntary Social Media Jealousy
1 May 2012 | 7:03 amThe idea that Facebook causes jealousy isn't new. A study back in 2009 essentially demonstrated that romantic relationships were often suffering from jealousy induced by Facebook. The same study is still being referenced today. Unfortunately, there are a few signs that this is becoming a much bigger trend than something driven by the insecurity of dating. For the first time in human history, there is a place where any of us can go to be surrounded by only good news. Despite the troubles in the world, or your personal struggles - Facebook offers a nearly pain free bubble. Every status… -
The Ultimate Business Question: Are We Having Fun?
23 Apr 2012 | 9:53 amThis weekend I found myself glued to a two hour piece of promotional television that I usually avoid desperately. The FOX network was having a special recap of their 25th Anniversary of producing entertainment programming. Amidst the 120 minute recap of over 140,000 hours of programming hosted by Ryan Seacrest (of course!) - there were a few moments when they brought actors of long running programs back into the studio and interviewed them. In some cases, they created a "cast reunion" to bring actors back together (like the casts of In Living Color or Married with Children) while in others…
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Tom Fishburne: Marketoonist
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where the wild ideas are
13 May 2012 | 9:22 pmThe world needs wild ideas. But every wild idea faces a road of obstacles to bring it to life. The hard work comes after the brainstorming rumpus when you have to bring others along. Few of these obstacles are as rough as the devil’s advocate. IDEO founder Tom Kelley once called the devil’s advocate the single greatest threat to innovation: “Devil’s advocates remove themselves from the equation and sidestep individual responsibility for the verbal attack. But before they’re done, they’ve torched your fledgling concept… “What’s truly… -
marketing clutter
6 May 2012 | 9:51 pmThere has never been a greater level of marketing clutter. Yankelovich Consumer Research charts that “we’ve gone from being exposed to about 500 marketing messages a day back in the 1970s to as many as 5,000 a day today.” At the same time, marketing communication is often little more than a string of adjectives: bigger, better, faster, cheaper, etc. So we marketers are interrupting consumers more, but with fewer meaningful things to say. I like how Professor Youngme Moon characterizes this dynamic in her business book, Different: “Today we have more of everything. More… -
a good idea
29 Apr 2012 | 10:37 pmOne of my favorite idea killers is the statement, “if it were really a good idea, someone would already be doing it.” In innovation, we often fixate too much on the competition. We benchmark and validate ideas based what everyone else is doing. This cycle of one-upmanship makes it hard to launch something truly new and different. It also creates a lot of me-toos. My friend Sasha pointed me to “The Creative Monopoly“, a David Brooks piece on PayPal founder Peter Thiel’s business philosophy. “Instead of being slightly better than everybody else in a crowded… -
we’re going digital
22 Apr 2012 | 2:36 pmShould campaigns be media-driven or idea-driven? Lately, it feels like the media tail is wagging the campaign dog. Many campaigns are built around a media platform, as if the media platform alone was the big idea. Most of the Foursquare campaigns I see feel like that. Sometimes marketers forget that media platforms are enablers to big ideas. They aren’t the big ideas themselves. The media channels developing today are creating an unparalleled opportunity for marketers. As a result, P&G, the world’s largest advertiser, is famously shifting media wholesale from TV to digital. -
planned obsolescence
15 Apr 2012 | 5:00 pmEvery time I buy a new technology product, I wonder how long it will last. I salivate over anything new from Apple. But, I’ve had a number of Apple products fail recently. My Apple Time Capsule, marketed as a “revolutionary storage device”, died after just two years, unfixable, losing all the files it was designed to store. My two-year old iPhone seems as clunky and quirky as an old car. The iPhone battery is one of the quickest components to fail, but there’s no easy way to change it. I found scores of similar stories online and was told I shouldn’t have counted…
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Chris Garrett on New Media
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What to Say When Nobody Cares What You Do
1 May 2012 | 12:00 pmIt’s a simple but uncomfortable truth. Nobody cares what you do. Oh, people might ask. At a networking lunch, a cocktail party, and so on. But nobody cares. What do people actually care about? “Enough about me. What do you think about me?” It’s funny because it is true. People want to hear if listening to you is worth their time and energy. How might you help them? Who do you know who might be useful? Are you fun to be around? Wait … didn’t I say they don’t care what you do? Yup, it’s not about what you DO, it’s about what they GET! I… -
Breaking the Rules for Fun and Profit
30 Mar 2012 | 1:04 pmI joke that I am the most conventional unconventional guy you might ever meet, but it is true in a way. When we think of unconventional we often think about specific things. Going off to live on a commune might be a big one, having tattoos and piercing might be smaller “bucking the system” type ideas. Anyone who knows me at all will know I am not the extreme kind of unconventional, and I expect you will be somewhere on the spectrum too. So what makes me a “rule-breaker” and why might you consider breaking some rules yourself? The Rules Have Changed I don’t need… -
New Edition of the Problogger Book Released
14 Mar 2012 | 12:15 pmProblogger Book 3rd Edition Well it’s finally here! The third edition of the Problogger book is now available to order. (You might have already seen the news at Problogger). The first edition came out May 2008, co-authored by Darren Rowse and myself, and published by Wiley Publishing. We released the second edition in 2010 to expand and update the contents. Now you can grab your copy of the third edition over at Amazon paperback for $16.32 and Kindle ebook for just $9.99. (Not sure if Wiley are going to make other formats available or not). The third edition again has loads of… -
The Real ROI of Engagement
2 Mar 2012 | 1:58 pmLoyalty means business We are bombarded by “feel good” social media advice. Join the conversation. Engage. Listen. But this stuff takes time and effort. Where is the return on investment? It’s not just about chatting, and the ROI is not found by simply throwing up a Facebook page. If you are struggling to convince your boss (or yourself) that the effort of engaging your customers and prospects is worth it, the two headline reasons you should work on engagement are: 1) If you lose as many visitors as you attract then you are making your marketing twice as difficult. and 2)… -
Authority Blogging for Artists
10 Feb 2012 | 11:02 amWhat should a blogger do when they want to profit from their creativity, knowledge, experience and skills, but not by teaching “how to”, but instead from the results of their work? As you no doubt know, my strategy for building a profitable blog around what you know is called Authority Blogging. Build an audience of people who know, like and trust you. Get to know what they really want and need, then develop a solution for them that they are eager to buy. How does this work for artists, writers, crafts and other creative people? This is the dilemma Brian Dubé had when he…
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Brian Solis
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The Fallacy of Information Overload
15 May 2012 | 6:50 amSome of you know me through my work in studying how social media and disruptive technology impact business and culture. Others have worked with me in translating insights into action and change within the enterprise. Every now and then, I share another side of myself that evokes the aspiring social scientist in me as I explore how all of this is affecting us as individuals and human beings. Not a day goes by when I’m not asked about whether or not the social media bubble will finally burst. Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Foursquare, Pinterest, this all has to be too much right? More… -
Music, Film, TV: How social media changed the entertainment experience
10 May 2012 | 7:56 amSocial media is more than a digital water cooler for TV and movies. The global conversation that takes place around events and the experiences people share based on what they watch teaches us about consumer preferences. More importantly, their activity influences behavior. Behavior counts for everything. Studying it is just the beginning of course. In order to understand and eventually steer behavior, we must translate activity into insights and in turn, translate insights into actionable strategies and programs. The Hollywood Reporter recently published an exclusive poll about social media… -
The future of TV is more than social, it’s a multi-screen experience that needs design
7 May 2012 | 11:19 amThe future of television is much more than social; much in the same way that the future of media is too, more than social. Social is a fabric; it connects the individual nodes that make up the human network. But, social however, is not a means to an end. And, as such, the same is true about the working theories driving Social TV. Understanding the role social plays in how viewers connect with programs and other people is essential to defining the future of television. Over the years, I’ve written much about my vision for the long overdue convergence of not only web and TV, but also how the… -
The Path from a Social Brand to a Social Business
2 May 2012 | 9:17 amI’ve been a long-time supporter of MediaTemple’s (MT)Residence program along with Gary Vaynerchuk, Neil Patel, and many others whom I respect. I wanted to share my “7 questions to answer to become a social business” with you here.. Social Media is pervasive and is becoming the new normal in corporate marketing. Brands who get this right are starting to build their own media networks rich with customer connections numbering in the millions. Right now, Coca-Cola has over 34 million fans on Facebook, but they’re hardly alone. Disney follows just behind with 29 million… -
Do Customers Really Matter to Your Business? Prove it.
