fLO specializes in helping small businesses and non-profits determine the social media/online content tools that are the most effective for their unique business and customer. They provide both high-level strategic planning and mechanical implementation of online content/social media marketing programs
Building this project has been as much about learning human behavior as it has been about creating the project itself. You can imagine how participants will react to your transmedia creation, but it is impossible to anticipate the entire realm of possible human response.
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When you think of fake people what do you think of? Mannequins? Blow-up dolls? Most of the people you remember from high school? People don’t expect to meet fake people. Just as people are often shocked to learn that the actors playing their favorite soap opera characters are people other than the character portrayed on the show. Makes me wonder how many get well soon letters Larry Hagman received after J.R. was shot.
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If there is one thought that has gone through my mind as we’ve been doing a test run of our project it is this: “Thank God we didn’t attempt anything more ambitious.”
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Marketing your transmedia project, especially when your transmedia project is essentially a marketing tool for a standard media piece, is a bit tricky. Our project is designed to be a content supplement to the existing work and to attract new and different audience to KOLT Run Creations while deepening their relationship with their base. The delicate balance is to call attention to the transmedia piece but not at the expense of overshadowing the play. This called for a combination of tactics that included KOLT’s standard marketing practices and some innovations.
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When we first set out on a transmedia project one of our biggest questions was how was it all going to work? The combination of so many possibilities, our central expertise of storytelling and content development, and our lack of expertise in technical html coding hacking superpowers, had us a little scared to say the least. Then one day by chance at a TransmediaSF Meetup, we were talking with Robert Pratten about our proposed endeavour, and he said, “Why don’t you use Conducttr?” We melted. Conducttr is the engine of our project. With Conducttr, we have parameters of the physical mechanisms of the story. Knowing what we could and could not do mechanically allowed us to shape our story using our strengths (storytelling and content creation) and not have to worry about how we were going to make them work. (We just had to figure out how to use Conducttr!) Needless to say we always practice, or strive to practice, the Keep It Simple Stupid philosophy which helps keep the bar low. Jumping over lower bars at first is better than jumping over high bars.....
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Once you have a good basic idea of your project concept, your parameters and limitations, you are ready to get into the detail. Start with the Story. That’s Robert Pratten (henceforth to be known on this blog as RP)’s advice. He also recommends starting with a strong character with a specific story arc. So we began by detailing out a comprehensive sketch of our main character, Alison Potts. It’s probably my acting background, but I could spend all day creating character minutia (IE, “The first album she bought was “Spice up your Life”, etc.), but John reined me in. We then plotted out Alison’s story into a 6-act scenario that would be experienced by the participants plus a back-story section that will transmitted through exposition like so:
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First, a little side note to anyone who’s following along, this blog is actually about 2 weeks behind where we actually are in the development process. It should catch up eventually, but if suggestions you make don’t make it into the project, it’s because we’re too far along to implement them. Your input is greatly appreciated so we can improve for the next one, so please keep it coming! On that note, we got an email from Robert Pratten in regards to a topic in my last post that I thought might be helpful to other transmedia experience designer/developers. I used the phrase “suspension of disbelief”, to describe why we chose not to include a social media element in our experience. Meaning that we did not want players entering the experience at different times to be pulled out of the storyworld by seeing repetitive, incongruous or spoiler tweets. Here’s what Robert had to say:
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The ultimate high concept we settled on is one story, told primarily through an ARG*, bookended by two live events and with a video to boot. The heroine of our story is a modern-day british lass who is determined to use her scientific smarts to clear the name of her ancestor, one of the Pendle Hill witches. Her quest is upended when she encounters a number of mysterious, possibly supernatural occurences which call into question all that she knows to be true.
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Before we go any further in this account, there’s a very important piece that I’ve left out, which is our budget. Our budget on this project is ZERO DOLLARS. Ok, maybe fifty bucks to print some stickers, but the rest of it is blood, sweat and tears (aka OUR TIME) from John, myself and the good folks of the KOLT Run Creations production team. So constraints on the project include aforesaid budget and the need to create a concept that could be competently executed in two months primarily by two people. I’m going to describe our thought process here for the story and experience separately for the sake of being easier to read, but be aware that there was a lot of back and forth. It wasn’t like we sat down and thought up the story and then thought up the experience.
