Thanks @gawthrok for the head’s up on this WordPress theme.
This is actually the one he had been using himself on his own site, www.kevingawthrope.com. Then again, he’s a brilliant web designer, and in Kindergarten I failed crayons. So he doesn’t need themes provided by WordPress and I do.
Posted in Uncategorized
The mark of any semi-aware (and completely cynical) social media marketer is the use of a hot chick in the avatar. We’ve all seen this for years. You get a friend invite from someone you’ve never heard of, but their profile picture is of an attractive female.
I’m guessing the thinking is people (read: guys) will be more inclined to follow/friend this profile, in the hopes that they’ll be able to meet said attractive female. Of course, the profile is likely nothing but posts about making money online, or “read my blog,” or some other desperate bit of tweet-spam.
But it must work, because people still do it. Here’s one I saw on FriendFeed:
The post is typical of all the other posts on the account: A flat sales pitch to anyone who bothers to read it. And given the fact that they post an average of 30 times a day, (likely from a feed,) that’s a lot of selling.
Also look at the number of people they’re following. They obviously hope that once they follow all these people, some will follow them back. What’s odd is that 491 other users have. Who are these people?
Upon closer examination, they are all polite users who follow back anyone who follows them. Whomever runs this account must feel that a 0.93% conversion of follows to followers is a good thing. But the real question becomes how many of those followers ever actually click on their sales pitch links? How many become customers?
I think the point here is that in social networking you are who you follow. If you want to be associated with sales people just because they use a picture of a hot chick – even if they are one – they are all you’ll have to read from. If you want to learn something, or get something worthwhile from your time spent, you should really be more selective. The point of all this, after all, is not to collect followers.
Similarly, if you’re here to sell, the direct approach isn’t going to work – no matter how cute the woman in your avatar is.
Saw Gary Vaynerchuk tonight, speaking at Changing Hands Bookstore and promoting his new book, “Crush it.” I was so happy to hear him say the one thing that people presenting on new media rarely do.
He did speak about how Twitter and Facebook were the new printing presses. He also spoke about how all this new media is a C-change for our culture, and how anyone with a dream and computer access can be as relevant as Time Magazine or the evening news.
But what he said that got me so jazzed was that the people who consume this stuff are people.
All too often when I go to a speaking engagement about new media – and I’ve gone to a lot in the last year – the topic always boils down to, “how can you get more conversions/click throughs/impressions/sell more widgets.” It sounds like a fantasy football maniac talking about player stats.
What is rare and so refreshing is hearing someone say that customers are people, and people want to be treated like people. Sure, if you post the same Twitter message 30 times a day, and get 10000 followers to see it, and .5% of them convert, you’ll get 5 customers. Good for you, it’s money in the bank.
But if you actually talk to 100 people, and get to know them, and where necessary slip in that you sell what they’ve been talking about needing, you’ll do a whole lot better than .5%. What’s more, you’ll actually be using social media the way it was supposed to be used – not as another channel for spam.
Listening to him, I thought of all the elements of social media marketing that piss me off so much: Ping.fm, hot chick avatars, following complete strangers in the hopes they’ll follow you back… What Gary proposes is so much more fulfilling. Be a person. Find other people and converse with them just as you would if they were standing in front of you.
Make them want to be your customer.
And, of course, as someone who’s done this all before, I can tell you it does take a lot of work. It takes a lot of time. That’s why posting through an RSS feed is so popular! “I don’t have time to Tweet each person each day – I need to get things moving now!”
Those same people would then say approaching customers like they were drones to be conned into buying something en masse is the economical way to get things sold.
But I have to trust Mr. Vaynerchuk on his approach more, because he actually applied it to a business. His own business, no less. I’ve always said I trust the advice of a self-made millionaire more than I do anyone with 10,000 Facebook friends. And here is a prime example of a person who made his business thrive not through collecting followers and then message blasting them, but through real engagement.
This is what social media’s power is – not the number of people using Facebook, and oh goody I’m going to grab up as many of those idiots as I can.
The power is in it’s ability to let you communicate with others. Getting it to work isn’t about thinking around the fact that it’s a two-way street – it’s about being willing to use it to your advantage.