30 Apr 2012 | 8:21 amFrank Eliason and I have known each other for many years. We’ve shared the stage on many occasions, he’s made an appearance on Revolution, and most importantly, I’m proud to call him a personal friend. Frank has championed the adaption and transformation of customer service during his time at Comcast and at CITI. Never one to shy away from sharing his opinions, he’s certainly bullish on where service needs to be as a function and a philosophy versus where it is today. In fact, he’s gone so far as to call out social media customer service as being a…
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Six Pixels of Separation - Marketing and Communications Insights - By Mitch Joel at Twist Image
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Find Your One Thing
15 May 2012 | 11:15 amCan you sum up your professional you in one or two words? I was very touched watching the documentary, Being Elmo, on PBS' Independent Lens. The movie is about Kevin Clash (the puppeteer behind Sesame Street's Elmo). From a very young age, Clash demonstrated a strong desire to be a puppeteer. While that seems quaint and points to someone who was focused on what they wanted to do in life from a very young age, you can imagine the struggles he faced growing up in Baltimore. While all of the other kids were out playing baseball or causing mischief, Clash was at home sewing puppets together and… -
Can Breastfeeding Save Time Magazine?
15 May 2012 | 10:01 amWhen was the last time you discussed Time Magazine around the dinner table? I found myself giving a dissertation on mass media at dinner the other night. It all started when one friend leaned into the table and spoke (in an almost embarrassed whisper), "Did any of you see the cover of Time Magazine? The one with the mother and her older child... breastfeeding?" I knew that they were talking about the issue dated May 21st, 2012 titled, Are You Mom Enough? by Kate Pickert. The article about Dr. Sears and the attachment parenting movement has created quite a stir, but I wanted to tease… -
Listen. Engage. Connect.
14 May 2012 | 11:10 amOne of the largest gatherings of professional marketers is about to take place. The Canadian Marketing Association's 2012 CMA Summit is happening next week (May 16th - 17th, 2012 at the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel in Toronto, Ontario). I'm fortunate to be the chairman of the board of the directors of this association and prior to that role, I was co-chair of these national annual gatherings. Each and every year offered professional marketers from across the globe the opportunity to connect and share. This year will be no exception. All under one roof. During the two days, just some of the… -
The Virtual Self And The New Trend Of Self-Tracking
13 May 2012 | 8:09 amEpisode #305 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to. Now, with the ubiquity of smartphones and mobile connectedness, it has never been easier to share with the world our each and every move (look no further than Facebook's one billion dollar acquisition of Instagram). And we're publishing our lives. All of the time - in text, images, audio and video - for the world to see. In fact, it's happening more and more with each and every passing day. Why are we doing all of this self-tracking? It's a topic that has fascinated Nora Young for a… -
Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #99
12 May 2012 | 6:09 am93Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see? My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks), Hugh McGuire (The Book Oven, LibriVox, iambik, PressBooks, Media Hacks) and I decided that every week or so the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see". Check out these six links that we're…
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Global Neighbourhoods
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Help Me With a Forbes Column on Google+
3 May 2012 | 8:02 amEver since I started writing The Social Beat for Forbes, I’ve been wondering what to do with this, my beloved home blog. I have an idea. I currently crowd source my column ideas on Twitter and Facebook to get content, quotes and ideas that often find their way into the my columns. But people send me lots of content that just doesn’t fit. It is not their fault. My descriptions are space limited at Forbes and my requests are often too open ended. So I thought I would try expanding descriptions here. We’ll see how this works out. Right now, I’m writing a story about… -
Special Offer: Stellar Presentations for only $4.99!
3 Apr 2012 | 7:38 amI launched my new book, Stellar Presentations: An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Giving Great Talks six weeks ago. It is the most critically acclaimed of my three books. On Amazon, 10 people have given it five stars, two people gave it four stars and no one has rated it lower. Other blog reviews have also been highly favorable. People who read it say the book is not just for entrepreneurs but for anyone who has to present in any kind or size of organization. I’ll let the market decide. Some people think that because the book is so brief–just 76 pages, a two-hour read–that… -
Come Visit me at Forbes.com
31 Mar 2012 | 8:53 amI am writing a column for Forbes.com called The Social Beat. Everything I write related to Social media, the web, startups and the tech sector will appear there. It will be the primary venue for my online writing. Please come and visit me there. Occasionally, I will have something to say on other topics, particularly related to my book and speaking projects. I will use Global Neighbourhoods when that occurs. Until then, I hope you will come and visit me in my new home. -
A Stellar Presentations Excerpt: The Three Questions
29 Feb 2012 | 7:32 amThe following is excerpted from Chapter One of my new book: Stellar Presentations: An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Giving Great Talks. The Three Questions I was raised as the youngest son in a Jewish family. That meant that each Passover I recited the ritual Four Questions that launched the story-telling part of our Passover dinner. These days, I am rarely the youngest one at the table. But as a speaker and a coach, I begin the story that my clients or I will tell by reciting three questions: Who are the people in the audience? What do I have that they want? What do I want to accomplish… -
So, Why Is Stellar Presentations So Damn Short?