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On August 24, 2012 the Denver Museum of Nature and Science ran a little transmedia piece that revolved around the famous volcanic eruption that happened so many years ago in the greek city of Pompeii. The project garnered national attention on major media outlets , which is how we heard about it. It was billed as “Twitter updates based on the only eyewitness account of the disaster allow you to relive the eruption, hour-by-hour. Follow the courageous journey of Pliny the Elder, as recorded by his nephew in AD 79. His story remains as one of the most historically significant chronicles of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.” The project had its’ own website url http://dayinpompeii.com/ , twitter handle @Elder_Pliny , and hashtag #Pompeii24. Elder_Pliny had roughly 5,000 twitter followers at the start of the story.
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So now that we had a clear vision of what we want to accomplish, the next step was to create an engaging story and experience that would achieve the desired results. When crafting a transmedia project you must conceive of the storyline in conjunction with the user experience....
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For those unfamiliar with my personal FB page or our fLO Twitter feed, the term “gut churn” was lovingly lifted from this article by Jad Abumrad of Radiolab describing the feeling you get when you’re engaged in a creative endeavor in an unfamiliar format and you have no idea what you’re doing. Frankly, I think it’s something that any entrepreneur or business owner can easily relate to.
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The lovely Rachel Olsen of Best Mom Products asked me to write an article for her newsletter and she also posted it to her blog. If you've been wondering about the fLO approach to social media/content and what we do all day - this is pretty much it. Get it here.
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“How will content marketing affect my bottom line?” Some variant of this question comes up invariably comes up whenever I meet with a prospective client. My answer to this question is often the deciding factor between who chooses to work with fLO or not. The hard truth is, it is still incredibly difficult to draw a direct line between online content marketing activities and direct sales data. This is not to say that measurement of any kind is impossible - there are a number of ways to draw conclusions based on the data that is available. However the results are just that, conclusions that can be justified by the data, not proven by the data. So what can we measure?
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I heard this story on NPR this morning and it just made me mad. How is this even still news? We were one of the many writing about the negative long term effects of Groupon offers a year ago. Frankly, if you are a small business walking in to an online coupon agreement without doing your homework in this day and age you deserve what you get.
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Our recent posts following the Twitter suspension of Diablo Ballet’s account have been the most popular posts we’ve ever had. Is this an indication that a growing number of people are having their accounts suspended erroneously? (Or maybe the popularity of Diablo Ballet!)
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I didn’t find any specific mentions of turnaround time in my research (read: googling around until I got tired of it), but in the case of Diablo Ballet we are going on 11 days with no response to a customer service ticket. That's 11 days of lost connections, the missed tweet chat opportunity with the stars of Breaking Pointe, not to mention all the dedicated followers who have no idea to what's happened to their trusted ballet content source. And the client, Diablo Ballet, still has no idea why they have been suspended. How is it that a service that so many companies use as a customer service tool has such terrible customer service? As Dan puts it, “Apparently we did..something that doesn’t follow their policy. That’s absolutely fine. I just need to know what it is! It’s kind of like if a policeman pulls you over, gives you a ticket and then leaves.”
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Imagine you’re the marketing director for a small business. You’ve made the time and energy investment into building your Twitter account the right way. Through the use of great content and commitment to building connections and relationships with your followers you’ve built your Twitter audience to 800 followers in six months and you’re averaging 20 interactions per day. You’re one week away from a tweet chat you’ve organized with big players in your industry that has the potential to increase your current efforts exponentially. Then one day you go to log in to your Twitter account and get a message: Your Account Has Been Suspended
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I had a conversation yesterday with a person that is considering social media/content marketing as a career choice. What an eye-opener it was! And a good reminder of how far we’ve come since we started our business just a few short years ago. The story of her first client reminded me of a number of the prevailing myths out in the business world about social media/content/online marketing in general. Any owner who is considering investing in online content marketing tools should read these first.
