Showing posts with label marketing - social. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marketing - social. Show all posts
10.03.2010
A social solution in search of a problem
Brightkite.com has recently introduced a new small group SMS text messaging system they call Group Text. Group Text is a many to many chat system developed by Brightkite. It enables you to communicate in real time with up to 25 people via SMS, web, mobile web and dedicated mobile apps for iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Symbian. In other words, you can message a lot of people at once for free in real time and when someone responds to that message, everyone in the group sees it too - kind of like a "reply all" in Email conversations. It's free.
Can you think of a use for it?
9.24.2010
9.21.2010
Ingenious promotional marketing with Twitter
Element Fusion Internet Development is giving away 10 iPads, one a day in ten days beginning September 13.
The only way to enter the daily drawing is to post the specific message provided by Element Fusion on your personal public Twitter account, every day during the contest period. The daily Twitter posts are what establish your eligibility for that's day's drawing.
One problem with promotional contests is the necessity to promote the contest itself. The inherent structure of the Element Fusion's contest assures that the contest is self-promoting.
Entering the drawing spreads word of the promotion, which also spreads word of the company.
The only way to enter the daily drawing is to post the specific message provided by Element Fusion on your personal public Twitter account, every day during the contest period. The daily Twitter posts are what establish your eligibility for that's day's drawing.
One problem with promotional contests is the necessity to promote the contest itself. The inherent structure of the Element Fusion's contest assures that the contest is self-promoting.
Entering the drawing spreads word of the promotion, which also spreads word of the company.
8.30.2010
Claiming my own marketing back yard with a hobby
Louisville, Kentucky, is not a big city, but it is big enough to have distinct sections and neighborhoods. I happen to live in Old Louisville, which is a historic preservation district containing more Victorian era residences than any other. I've lived here for a bit more than a year now. This spring into summer, before the weather became so brutally hot, I moseyed, sauntered and wandered around my new neighborhood with a digital camera taking snapshots. Photography has been a hobby of mine since high school. I took a lot of them, and I massaged them with Photoshop.
I intend to use these photographs to create a blog that will weld my name 'Tom Fox' with my local stomping grounds, 'Old Louisville.' It may take as long as a year to accomplish, but I'm not in any rush. I plan to use Seth Godin's 'drip' strategy, by daily posts of a new image with a street address. According to theory, this will burn the connection into Google's digital brain.
You can see my Old Louisville photos here. http://old-louisville.blogspot.com/
Once a day, every day, for the next 365 days, at least one new Old Louisville photograph will be posted on that blog. The key phrase is "Old Louisville," and for some reason I want to own it.
I think it will work, but there is only one way to find out for sure, and that is to do it. Since photography really is my hobby and I've already done the photo & Photoshop part just for fun, taking it this next step is fairly easy. If I had to pay someone else to do all the work, I could never afford it.
This is a form of search engine optimization, as a subset of search engine marketing. If anyone is searching for things related to 'Old Louisville," I want them to find me. I still need to devise a way to connect and interact with those who visit that blog. I suppose that would be classified as a variant of social marketing.
I intend to use these photographs to create a blog that will weld my name 'Tom Fox' with my local stomping grounds, 'Old Louisville.' It may take as long as a year to accomplish, but I'm not in any rush. I plan to use Seth Godin's 'drip' strategy, by daily posts of a new image with a street address. According to theory, this will burn the connection into Google's digital brain.
You can see my Old Louisville photos here. http://old-louisville.blogspot.com/
Once a day, every day, for the next 365 days, at least one new Old Louisville photograph will be posted on that blog. The key phrase is "Old Louisville," and for some reason I want to own it.
I think it will work, but there is only one way to find out for sure, and that is to do it. Since photography really is my hobby and I've already done the photo & Photoshop part just for fun, taking it this next step is fairly easy. If I had to pay someone else to do all the work, I could never afford it.
This is a form of search engine optimization, as a subset of search engine marketing. If anyone is searching for things related to 'Old Louisville," I want them to find me. I still need to devise a way to connect and interact with those who visit that blog. I suppose that would be classified as a variant of social marketing.
8.21.2010
Local web marketing through Google WebClips
I like to push buttons and click links just to see what happens, secure in the knowledge that if things go south I can always reach over and pull the plug, literally.
I enabled Google's WebClips in my Gmail web dashboard out of a need to satisfy my curiosity, and I was lucky to immediately discover the LivingSocial.com site I've written about as a result. WebClips is an amalgam of pre-loaded syndicated feeds, that I might or might not be able to edit and add to, mixed in with a dose of shameless commercialism and advertisements through Google. These are displayed one at a time discretely at the top of my mail inbox. The first one I saw after enabling the feature is shown below, and it was location specific to me, here in Louisville, Kentucky. "Louisville 1-Day Coupons."
I pushed the button out of curiosity and found LivingSocial.com's Louisville page and deal of the day. So far, LivingSocial Louisville looks great, and it bears looking into further.
Note: August 21, 2010 - afternoon
Really, Google Web Clips on Gmail does not have anything to do with local web marketing, per se. Just so happened the LivingSocial's ad was the first one I saw. I'm glad I saw it. LivingSocial is something I need to know about. All the rest of the advertisements since then have been fairly typical.
Publish Post
I enabled Google's WebClips in my Gmail web dashboard out of a need to satisfy my curiosity, and I was lucky to immediately discover the LivingSocial.com site I've written about as a result. WebClips is an amalgam of pre-loaded syndicated feeds, that I might or might not be able to edit and add to, mixed in with a dose of shameless commercialism and advertisements through Google. These are displayed one at a time discretely at the top of my mail inbox. The first one I saw after enabling the feature is shown below, and it was location specific to me, here in Louisville, Kentucky. "Louisville 1-Day Coupons."