27 Feb 2012 | 10:42 amMy new book, Stellar Presentations is 76-pages on length and costs about 10 bucks. I estimate it will take two hours of your time to read it. Four times in the three weeks since I launched the book, people have complained that the book is too short and that I should add more chapters to make it worth the money I’m asking. As I so often do, let me tell you a story to illustrate a few points: A woman drives her Mercedes into a garage. The mechanic asks her what the problem is. “I’m not sure. It just doesn’t sound right when it’s idling,” she says. The…
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Christopher S. Penn : Awaken Your Superhero
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2 stories about thinking outside the box
16 May 2012 | 6:41 amI’ve spent the last two days at the Riverside Company’s annual summit and have been getting my head filled with truly unique perspectives about how businesses operate. Talk about an eye opening experience. While I can’t share any of the specifics of participants’ stories here, there are two generic stories that were shared that are examples of thinking far, far outside the box. A manufacturer of a durable good (I can’t remember which company it was) apparently was facing a plant closure due to environmental concerns. They were faced with having to close the plant… -
Changing the game may not be improving it
15 May 2012 | 5:05 amThink carefully about the overused term “game-changing”. Let’s say you’re playing tennis, and the game isn’t going so well. You decide that you need a “game-changing move”, pull out a shotgun, and blast the ball out of the air. Have you changed the game? Absolutely. Have you changed it for the better? No, not to mention likely injuring the other player. The game has not improved, but it has changed. Business folks who use the term game-changing are indicating that the way they’re playing the game isn’t working right now, so they’re… -
The 4 kinds of numbers I look at daily
14 May 2012 | 4:14 amIn my daily routine, I’ve plotted out 4 kinds of numbers that I look at daily to see how things are going and give me an instant read on what I need to be focusing on. 1. Conversions: I look at the end results first. I look to see whether anything of value is being generated or not. Examples in your world might include sales, donors, or contributors. 2. Key performance indicators: These are the numbers that are directly connected to my end results. If sales are the end result, qualified leads are a key performance indicator because they’re directly connected, one step away. -
Book reviews: Influence, Deadly Sunset, Ninja Apprentice
11 May 2012 | 4:23 amI’ve had a chance to read more than a few books I’ve bought or received lately, and I owe those authors reviews, so let’s dig in. If it weren’t obvious, I’m stuffing this post with affiliate links to Amazon, too. Just so we understand each other. Mark W. Schaefer’s Return on Influence I enjoyed Mark’s book quite a bit as I think he did a great job of looking at influence overall. He did his homework for sure, interviewing dozens of people and getting different perspectives on what constitutes influence in the digital age. He also explores Klout and… -
How to keep up with too many social networks
10 May 2012 | 3:55 amDJ Waldow, Loren McDonald, Cassie Witt, and a few others asked the interesting question yesterday: “Are the growing demands of social media/networks weighing you down? At some point (I think) you have to choose those you get the most juice out of. What’s your take?” Here’s my take. Again, same disclaimer as my post the other day on content sharing: this is not “the right way” or a “best practice”. This is only how I handle it based on my limited time available each day and peculiar workflow. You should test and analyze for yourself. I take a…
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The Engaging Brand
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Marketing, Time Travel and Dr Who
16 May 2012 | 10:34 amPinterest is the latest growth bubble in social media. It strikes me that it is an example of the power of time travel in marketing! Photo's are the ultimate time travel accessory. When you see a photo it triggers a memory, it takes you to an experience in your life. The photo only acts as a trigger and they give the power to you....the photo allows you to pick the experience and allows you to guide yourself through the experience. Photo's therefore are like the ultimate Dr Who time travel box. It is not whether you are in the photo, it is whether the photo triggers the time travel. -
Stepping Stones to Social Business Model
15 May 2012 | 8:05 am"Wherever life is, it never retreats" Words of Kevin Kelly during his 2005 Ted Talk on How Technology Evolves. As much as we sometimes would like the world to stop so that we can catch our breath....it won't. I have written about social business a lot recently and that is because I feel that technology evolves then business models adapt to cope with the technology. Social media was a use of the technology. The greater effect though was raising the expectation of the consumer. Now the consumer has found their voice, they want more.....like Oliver Twist! A voice is wonderful but what about the… -
What is creativity? Really....
14 May 2012 | 8:24 am"We don't use machines because although they seem to help at first, they produce limitations in the long run" The words of Rosa Lladro in a recent interview in Monocle magazine. It struck me as such an important part of business and indeed of using social media. As humans we like structure and boundaries. Yet what makes brands stand out from the crowd is true creativity. True creativity is Not looking at what you are capable of....but what you want to make and making it possible Not having a huge budget and using business consultants..instead of spending big money, spend big time… -
Show 384 - Inside Mobile Marketing
13 May 2012 | 6:52 amThis week's The Engaging Brand podcast covering social media, business ideas and brand marketing tips, is ready to download. Alex Meisl, Chairman of Sponge which he has developed into Europe's market leader on Mobile Marketing with operations in 20 countries, joins Anna Farmery to discuss What is mobile marketing? What actually is mobile advertising? What is the difference between marketing to the different devices? The concept of mobile shopping How 80% of advertisers do not have a mobile site - staggering google mobile website data? Check out GoMo from Google How to make a mobile… -
Why Technology Does Not Give Life Value
12 May 2012 | 9:14 amIn 1955 Sarnoff was speaking about mass media and said "We are too prone to make technological instruments the scapegoats...The products of modern science are not in themselves good or bad; it is the way they are used that determines their value" Strikes me in over 50 fifty years, as much as technology advances.....our ability to develop our minds as humans, remains harder! Value in life comes not in using things, not in owning things....but in connecting 'things'. Connecting ideas Connecting technology to how to make life better - for you and others Connecting people through the art of…
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Going Social Now
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Add Organ Donor Status to FB Profile. Brilliant.
1 May 2012 | 4:00 amToday Facebook is urging its US members (roughly 161 million of them) to add their donor status to their Facebook profiles according to the NY Times. There are around 7,000 patients waiting organ transplants. In addition to encouraging Facebook members to add their donor status, the company is also encouraging everyone to list their birth dates and schools to further create peer pressure to further push people to add their names to the rolls of registered organ donors.I couldn't be more impressed with the initiative. It's been done on a smaller scale by other companies on the… -
Sosolimited via The Creators Project
6 Apr 2012 | 9:55 pmAn inspiring perspective and worth watching. This isn't about digital marketing or about social media but how Sosolimited thinks about bits and bytes is how brands need to think too. -
Breaking down the Paid, Owned & Social Media Chinese Walls
25 Mar 2012 | 8:54 pmIt is easy to forget that social media marketing has one critical challenge. You cannot scale it consistently. If your plan goes really well, it'll scale on its own. Similarly, if things go really badly your marketing efforts (much to your irritation) will probably scale too. However, there's never any guarantee as to why and when your social media marketing efforts will scale. If you're trying to reach a certain number of consumers in a certain way in a certain time period, you simply can't depend on organic social media to do so. Even the most perfect marketer cannot depend on that.Hence… -
Interview with MediaPost on how Facebook is growing up in the eyes of marketers
24 Mar 2012 | 5:10 amPepsi is among brands that have recently updated its Facebook presence, when the social net redesigned company pages. Online Media Daily spoke to me, to discuss the upgraded brand pages, the new ad offerings and analytics tools Facebook introduced in February. Interview below.OMD: What's your take on the new Facebook brand pages incorporating Timeline?Singh: The first version of brand pages did not always engage consumers around a brand. This version does a few different things. One is putting the Wall front and center even more strongly -- that's a big step forward. With Timeline… -
Super Bowl Digital Advertising Madness