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Reading the recent article on The Verge (via longoform.org- natch) entitled Scamworld:'Get rich quick' schemes mutate into an online monster is an exercise in horror. For here are many of the content marketer’s tools, being used not to help a business owner sell a good or service, but to fleece desperate people.
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I had the opportunity to see Dan Heath (One half of Heath Brothers) speak yesterday about organizational change. Firstly, he is a great speaker and uses humor well and often - you should definitely check him out if you get the opportunity! I love the "bright spots" point he makes in the video above. Another item he spoke about that really resonated with me was how environment affects ability to make change.
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We all love a great story. And great storytelling is the key to great content marketing. However, without the right help, a great story can just sit there, languishing. Put that shizz to work y’all! Here’s a great example. Some dear friends of ours have an edgy little theatre company in Sacramento. They are currently running SMUDGE by Rachel Axler, a writer best known for her work on The Daily Show and Parks & Rec. A reviewer, Kel Munger from the Sacramento News & Review, sees the production and writes a glowing review. Nice, right? But standard.
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Alesha B, of Moms with Apps, posted a Forbes opinion piece by Eric Jackson yesterday positing that Google and Facebook could go the way of MySpace within the next 5-10 years. While Mr. Jackson makes some reasoned arguments, particularly in regards to the inability of technology companies to seize opportunities that occur with each wave of tech innovation, he also sort of willfully ignores other relevant statistics.
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I love to read and I love me some longform.org. If you have not had the pleasure, Longform.org is a curated site of long form narritive non-fiction articles. So. good. Longform recently celebrated its’ second birthday and released some interesting statistics about their most popular articles. You can read all of the stats here, but the item that jumped out immediately to me was the title of this blog post.
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When I was a kid, my parents had a book about Warm Fuzzies and Cold Pricklies. I can’t find a copy of it now, it must be out of print, but it was a book about how to use behaviors that provided positive feedback (warm fuzzies) vs. negative feedback (cold pricklies) and that generally everyone was better off and would get along with each other better if they practiced more warm fuzzies than cold pricklies. Not only that, you are more likely to get what you WANT from others if you engage in positive reinforcement. Flies with Honey.
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When you start a Twitter account, they recommend you start following others right away.That makes use for someone who is using Twitter on a personal level and is learning how it works. But if your goal is to create a community around your brand identity, you want to make sure that the individuals or organizations you follow instantly know who you are and what you are about so THEY can make an informed decision to follow you back. (Your ultimate goal)
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Our kids are currently obsessed with Nyan Cat and all it's various riffs and forms. If you have not yet had the pleasure of taking in the stupifying amazement that is NYAN CAT, by all means, click away. Nyan Cat has a similar backstory to many an internet meme, and wikipedia can tell you all about that. But a huge aspect of any meme's success is the ability to create and/or capitalize on spontaneously created communities. Let's look at how this played out in our little pop-tart kitty's story...
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There is truth in the idea that the social media/online content landscape is contastantly changing. Many business owners never get started in the space because they feel their time investment won't pay off in time before the landscape changes. While it is true that there are always new tools being created (Pinterest), interfaces being changed on the regular (Facebook), and new strategies for promotion being developed there are certain things that stay consistant. The tenants of building a community, no matter what social media platform, are the same across the board.
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After much weighing of pros and cons (and haranguing from my better half) I've decided it's time to separate my personal Tweets from our business tweets. This will alleviate seeing non-essential hoo-ha on our website. (Not everyone checking out www.flocontent.com is interested in my personal conversations) And it will also help with more clarity of vision/branding/identity and all that good stuff.
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I was speaking to a prospect yesterday about her existing social media efforts. She has a good sized organizing business on the east coast, is diligent about posting great and useful content and has built up quite a substantial following for a local business. However, the great content she is posting gets very little interaction from her fan base, and absolutely no sharing. Why?
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I wanted to do a follow up to my post about live-tweeting the Diablo Ballet performance last weekend. Practically, I experienced a definite learning curve. Dan, the marketing director for Diablo Ballet, had prepped us before the show and told us that we could tweet at any frequency we felt comfortable with but I still felt pressure to be tweeting consistently and consequently missed a lot of the performance. Next time, I’ll let myself relax a little! I also had a hard time determining what to tweet about. I shared my daughter and her friend’s observations and my own random thoughts. I believe I was the only tweeter selected with zero background in dance. While I wasn’t able to speak to the technical aspects of what was happening, I inadvertently dropped a few PR gems that were picked up by other tweeters and press outlets. I think the true value of this experiment...