Right now the greatest tool for Twitter – Twitter Karma – isn’t working.
The tool is a follower management system that requires access to user’s accounts through Twitter’s API. It accesses the account, displays all of a user’s followers, and the people following them. Then one has the ability to unfollow people who don’t follow them back, or scrape off followers that are unwanted, or just get a better idea of who is following you.
Twitter has been notified that the tool is being blocked, and frankly this kind of interruption happens a lot. Each time it happens, though, I have to wonder if Twitter is killing Twitter Karma in favor of some tool of their own. Managing followers is, after all, something every user should be able to do.
So if you have used this tool before and found it useful, please contact Twitter and ask them to fix the problem. Not just to get it up and running, but so they understand there’s a following of users who appreciate what it has to offer.
Posted in Social Media
1) Smart phones stop getting so much press – Everyone’s talking about how neat smart phones are, how cool all the stuff on the new iPhone is… But if mobile phones had really arrived, no one would be talking about how cool they are. You don’t hear people talking about how neat web pages are, right? When’s the last time you heard someone gush that they just got a real, live e-mail address? When something has arrived, it isn’t news. When people stop talking about “apps,” you’ll know you’d better have one up and running.
2) Standardized mobile analytics – As with web marketing, a few companies will emerge with performance analytics for mobile marketing campaigns. Right now several companies offer something, but no one is really sure yet what they should be monitoring for. SMS codes? Application downloads? Brand mentions on geo-social networks?
When the majority of the population have smart phones, they will decide how they want to use them. When THAT happens, there will be enough sample data to determine what is really important. That certainly hasn’t happened yet. I don’t care how much press FourSquare gets, a minority of people use it.
3) Businesses using apps they didn’t write – Right now everyone thinks the best way to get on board with mobile marketing is to create an iPhone app. But did Dell and Zappos and Ashton Kutcher invent their own micro blogging service in order to promote themselves? No. They used the one that was already built. Mobile phones will also host apps that are useful to businesses, which they will then use in their own promotional strategy.
On my G1 right now, I have a program that scans grocery store membership cards, (those things that hang on your keychain,) and stores them for you. This means instead of having to haul around all those cards, I simply have the register scan my phone’s screen. It would be far easier for grocery stores to steer their patrons towards this application then it is for them to write one that does the same thing.
4) VoiP replacing cell carrier plans - There’s been a lot in the trades about Google Voice and Skype applications, and how cell phone manufacturers won’t allow some of them on their products. This is because carriers know their days are numbered. Today’s phones can transmit data just as easily as voice services, and apparently much cheaper. Why would anyone pay for a voice plan when their handset can perform the same function as data?
5) The Mobile Technology Bubble – Since everyone has been able to see the rise and rise of mobile phones for years now, many are jockeying for investment opportunities in the emerging companies. So far it’s all been Apple, Google, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile. But as new VoiP networks emerge, people are going to want to get in on the ground floor with these new companies. After all, 12 years ago, nobody knew what T-Mobile was. The investors who had the foresight to get in early now have enough money to buy the Moon and gift wrap it.
6) Cheaper Phones – This is just a fact of manufacturing consumer goods. The more you make of them, the more innovations you come up with to make them less expensive. When that happens – probably in about four years – then everyone will have them, and all of these promises of smart phones will really come true. Think about the first commercial cell phones: They were bulky and wildly expensive. Ten years later everyone could have one, so it became much less of a status symbol and much more of a necessity.
Posted in Mobile Marketing
There was a great event at the Tempe Mission Palms tonight for Phoneix marketers. Bryan Eisenberg, author of books, articles, a blogger… hell, you can read his resume here – and giver of brilliant advice on converting the people who come to a site.
The presentation was billed as advice for “landing page optimization,” but it had much more to do with understanding what visitors to a site want, and knowing what you want them to do, and creating a bridge between the two. Most marketers have suffered through talk of how important it is for someone’s site to “get traffic.” Getting traffic to a site can be about as easy as falling out of bed. The real challenge is keeping the traffic on the site and getting it to convert.
Mr. Eisenberg stressed the importance of basing these decisions on data, and this is true. But I was happy to hear him talk about users as “people,” not as numbers. Knowing how to give people what they want means actually understanding their needs, not stressing your own.