31 Jan 2012 | 8:11 pmSuper Bowl is upon us as is the advertising madness around. There are a few key themes that will hold true this year for sure and are already surfacing:1. Releasing ads online early is becoming table-stakes. Nearly everyone seems to be doing this and with good reason. It's about building momentum into the Super Bowl typically done with a mixture of paid and organic promotions of the TV ads online.2. The smarter advertisers are constructing narratives around teasers, the TV commercial and what should happen after the ad airs. Some are even focusing on second screen social TV experiences (we…
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Regular Geek
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HTML5’s Value For Mobile Event Apps
11 May 2012 | 5:56 amThis is a guest post from Krister Ungerboeck, the CEO of Ungerboeck Software International. The most successful event planners have started using mobile technology to more quickly connect with customers and meet their needs. New mobile applications can drive business to their websites and help them provide better service. Yet, current mobile technology has several deficiencies that make it not only expensive to implement, but it also limits the types of devices that can access a particular app. HTML5 coding aims to change all of that. By developing websites and applications using HTML5,… -
A Q&A With Opa Creator Henri Binsztok
30 Apr 2012 | 9:30 amI recently attended the PhillyETE conference and there were a number of interesting talks. In particualar, I was a big fan of the talk from Alex Payne regarding Emerging Programming Languages. One of the languages that I found interesting, Opa, seemed more than just a language, and conveniently someone emailed me about it. That someone is Henri Binsztok, the CEO of mlstate.com and creator of Opa. Given that Opa is probably unknown to many readers, I figured I would get some basic questions answered by Henri. Henri described Opa in one line, “It puts together the actors of Erlang,… -
Tips For Developing Multilingual Software Applications
25 Apr 2012 | 5:31 amThis is a guest post from Christian Arno, the founder of Lingo24. Why is software localization important? The very nature of software applications means they can usually be accessed, bought and downloaded regardless of geographic location. The World Wide Web provides potential access to a truly global market but a monolingual application is one with limited appeal. To a certain extent, English remains the lingua franca of the business and online world but the fact remains that the majority of the global population speaks no English at all. Of those that do, many speak it as a second language… -
Mobile Development Job Trends – February 2012
29 Feb 2012 | 5:34 amNow we get to the last installment of the job trends posts, mobile development job trends. Given that mobile development is the hottest thing right now, the trends are important, and at some points difficult to read. The terms included in this list were iPhone, Android, WP7 or “Windows Phone“, BlackBerry, Symbian, WebOS and PhoneGap. There is some noise in the data, but not enough to significantly affect the trends. First, let’s look at the basic job trends from Indeed: In the past 9 months or so, it looks like Android demand has overtaken iPhone demand. I found this… -
NoSQL Job Trends – February 2012
23 Feb 2012 | 5:46 amContinuing the February job trends here is another installment. Today, we are looking at NoSQL job trends. I am continuing to focus the list of NoSQL offerings on the same 9 tools. So, the list includes Cassandra, Redis, Voldemort, SimpleDB, CouchDB, MongoDB, HBase, Hypertable and Riak. As was stated previously, Hadoop continues to be the clear leader in demand and tends to flattens the trends of other solutions. I am watching the trend to see if the other tools are close enough to make the graphs useful, but at this point, Hadoop is not included. First, we look at the trends from Indeed:…
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Copyblogger
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What Does it Take to Write a Billion-Dollar Marketing Story?
16 May 2012 | 4:00 amIn 1984, two artists used a simple process to create a story that captivated an audience for years and generated billions of dollars in revenue. That same process is being used today by a master copywriter to attract hundreds of thousands of paying subscribers. With companies creating millions of web pages of content marketing, finding an untold story or a new angle can feel like an impossible task. Especially when you want to avoid creating a story so unique nobody understands it … or wants to pay for it. So how do you create a story that cuts through the noise and strikes at the heart… -
How to be a World-Changing Writer
15 May 2012 | 4:00 amAs a copywriter, you know that words have power. You know words can influence, inform, and inspire. They can persuade your fellow humans to do some amazing things (or to do the wrong things, but we won’t go there today). What you may not realize is that your words can change the world. Here’s something else that’s really cool that you might not have realized … The keys to world-changing writing are also the keys to damn good copywriting. But as you know, good writing doesn’t happen all by itself. So let’s talk about what it takes to be damned good …… -
WordPress Hosting That Means Business
14 May 2012 | 8:00 amDid you know Copyblogger Media has a WordPress hosting division? Many people don’t, because it’s been a bit under-the-radar. The whole thing started with our frustration with web hosting in general. Specifically, the fact that a lot of “WordPress hosting” amounts to generic one-click installation of the CMS on a standardly-configured box — which simply doesn’t cut it for optimal performance and security. So, last year we decided to manage our high-traffic network of content and product sites ourselves. We did this by bringing into the family a team of people who themselves… -
The Truth About Making Money While You Sleep
14 May 2012 | 4:00 amWant to hear about the day in the life of a so-called “successful entrepreneur?” Yesterday, I stayed in bed until about 2 PM. I watched the last few episodes of Mad Men. Around sunset, I took a leisurely stroll down the beach. When I got back, I hung out with a friend for a couple of hours, ate dinner, and went to bed. In other words … I goofed off. And while I was goofing off, my business generated a pretty decent chunk of revenue. You want to know the coolest part? I did absolutely nothing to “earn” it. I didn’t check my email. I didn’t talk to… -
7 Instructive Content Marketing Links
12 May 2012 | 6:00 amThis week on The Lede … Are Content Publishers Waking Up from Their App Dreams Nightmares? An Email Marketing Autoresponder Schedule that Sells 3 Quick Tips To Conquering Your Fear of Public Speaking Does Your Domain Say “Trust Me?” Why “Freemium” Fails for Startups: 3 Business Lessons from the Band New Order 5 Basic SEO Truths We Can Learn from Star Wars Peter Shankman on the Value of an Audience If you want to grab more useful links (than the seven we highlight here) every week, follow @copyblogger on Twitter. Are Content Publishers Waking Up from Their App Dreams…
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Web Ink Now
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Risk
15 May 2012 | 7:52 am"Don't do that, it's too risky." In business, people spend a great deal of time and money evaluating risk. It's one of those things they teach in MBA school. But are we looking at risk in the right way? According to the American Bar Association, there were 1,143,358 resident and active attorneys in the United States in 2007 (the most recent data I could quickly find). That's over a million people, many of them advising businesses on what to avoid because it is risky. They lawyers say things like: "Don't let people blog and tweet because they may say something that gets the company in… -
Content marketing in highly regulated industries
8 May 2012 | 11:26 amOn the global speaking circuit, I frequently get pushback from audience members who work in highly regulated industries. They claim, erroneously, that laws like HIPAA and regulations like those from the SEC and the FDA forbid them from creating valuable content on the Web or engaging in social media. Nonsense! This is just a fear-based excuse perpetuated by lawyers in the pharmaceutical, healthcare, and financial services industries who want to avoid risk at all cost. Ignoring the data The fear is particularly shortsighted when considering the data on how people make decisions related to… -
Acura uses Twitter to hashtag spam hundreds
6 May 2012 | 4:12 pmUPDATE - May 9, 2012 - Alison from @Acura_Insider commented (the 22nd comment down). Please be sure to read her explanation about what happened as you consider this story. +++++++++++++++++++++++ This afternoon, Renee tweeted me from the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival because she knows I am a big live music fan. I tweeted her back using the #JazzFest2012 hashtag. Which resulted in a tweet from @Acura_Insider "Acura's official Twitter account. Get the inside scoop & other Acura news. On duty: Alison w/ Acura PR." This linked to a PURL that offered me a VIP experience at Jazzfest. (In… -
Google News now offers real time breaking coverage pages
5 May 2012 | 6:54 amToday when I checked out the Google News headlines as I do several times a day, I noticed a new feature. Now, for each breaking story covered, there is a button called See realtime coverage. Clicking the button brings you to the latest news. This is a cool development. As I've said for several years now the most significant development on the Web is the rise of real-time. Social media are tools. Real-Time is a mindset. As I write this, a breaking business story this morning is about Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson and the inaccurate educational information found in his biography. Clicking over to… -