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I am so thrilled to have been selected to be a “text-pert” for Diablo Ballet. As a “text-pert” I’ll be live-tweeting (“tweet-pert”?) an Inside the Dancer’s Studio event beginning at 7:30pm PST on March 2nd. Inviting bloggers and tweeters to participate in live events is a fairly new phenomenon but seems to be gaining some traction. The Royal Opera House in London went down the rabbit hole this same time last year, other early converts include the Carolina Ballet in Raleigh, NC and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Whether it’s theater or dance or music, organizations are experimenting with allowing or encouraging designated persons (often with their own “tweet seats” so as not to disturb other patrons) to share the live experience in real time. It’ll be interesting to see how I do.
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Doing some research for a client today, I happened across this Pew Research Study released in June of last year. And I thought, this is some really interesting info, if a bit old. Than I realized the research itself had been compiled in Fall of 2010! How long is that in internet years? Still, the info coming out of the study is very interesting. For example, a recent report shows that most Facebook users receive more than they give.
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I did not buy a thing on Black Friday. Or over the weekend. Or on Cyber Monday. Sadly, I just do not have my shizz together like that. And it wasn't for lack of opportunity! Like many of you, I experienced the social shopping revolution that enables us to share coupons and sales info with our friends and relations in a way never imagined possible.
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To further prove that companies, agencies, people, organizations, cats, ghosts, and their mothers will dive headfirst into social media without giving a damn about strategy or goals or any of those nifty little things, I came across this today.
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I hate that….. I hate reading it, and I hate creating it. Check me out! Look at this! Check this out! etc…. I feel these phrases are most commonly used when events are being promoted via the social web-o-sphere. So, I would like to offer my opinion on how to not make me hate you, cause I will hate your entire organization in the end of you continue to lure me with such phrases. This is most likely rooted in my disdain for the singles bar scene, or sausage fests, that seem to be a rite of passage for your early 20’s.
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This post is the second in a series on how to calculate and quantify the time it takes to perform social media tasks. The first post broke down the time it takes to share links. Today I’m going to try to capture a more ephemeral topic, Account Monitoring. Account Monitoring refers not only to paying attention to what happens on your online accounts, but also providing feedback to the participants. The Pitch: Paying attention and providing feedback is an important element of any content marketing effort. For one, you’re providing instant customer service. For another, you’re prolonging the interaction and helping to increase your visibility and touch count. Determining the time and labor you may spend monitoring online accounts is going to be unique to your business, your personal time management skills and your online content marketing strategy. Let’s look at the main factors:
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There’s a lot of noise out there about what’s good (Timeline!) and bad (Ticker!) about the changes last week to Facebook (FB) and the more changes to come that came out of F8 that haven’t come down the pike yet. If you frequent FB for personal use you’ve probably already formed some opinions. We recently sent out the following message to all of our current clients (and most of our prospects too, actually):
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The internet is riddled with content telling you how easy and simple it is to get started promoting your business with social media and content like blogs and videos. I wanted to create a series that is the anti-”Top 10 Tips to get your Brand Noticed on Social Media!” These posts will be about how to calculate and quantify how much time it’s going to take you, a staff member or an outsourcer to implement all those awesome tips. It’s about to get real up in here. Real about Labor. Today I'm giving you the dirty on sharing links....
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ok... it launched, it’s in beta, and only a few people have it, but now a few more people have it, but it currently does not have enough people using it to make it work..... and this is going to be the next big social media experiment that promises not to be an experiment but social media 2.0?
it’s Google+....
After failed attempts at unseating Twitter and Facebook from their respective thrones with Wave and Buzz, is the third time the charm with google+?
What makes that question hard to answer is that with social media there is no black and white, and you generally cannot make complete reviews of something that is continually evolving. It’s like reviewing a movie after seeing a preview, judging the rock prowess of an 80’s hair band based upon the success of one song (no, I’m not looking at you Twisted Sister)...
