When To Change Everything Or Nothing

Sometimes a blog runs its course. Sometimes a marketing campaign runs too long. Occasionally an individual advertisement dissapears too quickly. We've all seen it happen, maybe even been part of it. Why does this happen?

Any ideas?

Dumb luck? Fickle audience? Bad product?

Probably, but generally no.

Much like in sales, everything has a break even point. Stop too early, and you miss it. Stop too late, and you run the risk of losing it all. Finding that point is a skill that not very many people have, and even those people aren't always perfect at finding it. For every time the break even point is hit, and you cut and run at the right time, there are untold numbers of people who stayed too long, or left too early.

The thing about it is, there's no generalization on how to find the spot. It could be years, months, weeks, days, hours, or any other time measurement. A blog could reach that point in three years, whereas a commercial may hit it within weeks or months, and that's with a quality product. The break even point for a subpar idea is likely to be even shorter.

What break even points have you come across?

Thanks for reading!!

Why My Blog Reminds Me Of Spam

I suppose that's not the greatest title for a blog post, but it's true. My blog reminds me of spam.

It doesn't seem to get to the right target, it's all over the place contentwise, and post tend to come in bunches, much like spam does.

I promise you, my loyal (I figure if you read THIS post especially, you're a loyal reader) readers, that I will be fine tuning things around here quite a bit in the coming days and weeks and so on.

The only thing that makes this blog NOT like spam, is that you all know where the posts are coming from, and I am actually a real person who's not trying to sell you anything. I don't have a product or service for sale - I just voice my opinions.

Thanks for reading.

Are Blog Comments Really Comments?

Blogging: You Need To Pay Attention To Your Comments

The above is an interesting blog entry by Ron Miller on the site Social Media 101. Yes, those are my comments left on the entry - I like to leave comments there, because Ron, Julie and the other writers use the comment section to interact with their readers.

This brings me to my titular question. My answer is yes....and no. One blog comment left alone is simply that, a comment. But one blog comment answered by someone else, and seen by dozens (or more) of others can start a conversation, whether it be in the comments section, or via email, or even offline conversation (hey, it could happen)

Yet there are many blogs, both famous and unknown that do not have comment sections. Seth Godin, for instance, has no comment area on his blog, and hasn't since about 2006. I'm sure there are many reasons to why, but I cannot leave him a comment or message to find out about it, because he has no comments. He knows that people will talk about him regardless of the ability to leave a useful, or more than likely a useless snarky comment. He's not controversial, he's not anything really all that special - but he knows how to get people to talk, without having to do much. He wants people talking ABOUT him, he doesnt wan't to talk WITH them.

Some others prefer to use email, or ask you to use Twitter to contact them to leave your comments. That's cool, because you know that it is at least seen, rather than just approved by a random computer program that goes off when comments are made on a website. It's also a great use of social media...well, not so much the email part, but its still neat. But that limits social media, simply because the responses are either individual, or are lost in the mad shuffle of a heavily followed/follower count Twitter account.

I must admit, I've considered turning off comments several times. I love hearing what people have to say about anything I've written, and to constantly stare at the zeros gets daunting after a while. But then someone comes along and leaves me a comment and 99% of the time, it is a useful comment, whether it be critical, appreciative, or what have you. Could I still have that interaction without a comment section? I have no idea...that's why I keep it up.

For an example of how comment sections can take off and spur conversation, go back to LiveJournal (yes, they're still around, and you know you have an account, don't lie) and look at many of the communities, or even some of the individual journals. Many of those have entire conversations carried out in the comment threads, and many of the branch out into completely different topics. Will it happen every time? Shit, no. Can you predict when? Well, kinda, I guess if you know your readers well enough, but more than likely you have no idea that the post you are about to make about what happened at work today will turn into a discussion about what frog looks the coolest or something.

Are blog comments really comments? Literally, yes. But we all know how wrong literal translation can be.

What do you think?

Thanks for reading!!

Unbroken Chain

This post's title shares its title with a great song by Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead. Hopefully this post will not be as out there as a 69 Dark Star...