Public relations is not the same as media relations
3 May 2012 | 9:19 amBack in the day, the only way to easily communicate with your public was to use mainstream media and analysts as your mouthpieces. So the public relations department and the agencies they employed spent a great deal of effort convincing editors, reporters and analysts that your company was one worth talking up. Prior to the Web, there wasn't an efficient way for organizations to communicate directly to the public. What's the role of public relations in the new world of the web? There has been an explosion of channels that organizations can reach their audience directly with valuable online…
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Conversation Agent
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Most Marketers Still Not Making Data-Driven Decisions Surveys Find
16 May 2012 | 2:00 amHow do large corporate marketers collect and use data? Are practices in marketing measurement and ROI changing? How about the integration of digital and traditional marketing? Has the excitement around big data brought about a shift in how marketers conduct their business? These are some of the topics for investigation in a recent study conducted by Columbia Business School’s Center on Global Brand Leadership and the New York American Marketing Association (NYAMA). The short answer: there is still a big gap between where organizations would like to be and where they actually are in… -
Answering Common Inquiries About Content
15 May 2012 | 2:00 amThree kinds of inquiries I receive regularly: write about us give us your content allow us to post Many of you find the contact form for consulting work. In that case, I'm happy to provide a quote and scope of work. If that's not what you're after, the quickest way to find out what is accepted for review and publication is by following the link to -- submit your question on the top menu. In all cases, the best outcomes come when the ask is appropriate. Note the term "pro" is part of the word. Making the ask Don't know how to ask? Here's how to write an email that stands out for your review. -
Why Experience is Key to Customer Loyalty
14 May 2012 | 2:00 amWhenever I travel, I'm reminded of the many amazing opportunities that come from being able to reach many parts of the world relatively easily. Let's face it, things can go wrong with the weather and with technology. It is how an airline -- or any company, for that matter -- handles customer fairness that will make a big difference to its bottom line. Will they have to discount fares more deeply so people will do business with them again next time? There is plenty of room left for improving customer experience in the travel industry -- airlines, hotels, car services, even airports, with a few… -
Business Lessons I Learned from my Mother
13 May 2012 | 3:00 amMy mother was Miss Romagna. Her name is Anna Laura. I wanted to have her purple blue eyes and ready smile. She has the welcoming spirit of a woman always ahead of the times and comfortable in her own skin. In addition to being a mother of three (all girls), she has had multiple careers -- accounting, sales, public office, geriatric care, and beautician; some overlapping for years. Mother really gets communications -- the listening part especially -- the organization of work, along with the care of the individual. Whether she negotiated credit rates or the recovery of the elderly, she made… -
Fair Pay, Participation Value, and The Intention Economy
12 May 2012 | 3:00 amDo you know the pay scale for your industry? I'm not talking about the job wanted ads -- those may mislead you and take you down the generic path. You're not generic, you have specific skills, and you should be able to calculate market value. Just like with salary, where you don't have a cut and dry answer, interaction and involvement are not exactly the same thing. Community participation has highs and lows, and they may not follow the touted 1% route. How active are people online? Has it changed in the last couple of years? Marketers can optimize campaigns and programs only so far. Without…
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BuzzMachine
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Creepy
8 May 2012 | 6:18 amI just reamed an ITN producer who emailed me this clip about Google seeking a patent for using background noise in audible search requests and wanted to talk to me “off the record” (why he’d offer that, I don’t know; bad reporters’ reflex) to find out what “worries” I had about privacy and security. Note well that he didn’t ask me what I thought of the technology — whether I thought it was good or bad, how I thought it could be used positively or negatively, what its potential is. No, he showed his bias clearly by asking me to tell him… -
Consumer Reports’ moral panic
3 May 2012 | 4:42 amI’m very disappointed in Consumer Reports for falling into the moral panic about privacy and social services. Today it issues a survey and a Reefer Madness report that covers no new ground, only stirs it up, over privacy and Facebook. Let me address instead the survey. In its press release, Consumer Reports says — as if we should be shocked at these numbers — that: * 39.3 million identified a family member in a profile. Do we really live in a world where it should be frightening to talk about our family? * 20.4 million included their birth date and year in their profile. And… -
Social (network) pressure
1 May 2012 | 6:08 amBy adding an organ-donation tool to Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg is setting up a dynamic of social pressure for virtue. Is that always good? Now getting us to sign our drivers’ licenses so our vital bits can be harvested to save others’ lives is a moderately low-impact decision. But what about the occasional calls for folks to sign up to be tested for a marrow transplant — as in the drive for Super Amit? That’s no easy decision. Imagine tomorrow, God forbid, one of your Facebook friends needs a kidney. There’s a tool staring you in the face asking you to get tested… -
Journalism Inside®
20 Apr 2012 | 10:42 amI wonder whether we should be teaching journalists to embed themselves and their abilities into the world rather than always making the world come to them. Thinking out loud… The other day, when Amazon peeved me by suddenly trying to sell me software — who has bought a box of software in years? — it occurred to me: After software left store shelves, demand for the programmers who make it has only grown. So why, as newspapers, magazines, and books leave shelves, is there not more demand for the journalists who make them? Companies are clamoring to hire more programmers and… -
A new BuzzMachine
16 Apr 2012 | 3:26 pmAt long last, and by popular demand (and disgust at my old design), BuzzMachine is reborn thanks to my son and webmaster, Jake. After I’d let my old design go to seed, he didn’t much like me calling him my webmaster. So he took matters into his own hands, rebuilt my WordPress installation from scratch, fixed all kinds of things I’d messed up or neglected over the years, and — best of all — gave me this wonderful new look. The image above — like the photo on the old header — is of a paper-making machine: the old origin of buzz. I’ve been…
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The Toad Stool by Alan Wolk
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The Assault Continues: Four New Consumer-Centric Video Technologies
14 May 2012 | 2:09 pmIt wasn’t too hard to predict that once every permutation of text-based social media had been explored, would-be entrepreneurs would shift their attention to video. And while “social TV” has become an all-purpose buzzword these days, this spring has seen a couple of notable consumer-centric introductionsFirst off are the competing social video services Viddy and SocialCam. Both of which take the cute-puppy-video meme to the next level. While users are encouraged to upload their own video and share it with their Facebook friends, the primary use of both sites seems to be sharing new cute… -
Introducing the KIT Social Program Guide
16 Apr 2012 | 10:17 amI don't usually talk about my own work on here, but this is something I am particularly proud of: after months of hard work and preparation, working with a team that spanned from San Francisco to Milan, it's here: the KIT Social Program Guide or SPG.Here's a 2 minute demo - if you're at NAB this week, you can get a hands-on trialWhat Is An SPG? It's a Social Program Guide- a white label product that lays social functionality on top of a pay-TV provider's EPG so that viewers can see what their friends are up to and then act on that information... by actually changing the channel or… -
The Five Things You'll Be Hearing About At NAB This Week
15 Apr 2012 | 9:44 pmWhile NAB is due to start in about 12 hours, I wanted to do a quick rundown of the sorts of things we expect to be seeing there:1. Social TV Apps: The Pets.com of 2012. Lots of VC money being thrown at any and every permutation of "social TV," 99% of them suffer from two big problems: they don't interact with each other and they don't interact with the TV set. Anyone who solves those problems will be drawing huge crowds.2. Ahhhhh! Netflix!!!: The astounding success of their streaming service caught everyone (including Reed Hastings) by surprise as it flew in the face of three… -
Lack of Pinterest?