We here at fLO tend to get a little focused on certain applications for social media. (understandably so!) But one of the reasons I/we find working in this medium so exciting is because the ramifications and abilities of this new public space are ever expanding. Last week, my fabulous cousin was in town. Many people know her online as half of a popular sister foodie blogging team, but when she’s not writing about food she spends much of her time working on various homeland security projects. She recently gave a talk about social media applications for security issues, she shared some of her thoughts with me and I thought I’d share them here too!
Last September, there was a shooting at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, MD. A surgeon was shot by the distraught relative of a patient.....
We live in an interesting time. The age of information. Access and divulgence are higher than they have ever been and continue to grow. Social Media Networks are the same. Today’s youth generally have no problem divulging scores of personal information on sites like Facebook and using it as their main communication channel. It is this information that makes Facebook what it is and why people participate. Older generations are reluctant to participate in the same amount of divulgence as younger generations. They are more apt to divulge only basic information and then resort to traditional methods of communication. So as the generations remove self imposed limits on information where will that lead us in the future?
Make no mistake market transformation is a monumental task. What it entails is very complex and it requires a great deal of work on many fronts. After all it’s social change, and we know how that goes in this country. How can the proper use of social media help? Social media in its present form is that of a sharing community. Social media is not a fad, but a new way to use a powerful tool, the internet, to communicate with other members of society on levels not previously imagined. Social media is in a constant state of evolution. Social media will be a key component in the success of market transformation.
There is a bit of an argument going on regarding use of the terms “content strategy” and “content marketing”. Are they really two different things? Are the terms mutually exclusive? And what is it, exactly, that those of us who bill ourselves as “content strategists” actually providing?
I’m about to make a bit of a shocking admission. I don’t really like Twitter.
Oh sure, I get Twitter. I understand what you have to do to gain followers. I understand the principals of reciprocity. I even understand why so many people love the constant stream of interesting links, timely witticisms and window to world events as they happen- they find it addictive!
I don’t know if it’s my personality or what, but try as I might I can’t get into it. I just have to say, it’s not my thing. Luckily for our business, my husband and business partner happens to love Twitter. He’s the source of all the awesome links and witty 140 character sayings.
A couple of weeks ago I was invited to lunch with a few of the members of the content strategy group at Facebook HQ.
Yes! I was there! In the bunker! Where all the magic happens! And let me tell you, the lunch options were delightful. I can’t lie. It was pretty cool to get to visit the behind-the-scenes of a virtual place where I spend much of my time. But what was even more interesting was the conversation.
Content Strategy is a term not everyone is familiar with...
I’ve had a number of clients and prospects recently that work in highly regulated financial industries. They work within the confines of very strict compliance guidelines. Every email, every fax, every letter they send or use to communicate with clients or prospective clients must be scrutinized and approved.
Networking is a must for individuals in these industries and social media (LinkedIn in particular) is a natural conclusion. FINRA has a social media task force, recently released some guidelines and it looks like they will be revised shortly. The SEC did a massive sweep of social media data in February and will likely have their own recommended practices soon.
If you are a financial professional trying to navigate these ever-changing waters, there are a couple of new tools on the market that might help alleviate your compliance concerns, particularly in regards to record-keeping and suitability
Every other month or so, and sometimes more often, I will see in my Facebook stream a status post by someone that says essentially:
“Look out! Facebook is trying to give your personal information to unauthorized advertisers! To stop it, Click on Settings, click on “Give my Personal Information to Advertisers”, make sure the checkbox is UNMARKED, otherwise the default setting is set to be automatically marked. TELL EVERYONE!”
The truth is, as an individual, I am somewhat loathe to share my information with people who want to sell me stuff. So I often do follow these instructions without really questioning what I’m turning down or perhaps more appropriately, what I’m turning down for others.
Hear me out. Because, unless you spend a lot of time reading about social media marketing strategy, you probably haven’t thought much about what your online shopping experience is becoming.