Anyhow - the title fits a lot of things, but being a marketing geek, I see an unbroken chain as a perfect metaphor for a company that has every department working all at once, and in the same mindset - and creating a product and marketing plan that blow the public away.


Something that enters pop culture, or alters the way future ads are done would be a great unbroken chain...comment about your favorites...

Thanks for reading!!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

On The Go

So...I recently got with the times and got an iPhone. It's an awesome phone, apps nonwithstanding. Social media and marketing definitely benefits from being on the go, and being able to check all of your pages and other places. I'm currently posting from the free version of the blogger/blogspot app, and I love it now that I'm used to the touch keyboard.

This, along with Twitterific - are becoming very important tools, and I'm assuming not just to an amateur player such as myself.

What are your favorite portable social media tools?

Thanks for reading!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The Return! Business Cards

I've been gone for way too long. I have plenty of ideas to write about, since I was thinking things up the entire time I wasn't writing. But for my first post back after such a break, I thought I would talk about business cards.

Business cards have become another very important tool in marketing and promotion. In many cases, gone are the days of plain white cardstock with black printing and a logo in the top left corner. Business cards are no longer an afterthought only used as a simple way to leave your contact information with a client or friend. For many freelancers, artists, and other types of designers, a business card is more like a small advertisement. There are dozens of blogs and individual articles on the web about innovative and interesting business cards, everything from die cut cards in hundreds of different shapes, to cards on clear plastic, wood, even beef jerky.

Even non design based industries can benefit from a unique business card - a dentist's office with cards shaped like a tooth, or with dental floss embedded in the card, for instance. I've seen divorce lawyers with cards that are perforated in the middle and have the information on both halves of the card. Just about anyone can be creative with their business cards these days.

Of course, being creative just to be creative will shine through - overly gaudy or complicated cards will be ignored or discarded without a second thought. A neon green business card with purple lettering for anyone other than a graphic designer would probably be a bad idea. A business card that looks like a child designed and wrote it would be a bad idea for anyone other than a daycare provider.

With all of the blogs out there about business cards, good cards, bad cards, interesting cards, and everything else, its easy to get caught up in the storm of having unnecessarily customized cards. A font color change, or something as simple as a new graphic or text rewrite may be all that you needed. Especially if you're starting to follow the trend of using your email signature as a business card, or doing it any other electronic way.

Simple can be just as eye catching as complicated, provided either one is done right.

Growing Social Media Presence By Not Using It

I've been interviewing a lot of places lately, and I know a lot of people working in corporate marketing positions of all kinds.

Many of these people, and some of the places I have interviewed at, have fairly aggressive blocking software on the employee work computers. This I understand, as you need to be able to make sure your employees are actually doing their work, and not farting around on Google or checking their fantasy teams, etc.

But the new trend seems to be blocking social networking sites. Yes, these can be addicting to some types of people, so in a way, I can understand it. But on the other hand, the people addicted to social media are usually the ones USING IT CORRECTLY. They're constantly updating their status on FaceBook, leaving comments on friend's pages, and probably updating Twitter along the way.

To my surprise, many of the companies who are claiming to be all about social media, or are attempting to grow their online presence and connect with people are blocking their employees, and that includes everyone from sales and marketing to the president,etc from using social media on the clock. Yeah, some of them have a person who sits and does update Twitter or put news on their Facebook fan pages...they damn well better have that person.

But is that one person really enough? Not when that person has no clue what they are doing. It seems like they just take someone from the marketing department and say "You're the Twitter person now. You also maintain our FaceBook fans page" and just let them do it, no matter how good or bad they may be at it.

You can learn social media as you go along, and in fact, that's pretty much how most of us have done so...but someone like me who doesn't have a corporate reputation behind him can fuck something up and be able to fix it and leave it behind...but if someone screws up the social media reputation of a major company in ANY industry, its possible that they may NEVER recover. They may hit the jackpot like Skittles, and get tons of publicity - or it could fizzle out and pop with a whimper like the dot com bubble back a few short years ago.