9 Apr 2012 | 7:10 amI've been prepping for a minor home renovation project and thus spending more time than usual on sites selling everything from appliances to furniture. These are sites that seem to be ground zero for Pinterest, yet few of them have added the little "PinIt" button up there with the Facebook "like" and Twitter buttons.These are major retailers too, not some mom and pop shop.It surprised me because I have found Pinterest to be an excellent organization tool - it's very easy to go back to the page, look at actual pictures of all the refrigerators I pinned (with prices and dimensions) and make a… -
The Nielsen Myth
27 Mar 2012 | 7:21 amThis originally ran on Digiday and was picked up by IPTV News. Co-authored with KIT COO Alex BlumTV is a hugely successful $60 billion industry. It’s also built on a jury-rigged measurement system that’s a bit of a joke and needs to be replaced for the potential of the modern media world to be fully realized.Nielsen ratings have admittedly come a long way from handwritten diaries, but they’ve still become antiquated as our viewing experience shifts from broadcast television to over-the-top services like Netflix and Hulu. This sea change of Internet meshing with TV presents a golden…
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Seth's Blog
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Digital analogs are no longer sufficient
16 May 2012 | 2:00 amThe parking meter was rebooting. I guess we're supposed to walk to the other end of the garage and find one that's working. We're seeing digital awareness coming to just about everything. In this case, it was the parking meter near the library. Of course, it's not really a parking meter, it's a centralized fee collection system that saves the town a lot of money. It's easier to collect from, certainly, it doesn't waste the time of meter readers (who get alerted as to what spaces aren't paid for, as opposed to checking them all) plus it doesn't let a new parker enjoy a few minutes of the last… -
Hard work on the right things
15 May 2012 | 2:00 amI don't think winners beat the competition because they work harder. And it's not even clear that they win because they have more creativity. The secret, I think, is in understanding what matters. It's not obvious, and it changes. It changes by culture, by buyer, by product and even by the day of the week. But those that manage to capture the imagination, make sales and grow are doing it by perfecting the things that matter and ignoring the rest. Both parts are difficult, particularly when you are surrounded by people who insist on fretting about and working on the stuff that makes no… -
Worldliness
14 May 2012 | 2:41 amIntelligence is the combination of knowing a lot about a little while you also know a little about a lot. Deep domain understanding helps you create analyses. Your ability to understand how a particular system (no matter how small) works allows you apply a confident analysis to new systems you encounter. Once you know everything there is to know about nuclear physics, soccer or the praying mantis, it makes it easier to understand new systems. At the same time, it's impossible to be smart without also being aware of the wider world. That's because it's the random interactions and the… -
The reason the customer is always right...
14 May 2012 | 2:08 amIf you insist that they are wrong, they stop being your customer* (if given half a chance). People spend their time and attention and money in places that make them feel valued. *There's nothing wrong with asking customers who are wrong to leave. Just be sure you do it on purpose. -
Dedicating the merit
13 May 2012 | 2:02 amFor an author, one of the nicest parts of the traditional book is the dedication page. The dedication is far more than an acknowledgement to someone who helped you write the book, it's a permanent signpost, a capstone to the work of a year or more. Even if the person you've dedicated the book to can't read it, the writer benefits from the knowledge that a connection was made and that a memory was preserved. Here's the thing: you can dedicate just about anything. A project, a meeting, a tweet. You don't have to tell anyone but yourself. This blog post, like all the posts before it, has a…
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MarketingProfs Daily Fix Blog
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Should Your Marketing Message Require Reading Between the Lines?
16 May 2012 | 10:28 amYears ago, the political philosopher Leo Strauss wrote an essay entitled, “Persecution and the Art of Writing,” in which he advocated reading some philosophers “between the lines.” For a host of reasons, the philosopher felt that the truth he had to speak could only be spoken surreptitiously or “by means of brief indication.” Of course, one can run into a lot of trouble scholastically when arguing that a philosopher meant to say something other than what he explicitly stated. I mean, how are you supposed to prove that? Strauss insists that a “between… -
Learn These Four Classic Approaches to Marketing Campaigns
16 May 2012 | 7:03 amA guest blog post by Geoff Livingston and Gini Dietrich. A classic marketing strategy mistake is to select tools because they are new or talked about frequently in the media. Fascinated with the latest tool, marketing rounds (what we like to call your team) forget to select media and methods to achieve an objective. Measurable objectives, however, often require selecting a primary approach towards the customer, after which tools are selected based on budget, time, and other resources. There are four common approaches to marketing campaigns today. Direct Community Interaction With… -
Four Tips for Breaking Out of Your Slump Just Like Albert Pujols Did
15 May 2012 | 7:03 amA guest blog post by Maranda Gibson of AccuConference. Former St. Louis Cardinals powerhouse first baseman Albert Pujols traded the Midwest for the West Coast when he accepted a record-breaking deal from the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. His start for the Angels was highly anticipated, so many people were shocked that Pujols had done more striking out than anything else since the beginning of the season. That’s right. A lot of money was invested in a man who could hit a home run off any pitcher in either league, but all he had managed to do lately was strike out—until May 6,… -
What the Evolution of Marketing Automation Looks Like [Infographic]
14 May 2012 | 7:03 amA guest post by Irv Shapiro of Ifbyphone. The term “marketing automation” often conjures up images of people waiting on hold or receiving out-of-office responses. However, smart business owners know that marketing automation equals measured results. The term “marketing automation” includes lead management, Web analytics, email marketing, voice-based measurement, inbound marketing, and social media. And marketing automation contains a wealth of opportunities for businesses to… Measure ROI and lead quality Streamline the leads-to-sales process Enhance user interaction… -
Content Management for Marketers: What’s the Difference Between Open Source and Cloud Platforms?