In terms of landing pages, this means creating an experience that reflects what they were promised when they clicked on the ad in the first place. Paid search ads allow copy to be placed for any number of ads, but all too often the landing page does not reflect what they were searching for. Some have included copy that reflects these ads in their landing pages to help boost their ad score, but all too often they still don’t give people what they came looking for in the first place. Understanding this enables you to change the page so it is a continuation of the ad. It gives them reason to continue through the chain until they complete a purchase, confident that what the site has is what they want.
I hope he eventually releases this presentation on SlideShare, as there were so many great examples of bad design, and of brilliant corrections. If it is, I will post it immediately.
Posted in Interactive Marketing
I recently filled out a customer survey for Panda Express. There was a coupon offer for completing the form, and I certainly like going there now and again, so I gave them my 2 cents worth.
After I filled out the information, I opted to sign up for their e-mail list. Why not? I like coupons, and e-mail lists from restaurants are great for that.
I received my e-mail to confirm my address. I clicked on the link to verify that I’m me, and was taken to… a 404 page. That is, rather than seeing a message telling me they had confirmed my address and everything was now fine, I got a message reading, “Try again later.” I did try later, and a few times after that. No dice. I’ve moved on, barely lamenting not having my e-mail address confirmed.
This is bad news for a business anytime a customer has to see this. When you do manage to get a customer to fill out a form and, an even longer shot, give you their e-mail, you’ve scored a major victory. 99 other customers had the opportunity to give you their e-mail address and didn’t. When the one person does come through, you have to be absolutely certain you are ready for them, or you will turn away willing recipients.
I say this because there are so many web sites that want to get visitors on their e-mail list. E-mail lists have evolved incredibly over just the past few years. The industry has policed itself enough that you can safely get on a list and not have it passed on to spammers.
Now people trust e-mail lists a bit more, but they still have that potential-spam stigma to them. If you manage to get someone to go through with giving up their address, you have to make sure you don’t give them another reason to go away.
Posted in Interactive Marketing
This isn’t a post about the upcoming completely fucking horrible idea that will be the, “Facebook Movie.” (Aaron Sorkin, how could you!?!)
Instead, this is about Paranormal Activity, the first film in history to have a promotional budget low enough to allow for a stunt like getting people to request it play in their city.
The movie’s promotion seems to be based on a series of social media promotions that all say, “if Paranormal Activity isn’t playing in your local theater, request it!” There have been Eventful events showing where it plays, and Facebook ads asking people to request it play nearby.
The idea here is that so many people hear about this strange new way of getting a film to play in their area, the word of mouth has something else to ride on. It’s rather ingenious – there are hoards of horror films that come out every year. Most of them come out around now, at Halloween. Given Paranormal Activity’s low-budget, they can’t compete with the marketing budgets of A-list horror films – so they found another way in.
It’s a nice thought that eventually all films take the approach of getting theater houses by request. Imagine that in each town, 1000 peoplerequest the film, and 500 show up – or, the petition they’re getting people to sign has a conversion rate of %50. They can then go to each town with each new petition, show theater owners the number of requests, and show that if the film is shown, there is a guaranteed number that will come out for it. If this were done for each film released, typical studio dreck might not get a theater at all, while independent films that have a lot of interest own the multiplex.
When I was in graduate school, Burnt by the Sun won Best Foreign Film, while Braveheart won Best Picture. That weekend, I went to see Burnt by the Sun, which was completely sold out – I barely got a seat for it. Meanwhile, in the same theater, Braveheart was showing in two houses, and each was nearly empty. (I asked.) If the theater owner had known that Burnt by the Sun was going to be having that much demand that weekend, they could have shown it in two theaters instead of Braveheart and made a lot more money.
There are a few problems with this wonderfully Utopian solution to film distribution, however. First, this is likely only going to work once, if it works at all. After all, The Blair Witch Project was wildly successful using a similar word-of-mouth campaign to become the hit that it did, but no one was able to replicate it afterwards. This is because We The People are now incredibly cynical, and know when someone is reusing a marketing campaign on us.