I pushed the button out of curiosity and found LivingSocial.com's Louisville page and deal of the day. So far, LivingSocial Louisville looks great, and it bears looking into further.
Note: August 21, 2010 - afternoon
Really, Google Web Clips on Gmail does not have anything to do with local web marketing, per se. Just so happened the LivingSocial's ad was the first one I saw. I'm glad I saw it. LivingSocial is something I need to know about. All the rest of the advertisements since then have been fairly typical.
Publish Post
8.20.2010
Incomprehensible irrelevant uncertainty as a marketing tool
I think not, but I'm not an advertising professional and I don't have access to the split-test comparison data.
At first glance, the deal offered by Louisville's Bard's Town Pub through Groupon.com is straightforward. Spend $10 today, get $20 in beer and burgers tomorrow, and the opportunity will be available for another 2 days, 16 hours, and 19 minutes, more or less.
First thing in the morning I can understand that much. I can even read the fine print without being shocked, dismayed or confused. In my mind it is a really good deal to make your beer and burger money go twice as far.
Then I get to the "46 bought, 54 more needed to get the deal" part of the ad.
I don't appreciate my WTF? moments to start coming quite this early in the day.
Nowhere in the fine print does it say "Offer not valid until a minimum of 100 people buy-in." It would be a logistical and logical nightmare, not to mention a big legal problem, to structure the deal that way. You can buy it today but you have to wait 24 hours before using it (fine print) tomorrow, except if less than 100 people opt-in before the offer ends on Tuesday in which case it is not valid at all? This does not work.
What sensible reason does Goupon have for doing this? What are they thinking?
8.06.2010
RSS to Ping.fm works fine except . . .
RSS to Ping.fm works fine except with Google Feedburner RSS. With them Ping.fm gets the links wrong.
7.25.2010
Yet another publishing platform - Tumblr.com
I didn't know about Tumblr.com until today when I read about downtime problems they were having this weekend. I signed up. Tom Fox - Ephemerality. It's quick. It's easy. It's stylish.
But, I don't have anything better to say there that I can't say here. It is hot new social media in development, and I have to check it out. One important consideration is whether Google will index the content I add to my Tumblr blogs.
But, I don't have anything better to say there that I can't say here. It is hot new social media in development, and I have to check it out. One important consideration is whether Google will index the content I add to my Tumblr blogs.
7.22.2010
Social media marketing - Google bookmarks
Social media is a large concept, and it includes much more than Facebook and MySpace. Technology has provided us with an ever growing abundance of tools with which to share opinions, photos, links, and bad jokes. Using social media tools for marketing is a statement of purpose, without dictating any specific tactic or tool.
The social bookmarking services online, and there are several, are clearly a form social media technology. They provide a means of sharing links and comments with a cohort of friends, and with the world. The sharing itself is a form of organic viral marketing at its best. Internet marketers do what they can to encourage this type of link sharing as a means of increasing web site traffic.
However, the assumption I stated recently about social media data extraction is that the social bookmarking services use the linking data collected as a means of refining the relevancy and importance of a web page (the link) for search engine purposes. In short, I assume that Google examines the link data and bookmark comments collected by Google Bookmarks in a way that influences search results.
This is an untested hypothesis, and even if true there is a possibility the influence could be negative.
As an exercise I used Google Bookmarks' fairly new list feature to create a cross-domain site map for this blog. on small business internet marketing. The Google Bookmark feature that allows this is capability to divide the bookmark link list into titles sections. These are the sections I created:
All of the links in the Google Bookmark list are to a single sub-domain (micro-enterprise.blogspot.com), which is not one of Google's favorite things. Yet, the comments I have begun to add to the bookmarks on the list are original and laced with mostly relevant keywords that don't over do it, or so it is hoped.
The linked to this Google Bookmark list uses the text "small business internet marketing." The list itself is set to 'public,' so anyone should be able to access it including the various search engines.
The first unanswered question that must await unfolding in time is whether Google Search will index the bookmark link list and comments.
Other resources on Google Bookmarks are:
Official Google - requires account login
Wikipedia on Google Bookmarks
Unofficial FAQ dated March 3, 2007
The social bookmarking services online, and there are several, are clearly a form social media technology. They provide a means of sharing links and comments with a cohort of friends, and with the world. The sharing itself is a form of organic viral marketing at its best. Internet marketers do what they can to encourage this type of link sharing as a means of increasing web site traffic.
However, the assumption I stated recently about social media data extraction is that the social bookmarking services use the linking data collected as a means of refining the relevancy and importance of a web page (the link) for search engine purposes. In short, I assume that Google examines the link data and bookmark comments collected by Google Bookmarks in a way that influences search results.
This is an untested hypothesis, and even if true there is a possibility the influence could be negative.
As an exercise I used Google Bookmarks' fairly new list feature to create a cross-domain site map for this blog. on small business internet marketing. The Google Bookmark feature that allows this is capability to divide the bookmark link list into titles sections. These are the sections I created:
- Search optimization
- Webmaster tools
- Internet marketing legal issues
- Site optimization
- SEO resources
- Social media marketing
- Structured data
All of the links in the Google Bookmark list are to a single sub-domain (micro-enterprise.blogspot.com), which is not one of Google's favorite things. Yet, the comments I have begun to add to the bookmarks on the list are original and laced with mostly relevant keywords that don't over do it, or so it is hoped.
The linked to this Google Bookmark list uses the text "small business internet marketing." The list itself is set to 'public,' so anyone should be able to access it including the various search engines.
The first unanswered question that must await unfolding in time is whether Google Search will index the bookmark link list and comments.
Other resources on Google Bookmarks are:
Official Google - requires account login
Wikipedia on Google Bookmarks
Unofficial FAQ dated March 3, 2007
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