11 May 2012 | 10:49 amA guest post by Roland Benedetti of Nuxeo. Ten years ago, if you asked a group of marketing professionals which content management systems (CMS) they encountered most often, you would probably get a few blank stares. Nowadays, however, everyone knows what a content management system is because marketers use them nearly every day to create content, edit websites, and manage projects. But is there only one type of CMS? Do they all operate the same? Which type is best for which function? One of the biggest differences in CMS solutions is what is called open source vs. cloud-based solutions. Do…
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Charlene Li
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Beyond the IPO: Ten Implications of a Public Facebook
8 May 2012 | 8:05 amBy Susan Etlinger, Charlene Li and Rebecca Lieb The run-up to Facebook’s IPO reminds me a bit of a wedding: everyone’s attention is on the big day (expected to be Friday May 18), without much regard for the weeks, months and years afterward. Charlene Li, Rebecca Lieb, and I sat down to discuss some of the implications of a newly public Facebook: on shareholders, business and Facebook itself. — SE (Cross-posted from altimetergroup.com.) Whether or not Facebook’s IPO ends up being one of the world’s largest (this Washington Post article places it 6th, between… -
Webinar: A Foundation For Mobile Business
20 Mar 2012 | 10:46 amNow for a word on mobile in the enterprise. Altimeter’s mobile analyst, Chris Silva, is working on a report that explores how managers on the business-side – not the IT – side of the organization are increasingly leading the charge to bring mobility to their workforce. A key challenge is how to build the control and security foundation for a mobile business strategy. Chris and I will be hosting an open, no-cost webinar on Wed March 28th at 10am PT/1pm ET that will discuss the key elements of the mobile control layer, its importance, and how both the technologies and leadership… -
Report: Making The Business Case For Enterprise Social Networks
22 Feb 2012 | 1:58 amIn 2011, the US hit a milestone — more than half of all adults visit social networking sites at least once a month. But when it comes to using social-networking technologies inside organizations, many business leaders are at a loss to understand what value can be created from Facebook-like status updates within the enterprise. Some organizations have deployed social-networking features with an initial enthusiastic reception, only to see these early efforts wither to just a few stalwart participants. The problem: Most companies approach enterprise social networks as a technology deployment… -
New Report: “Make An App For That: Mobile Strategies For Retailers”
7 Feb 2012 | 10:16 amWhen it comes to shopping, I have a love/hate relationship with my iPhone. Some apps are actually helpful, letting me explore products or buy something immediate. But the vast majority of the retailer apps litter my screens, sitting unused after an initial, disappointing whirl. My frustration is reflected in the findings of my colleague Chris Silva‘s new report, entitled “Make An App For That: Mobile Strategies For Retailers“. Of particular value is that Chris pivots the report around two major strategies retails can use when it comes to mobile: Enrich: These strategies are… -
Jerry Yang’s departure signals a New Day for Yahoo!, the passing of an era for Tech
17 Jan 2012 | 4:30 pmMy first reaction to the news that Jerry Yang is leaving Yahoo! was that this was the passing of an era. I first met Jerry in 1994 when he was still a PhD student at Stanford, before he and David Filo left to run Yahoo! full time. Through bubbles and two economic downturns, Jerry has always been omnipresent in Silicon Valley. But all good things come to pass. With the arrival of Scott Thompson as the new CEO of Yahoo!, it makes sense that Scott be given a clean slate upon which to write the future of Yahoo!. This is very much the norm for incoming CEOs, where founders are asked to take a…
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A VC
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Bootstrapping
16 May 2012 | 2:43 amWith all the talk of massive amounts of cash sloshing around the web/mobile startup ecosystem (including things I've said recently), you would think that nobody bootstraps anymore. But that is not true at all. Last week my partner Albert blogged about our most recent investment in Behance. Behance was bootstrapped for its first five years. As Scott Belsky, Behance's founder and CEO, wrote on the Behance blog: For the past five years, Behance has been a bootstrapped enterprise. We’ve sold Action Pads, books, job postings, conference tickets, and even banner ads (horror!) to generate the… -
Mobile Native Services
15 May 2012 | 5:55 amOne of the most exciting areas of Internet applications these days are applications that are "mobile native". That doesn't just mean mobile first. It means mobile native - the app could not exist if the mobile smartphone didn't exist. A great example of this is the "book a cab ride on your phone" category. The leader in this category is Uber which does a great job and really nailed the experience. I've also used SideCar in San Francisco and Hailo in London. All three are great experiences. These services work so well because the cab driver and the passenger both have mobile phones that are… -
MBA Mondays Series: People
14 May 2012 | 3:31 amBased on the feedback I got on this topic last week, I've revised the title of the series and the topics we are going to cover. The series will be called People. Human Capital is a turnoff. Businesses are all about people. And people aren't capital. I've added posts on retention and asking someone to leave the company. So here is the schedule of posts: - The importance of culture and fit when hiring - Where to find strong talent - Optimal headcount at various stages - Best hiring practices - Retention - Asking somone to leave your company - How to leverage your partners (including your… -
Easy Come Easy Go
13 May 2012 | 7:21 amI just read that a lot of the social news reader traffic publishers like Washington Post and The Guardian were getting from Facebook has dropped off dramatically. Next we will read that the traffic social video apps get from Facebook has dropped dramatically. All of this reminds me of the big drop in traffic SEO driven sites deal with every time Google does an algorithm change. SEO and Facebook timeline integration is "best practice" on the Internet. You should do both. They can be great free acquisition channels. But they are not great retention channels. Because easy come easy go. Be your… -
Android in Europe and Asia
12 May 2012 | 7:03 amI was going through the board deck of our portfolio company Wattpad this morning. Wattpad is the leading writing/reading community on the web and mobile. Quantcast says over 7.5mm people visit their website each month. And Wattpad is one of the top free "Books" apps in both the iOS an Android apps stores. Wattpad has a very large mobile user base around the world as a result of the sucess of its mobile apps. And so this slide on geographic distribution of its user base caught my attention: The iOS user base for Wattpad is about 65% in North America. But Wattpad's Android user base is less…
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blog maverick
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The Coming Meltdown in College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Any Time Soon
13 May 2012 | 5:34 pmThis is what I see when i think about higher education in this country today: Remember the housing meltdown ? Tough to forget isn’t it. The formula for the housing boom and bust was simple. A lot of easy money being lent to buyers who couldn’t afford the money they were borrowing. That money was then spent on homes with the expectation that the price of the home would go up and it could easily be flipped or refinanced at a profit. Who cares if you couldn’t afford the loan. As long as prices kept on going up, everyone was happy. And prices kept on going up. And as long… -
Some Olympic Thoughts
22 Apr 2012 | 4:43 pmMy position on NBA players and the Olympics has not changed since I first wrote about it nearly 8 years ago. It was stupid then. It has not gotten any smarter. The following is an article put together by Brett Morris that provides an additional perspective and some more details that to me, re-enforce my position. ### When the Miami Heat’s Dwayne Wade said he thought “guys should be compensated” for participating in this Summer’s Olympics, he received a great deal of public backlash for being “un-American,” and “selfish,” from all walks of life… -
The Greatest Business Risk You Don’t Know About – Your Business Will Be Sued Over Patents
18 Apr 2012 | 11:53 amYour business is at risk. For a lot of money. No matter what type of business you are in, you are susceptible to a patent infringement lawsuit. The worst part about this risk is that there is nothing you can do to protect yourself. You are a victim in a business world horror movie. Unfortunately , there is no one to scream “no don’t do it. Don’t open that door” and protect you. All the doors are open and the trolls are all attacking. Why wouldn’t they ? Put yourself in the position of a patent troll. If the laws changed in your industry so that if you… -
Dont Follow Your Passion, Follow Your Effort
18 Mar 2012 | 12:47 pmI hear it all the time from people. “I’m passionate about it.” “I’m not going to quit, It’s my passion”. Or I hear it as advice to students and others “Follow your passion”. What a bunch of BS. ”Follow Your Passion” is easily the worst advice you could ever give or get. Why ? Because everyone is passionate about something. Usually more than 1 thing. We are born with it. There are always going to be things we love to do. That we dream about doing. That we really really want to do with our lives. Those passions aren’t… -
I Hope Yahoo Crushes Facebook in its Patent Suit
13 Mar 2012 | 1:10 pmAnyone who reads this blog knows how much I hate patent laws. I think 99pct of the time they are anti-competitive, corruptive, impede creativity and innovation and can kill small businesses. I think the ratio of patent law doing a good job protecting company IP vs it being used purely to negatively impact competitors or to troll for un-earned revenue is probably 1000 to 1, or worse. When I read that Yahoo was suing Facebook my immediate reaction was disdain. As I thought more about it, I came to realize that this case could be the water shed moment that causes enough people to recognize…
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Andy Sernovitz | Damn, I Wish I\'d Thought of That!