The only way this approach could be successful, really, is if people like the way they got to see the film, and see the benefit of having films show up at their theater because they asked for them. After all, there’s a lot of thought that it would have been years before films had sound if the first one to use it, The Jazz Singer, had been a commercial flop. But it was a huge hit, and made studio executives buy microphones for their cameras in droves. (Even though the film was really successful because it’s story appealed to American immigrants who were the largest movie going block at the time.)
Second, contracts between studios and theater chains are still terribly draconian. In the Braveheart example, I have no doubt that theater was required to show it in two theaters by the distributor. If they had wanted to show Burnt by the Sun in two theaters, (which is entirely possible – projectionists know all about interlinking projectors,) they could have been in violation of their contract with Paramount, the distributor of Braveheart.
Why do theater owners make contracts like these with distributors? So they can be sure they get the films that will make all the money. Why will they make all the money? Because they’re the ones with the enormous marketing budgets. There are independent theaters that will certainly make money through a system of requested films, but the AMCs and Harkins and Edwards’ and Cineplex Odeons of the world make their money showing the films they are certain will return some kind of profit. They aren’t likely to base their year’s income on what might have a high request rate, which can only be determined shortly before release.
Finally, movie theaters aren’t hurting enough financially that they need to dig for a new system of finding film goers.
This system would explode if theaters were in more trouble than they are. I know, they’ve been crying poverty for years and years. Which is rather the point: They’ve been around for years and years to cry poverty. People have been abandoning movie theaters for years, saying they will see some mildly interesting film, “when it comes out of video.” They’ve been under attack, in a way, for years by new technology. After VHS, DVD, High-Definition and BluRay, people still go to movie theaters to see films if they want to.
I look forward to seeing how this scheme works out for Paranormal Activity, which I have to say, has more positive reviews on the normally acidic Rotton Tomatoes website than any film I’ve ever seen. It’s possible this whole system could become a big success if this film that’s testing the waters is itself a big success.
I’ve taken the last week off from blogging. I will be starting my new job next week, and decided I would use this remaining time to study their product and marketing strategy, and also to enjoy some remaining time off. Being unemployed is a lot more enjoyable when you see a light at the end of the tunnel.
Beyond that, I didn’t want to write blog posts simply to put them up. I have to wonder at people who write their own blogs that don’t ever take time off. If you have a staff that posts to the blog, fine – but if it’s all on you, you need to take time away from it now and again or your blog will suffer.
People who have never written for a living but now keep a blog often confuse writing with typing. Sure, you can sling a bunch of words onto a blog, publish it, and call it a day. But the ideas you come up with to share can’t be engaging if you don’t care what you’re saying, or don’t have anything new for your readers.
Being interesting isn’t a matter of luck. It’s a matter of actually being interesting.
If you want to blog, now and again you need to give it a rest.
Posted in Blogging
Ciaoenrico is an expert at everything. He is currently some guy with a blog and owns a suit.
So you’re pretty good at some element of Internet marketing, but you aren’t a household name, and you just don’t have enough ideas, patience, or talent to actually write a book or start your own company.
What do you do!?!
Finally, I have the answer for you. Seminars!
We live in an age where anyone is an expert as long as they have a group of people listening to them. Thanks to sites like The Linkedin, you too can have a group of attentive – and paying – listeners!
And I will give you all of the secrets to creating your own seminar, at my seminar. For a paultry $150 dollars, ($130 if you are a SEMPO member,)
I will teach you the tricks of:
If you’ve ever had your company eat the expense of a seminar, you know how easy it is to defend going to one for “continued education.” They foot the bill, you get some free food, and hear a speaker tell you things you could have read in their blog. Wouldn’t it be great if you too could harness the energy (read as: cash) of other professionals similarly interested in showing their managers they’re keeping up to date on something?
Don’t ask what people will pay to listen to at a public speaking engagement anymore – instead, ask what won’t people pay to hear!
At the Ciaoenrico Get Rich off Seminars Seminar, I will teach you the importance of:
And so much more!
The first ten attendees will receive an electronic bauble as yet to be determined! So sign up today!
“Ciaoenrico really knows his stuff, and I really mean that, and I am totally Robert Scoble.“
- Robert Scoble
Posted in Interactive Marketing
Tagged interactive seminars, powerpoint presentations, public speaking, seminars