I gave a presentation last week to a very specialized local association. As always, it is interesting to format my message for a new audience. When speaking to new prospects, as well as here on my site, I always temper the (truly exciting) possibilities and opportunities with the realities of making an online content program successful. Social media and online content marketing is not the "pot of gold" at the end of the rainbow.
Which isn't to say there isn't gold to be had, just that you have to work for it!
I thought I'd share a few of the key points for all my nonprofit homies in the audience.
First of all, social media and online content marketing can and should be used to help you reach your overall goals- just like any marketing program. Some common ones for associations tend to be:
A couple weeks ago I tweeted/FB’d a link to a video by a couple offering “movie-making” services. I admit, I was poking a bit of fun at their lack of professional style. But there is some truth to their argument that there are many reasons that you as a business or even personally could benefit from having a video made and distributed online – and you don’t need to spend a lot to end up with a polished product.
I recently worked with a client to shoot a short informational video series for his business consulting services. To keep down expenses, we shot with a hand-held Creative Vado HD (similar to a Flip) and used no external microphone. The only snafu we ran into was when the planned outdoor shoot had to be moved inside due to rain and we were limited to the lighting instruments available in the hotel room! In the span of three short hours we were able to shoot enough footage for three videos. As for editing, we used the very fancy iMovie software that comes pre-programmed on a Mac
I recently had to create an online invitation for my daughter's birthday party. I automatically logged in to evite.com (as you do) and started perusing the designs. Is it just me, or have things become a lot more limited there these days? Anywhoodle. I wasn't having any luck finding a design anywhere close to what I wanted and it occured to me, there HAS to be other options out there!
I've been using evite.com since probably pretty close to it's inception in 1998, when there was little to no competition. Until recently, there has really been no reason to look anywhere else. Evite gets the job done. If you're a prior user, your previous guests addresses are saved. The invitations get sent. The responses get tracked. Reminders get sent. But gosh darn if the interwebs hasn't gone and changed an awful lot in the past 5 years and there are some up and coming invitation services that have some great features that Evite doesn't. This is an article from 2009 (kisses, CNET!) which I used as a launchpad to find the new invitation service I'm totally in love with, Pingg.com.
Arg. This week has really thrown me for a loop. I have been ill with a terribly evil virus. So I have no words of wisdom today. But many good ideas for posts about planning for the future.
Put your arrow do-hickey over MORE and click "Autoplay" to watch from this page. Or click the header of this post to see a version you can click through at your own speed.
Ok. You’ve heard all the buzz. This post is going to assume that you’re already bought in to the idea that social media and/or online content is a marketing avenue you need to start using or utilize more effectively.
Now you’re thinking, How do I start?
Let me share with you the secret to beginning an effective social media/online content strategy
A simple approach to start marketing through social media, new media and online content such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Blogging, Slideshows, Prezi, and pictures (whew!).
Fort Worth Business Press put out this great article about small businesses and social media. It highlights the biggest issue I come across with nearly every client and prospect I meet with: The need for a plan.
What’s exciting about social media and other online media tools is that they appear to be a cost-free venture with nothing but reward to reap. But the truth is, most businesses are out there with no plan or strategy and no method of evaluating and assessing their efforts.
So, ok, you have a Facebook Page with thousands of fans or a Twitter Account with legions of followers. What does that mean?
My very awesome website was designed by a very awesome website designer whose own very awesome website is… down. He likened it to the auto mechanic whose car is always in the shop. Of course, both designer and auto mechanic have physical examples of their work that they can show to people – evidence of their abilities.
Unless you’re the type that like to obsessively check up on what might be being said about you on a regular basis chances are, it’s probably been a while.
I was googling a prospect I am meeting with. As you do. And I suddenly thought, “Hmmmmm, he’s probably doing the same thing about me.” It’s been a long time since I took a look at what came up so I decided to check it out. And I was pretty surprised at what came up.
I’ve written a personal blog for years but for some reason, starting this business blog gives me writer’s block. I think because my personal blog was just a natural extension of self and interests whereas this blog will be a very specific version of me. A very professional one!
A good friend and fellow content marketer (Hello @storytellingmaven!) told me that I should start with an origin story. How did I get into this business? Why do I belong here? What do I bring to the table?