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A name with a bug, part 2
16 May 2012 | 7:00 amLast week we had an amazing conference called the Word of Mouth Crash Course. It was a fantastic day, the third in a series. But it wasn’t as big as we expected, and we discovered a critical reason why: We changed the name of the event — it used to be called Word of Mouth Supergenius — without any testing. Here’s what happened — people thought that it was an online course instead of a live conference. The word course implied online training to many people. We also failed to use certain trigger words that indicate that something is a live event: Summit, Expo,… -
A name with a bug, part 1
15 May 2012 | 7:00 amWe were going to launch a site called WordofMouthMarketing.org. During the few months we were planning it, everyone kept saying WordofMouth.org — they kept dropping the word marketing. Even employees and contractors who were working on the project. That was a problem. If our own team couldn’t get the name right, how would our customers find the site? So we killed the project until we could get ownership of WordofMouth.org. It was incredibly lucky that we caught the problem before we launched. We would have sent all of our confused customers to someone else’s site. Lesson:… -
Give them an experience they’ll never stop talking about — and a reminder to re-start the talk
14 May 2012 | 7:00 amThe Cameron Park Zoo in Waco, TX invites school and scout groups to spend the night camping in the zoo. It’s an amazing behind-the-scenes experience. More that just the camping, which is remarkable, you also get to feed a giraffe, pet a rhino, and hold a giant cockroach. Just as important: Every kid gets a free shirt with the Zoo Snooze logo on it. And everyone other kid in school finds out about the Zoo every time the shirt is worn. (And because it was a Cub Scout trip, dozens of kids in the same grade all have the shirt.) Lesson: Don’t just think about the experience. Think… -
What’s the simplest thing you can do to create a remarkable experience?
13 May 2012 | 7:00 amSubway gave us a kids meal in this nice reusable bag. We talked about it, we told people, we kept it, and we tell more people when our daughter carries it around. Probably cost them 30 cents — which is about 10 cents more than a throw-away box. But the conversations it starts are priceless word of mouth advertising moments. -
35 ways to improve sales
12 May 2012 | 7:00 amClassic advice from e-commerce master Sam Decker, now CEO of Mass Relevance, originally published in 2004 and still relevant: Can I find that item I’m looking for? Tune your internal search engine to match top search terms to product pages. Put top sellers on home page. People buy on impulse or recommendation. Match the landing page to the marketing campaign. Use vanity urls for offline advertising. Test your categories, naming and navigation with customers. They’re less intuitive than you think. Can I find something that interests me? Put top sellers on home page. Add related items to a…
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Daniel Pink
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3 more emotionally intelligent ways to keep streets safe
16 May 2012 | 6:35 amAs always, the mailbag of emotionally intelligent signage is brimming with examples sent by readers around the world. And as always, the most prevalent target of this new approach to sign and symbol is dangerous driving. Here are three that caught my eye: A homemade sign from a tough-minded (but not litigious) parent: An official sign from the hilly state of Himachal Pradesh in northeast India: (If your Hindi is rusty, this translates to “If you fancy speed, become PT Usha. Speed driving is a sign of stupidity.” If your Indian sports history is rusty, PT Usha is one of the… -
Ask Tom Peters anything you want — only on Office Hours
11 May 2012 | 5:56 amOur next guest on Office Hours is none other than Tom Peters — the peripatetic and perspicacious co-author of In Search of Excellence and the man The Los Angeles Times called “the father of the post-modern corporation.” Join us on Monday, May 14 at 2pm, EDT, for what promises to be a terrific Office Hours episode. I’ll talk with Tom about the state of the economy, the new rules of work, and his recently released “mother of all presentations.” And as always, you’ll be able to call in and ask him anything you want. (Don’t know what Office Hours is? -
Can you launch a startup with just 100 bucks?
8 May 2012 | 5:15 amLater this month, Facebook is planning a ninety billion dollar IPO. Let’s write out that number so we glimpse its enormity: $90,000,000,000. Whoa. Chris Guilliebeau thinks Facebook is cool. But he urges the rest of us to concentrate on a smaller number: a hundred bucks. Let’s write out that one, too. $100. See? It’s a lot more manageable. In his new book, The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future, (Buy it on Amazon, BN.com, or IndieBound), Guillebeau examines a slew of people who’ve started enterprises with… -
3 outstanding books for your spring reading list
2 May 2012 | 5:09 amOver the last few months, I’ve had the privilege of reading three truly outstanding books. None are about business or work per se — but all are amazing and worth your time. The first is Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in the Mumbai Undercity. Boo, a New Yorker writer, spent three years observing life in a slum adjacent to the airport in Mumbai, India. She returned with a riveting story that’s centered around a self-immolation and ensuing false accusations, but is ultimately about family, poverty, justice, and being human. This work… -
Travel Tip #12 — Never get sick again . . . again
30 Apr 2012 | 6:17 amIt’s been awhile. But here — in response to astonishingly meager demand — is a new Travel Tip. (To be fully prepared, it’ll help to have seen this one.) PREVIOUS TIPS: Tip #1 — Never get sick again Tip #2 — The magic of earplugs Tip #3 — Four road food rules of thumb Tip #4 — The rule of HAHU Tip #5 — More hygiene! Tip #6 — Staying connected Tip #7 — Zipping through security lines Tip #8 — One thing you should never do in a hotel room Tip #9 — The secret(s) to beating jet lag Tip #10 — The first thing you should buy Tip #11 – The hidden…
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Tom Asacker
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The riddle of marketplace success.
14 May 2012 | 11:33 amAre you driven by your perceptions or by your dreams? -
The how of great brands.
7 May 2012 | 7:49 amI've had the opportunity to work with many leading brands over the years, and I’ve also watched purposeful, passionate organizations struggle for significance. I’ve seen dedicated religious leaders lose their ministries to apathy, while others swelled their church attendance into... -
Businesses are not made.
3 May 2012 | 8:19 amWhy is change so difficult for organizations? Primarily because of the generally accepted myth of business creation. We believe that businesses are made by arranging and rearranging parts; people, departments, managers, et al. Leaders think of themselves as technicians and... -
The yin and yang of business.
30 Apr 2012 | 4:30 amThere's a yin and a yang of every business. The yin is the water and earth, the substance of the offering, the "value." The yang is the fire and air, the theater, how you bring that "value" to life in... -
Choose the correct paradigm to shift.
26 Apr 2012 | 4:29 am"The paradigm of competition is a race: by rewarding the winner, we encourage everyone to run faster. When capitalism really works this way, it does a good job; but its defenders are wrong in assuming it always works this way."...