Do what you have to do to avoid the latest trend of developing social media by ignoring it. Social media is not the pet rock...social media is the hula hoop, the frisbee, the yo yo. Something that comes in as a fad, but rather than going away in spectacular fashion, it stays around, and will always be there. Maybe a different form sometime down the line, but still there.

Where do you work, and what is their social media policy?

Is Fake Word Of Mouth Still Word Of Mouth?

I was reading a book about word of mouth the other day, and there was a chapter about underground/guerilla style marketing and how its no longer as effective as it was. The big reason is because there are mainstream marketing companies designing faux underground campaigns that use paid scripted actors who shill products in situations that seem more organic, like they happened naturally.

Is this really the death of word of mouth? I don't think so. No matter how it starts, word of mouth is word of mouth. Just because it may have been originated by an actor memorizing a script, instead of a random happenstance, the resulting communications by those who were affected is still word of mouth. Its still organically grown as time goes on, whether it started accidentally or on purpose.

Yeah, its probably not what some of the first word of mouth people had in mind, but in marketing and related things, I don't think there's ANYTHING that has evolved exactly the way that the originators have planned. Sometimes the natural evolution of a strategy is completely against the original thought, but it still works.

As much as people who utilize underground tactics dislike it, things that happen in the underground that work very well, often are adopted by the mainstream. It happens in music, it happens in art, and it happens in business. It doesn't mean that the tactic no longer works, it just means it will probably be changed a little bit to make it more accessible.

Looking For A Blog Sponsor? Try Uprinting.com

A little while ago, I was able to run a contest on my blog for a custom poster print. I became aware of uprinting.com because I myself won a contest on someone else's blog that was also sponsored by uprinting. I decided to join the team after checking out their products and seeing some of the things they do for the blogging community, regardless of who the blogger is, or the content of their blog.

Not only do bloggers get to give away things like posters, business cards, brochures and other printed items, but the bloggers themselves are often entered into contests for cash, free printed items, or other things. I have seen some of the finished products that Uprinting produces, and I am happy to have them as a sponsor of my blog. I am pleased to be able to give away products that meet my personal quality standards for use.

Uprinting itself can describe some of the things it does a lot better than I can, so they have produced the message below.

Why UPrinting.com isn't your average printing company:

Blog Sponsorships:
If you are looking to find a sponsor for your blog, UPrinting.com is definitely interested. We offer giveaways, advertising and more for qualified bloggers.

Non-Profit Sponsorships:
The U-Community Program sponsors hundreds of non-profits and education to improve our local communities.

Social Justice Projects:
The UPrinting Kiva account promotes small business growth in developing countries.

Green Printing:
UPrinting supports a sustainable future by recycling, using non-toxic inks, and offering eco-friendly recycled paper stocks for business cards and postcard printing.

Instant Marketing - Just Add Water...Oops, Twitter.

This should come as no surprise to anyone who reads this blog, since chances are that you found out about it via Twitter to begin with...

But, Twitter has and continues to show itself to be a trendsetter in marketing. Not the service itself, but the users. Thanks to the trending topics slot now in everyone's sidebar by default on the web based client, certain trends can be tracked. In recent times, obviously Michael Jackson, Iran, AT&T, and several other topics have come, stayed and gone, and maybe come again. But the major stuff isn't what I'm actually talking about.

Every once in a while, you get something completely random. Sometimes a meme will crack the list, or sometimes a pro athlete, or whatever. They don't always stay for very long, such is the nature of motion, and a fickle public.

But, if you were good enough about crafting the right kind of message with your 140 characters, imagine the number of people who would possibly see your name, your product, your whatever. Even if you were only on the list for a short time, a rediculous amount of people would possibly see your topic.

I'm definitely not calling for tweets being advertising or anything like that, NOBODY wants that. EVER. What I mean, is there are larger companies (Zappos, Ford, etc) who have enough clout to wrangle a trending topic if they do something big. What's stopping you from crafting something good enough to be picked up by Robert Scoble, or Chris Brogan, or Leo Laporte, guys who have tremendous reach in the Twitter sphere? NOTHING. You just have to do it. If you get the right people or enough people talking, just imagine the possibilities...

What do you see?

Thanks for reading.