Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’

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Can the NHL Leverage the Olympics?

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

No denying that in recent weeks more people have paid attention to hockey then ever before; The Olympics have a tendency to make folks wax patriotic about things they may otherwise not pay attention to. Curling, skating….hockey.

What I am interested in watching is the ability of the N.H.L. (National Hockey League) to leverage the Olympic-fueled interest in hockey. Without recounting last Sunday’s game, it goes without saying that hockey is on the minds of more (Americans) than ever before. The Olympic hockey Gold Medal game match-up could not have been planned any better.

Last weekend people were watching, and caring about hockey that had no prior interest in the sport. I come from a family of sports-fans, however none of us closely watch hockey. Last Sunday, that changed.

My wife, my children, my father, my friends all sent me text messages akin to “are you watching this?!”. Hockey has an opportunity to gain fans.

Low Hanging Fruit
I visited the NHL website, and a number of team sites, as I wrote this post. I have to say, I was disappointed.

Not because the websites were bad, they are very well designed. However, they precluded me, a non-hockey knowledgeable person, from better understanding their sport.

It is easier for me to find an “official” bar to watch a Chicago Blackhawks game, than it is for me to learn what icing is, or for that matter just general rules.

Un-Solicited Advice for the NHL
Leverage the Olympic experience. (duh). Opportunities for “welcome to hockey” packages exist. Introduce people to a sport in a friendly, non-elitist way, and you could gain fans for life.

  • Player videos (Olympic participants if possible) explaining the basics (icing, power plays)
  • Create a “Newbie” section on your team websites that has simple Q & A’s for newbies like me. I went to several websites and found nothing about understanding the game. The NHL is not alone in missing this, however, they have the greatest barrier to entry, so far as becoming a spectator sport.

It is great to see the NHL making use of some social media channels like Twitter, and responding to people. The more interaction, and introduction, the greater chance of creating life-long fans, and enthusiasts for the game.

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Super-Simple Photo Editing You Can Do This Second

Monday, February 8th, 2010

You need to be able to edit photos.

More and more folks are becoming comfortable using Content Management Systems and blogging platforms every day.   But to gain control of content, there’s definitely an increased need for a simple photo editing tool.nostalgia by Jim Sneddon

Today, even low-end digital cameras are capable of producing higher MegaPixel images than are really necessary for general web use. Even a 3 MegaPixel photo is 2048 x 1536 pixels (that’s a lot). While more than 70% are now viewing websites with browsers of greater resolution than 1024px, 2048px is still far too big for general on-page or in-post use.

So what to do with that way-too-big photo you have on your digital camera?  There are a number of ways to scale it down.  Here are the two easiest…

1) Your designer can use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to limit the display size of the image, even though it is still downloading the full-sized image.

2) You can quickly scale or crop the photo using a photo editing tool.

Considering that Google is now incorporating page load-time into their algorithm, it makes the decision even more of a no-brainer than it was before.  Edit your photo.  No question.

There are a wide variety of high-end photo editing tools like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Fireworks and Gimp. However, the complexity of these tools is generally overkill for small business owners or marketers that are simply working toward updating website content and blog posts.

One of my favorite simple tools for photo editing is Picnick.  It’s simple, effective, easy to use, and inexpensive.  There’s even a very capable free version available.

I made a video on how you can use Picnick to edit, crop, scale and save images using Picnick.  Hope you enjoy…

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Guiding The Conversation

Monday, February 1st, 2010

It’s important to listen.

We all know that.  But it’s equally important to ignore.Leuk satellite station by christianmeichtry

The critics who don’t offer input.  The people who fear change.  The people who are going to laugh at you and roll their eyes at your work.

How do you ignore the people that will ridicule your idea?  Here are some suggestions:

-Don’t be afraid to fail.  Whatever new challenge you’re taking on- social media, new products, a different creative outlet are all going to present challenges.  Some of them, you will not overcome.  And you shouldn’t: that’s how you learn.

-Remember that no one cares.  It’s hard to keep that in mind when you’re thinking about the success of your business.  You’ve built that amazing piece of work, you know it’s amazing, and no one cares (that’s why we do marketing strategies, BTW).  But what about that other piece of work that you’re not so sure about, the one that’s way out of your comfort zone, the one you’re really going out on a limb for?  No one cares about that either.

-Surround yourself with encouragement.  If there’s a din of positivity, helpful feedback, and honest critique, you can’t hear the people who want to shout down everything you do.

If you’re ignoring correctly, you’re also guiding yourself and those around you toward conversation that can actually help.

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Best Ideas Of The Week (Jan 25-Jan 29)

Friday, January 29th, 2010

Hi everyone.

Once again, it’s time to close things up for this week with the best ideas that we’ve seen around the internet.  It’s not just digital marketing stuff, but it is a look into everything that can go into digital marketing.  Hope you enjoy…Happy Rainbow Water Droplet on Green by Pink Sherbet Photography

-More good stuff on change.  Here’s a short stop motion movie about ideas and how they change the world.  Well worth three minutes of your time.  Did I mention it’s done in Lego?

-What do you know about Cross-Promotional Deal Mechanics?  What about Synergistic Revenue Paradigms?  Me neither.  But I know one thing: These are Weasel Words.  If you end up hearing a lot of this stuff at your next meeting, run-don’t-walk to this site and post it.  It’s in Australian, but weasel words cross all language barriers.

-Interested in seeing a website completely deconstructed?  Go to Internet Online Website and check out some of the thinking that goes into what we do.  The site’s not only smart and funny; It’s an educational tool to get ideas about the parts and pieces that go into online experiences.

-If all of a sudden you need to completely blow your own mind, here’s a recording of ice sheets cracking.  I guarantee you will not hear what you expect to hear.  Bookmark the page and keep it around for that moment when you need to think of something completely out of the ordinary.  Listen with headphones, and listen until the end.

-Do you like to eat Crap?  There’s a hilarious video by Pump restaurant in NYC (never been, but it looks pretty good) that riffs on all the different ways crappy food gets marketed.  The music and language in the fake ads is dead on.  I especially like the attention to detail on the typography.  It’s scary what marketers can do sometimes.

-We talk a lot about transparency and being yourself in your digital marketing.  This is what we mean.  Imagine the conviction it took to hit publish on this post, an open letter to a business partner (a publisher) that wasn’t doing his job.  Here is what I predict the results of this post will be:  Publishers who are afraid to have their authority questioned and are dedicated to preserving the status quo will be outraged, and publishers that are looking for the best way to do their jobs will immediately try to hire the post’s author, Barry Eisler.

Have a great weekend, and feel free to post links to things you found that you consider to be a great ideas.

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How A Three Fingered Gypsy Can Make You A Better Blogger

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

Have you ever heard of Django Reinhardt?

Asking that question in prewar Europe would have been like asking if you’d ever heard of Elvis.Paris Exposition: night view, Paris, France, 1900 by Brooklyn Museum

Django was a guitarist.  A great guitarist, maybe the best ever.  He grew up in a gypsy camp on the outskirts of Paris.  Amazingly, he made his best music after a tragic fire rendered his pinky and ring fingers on his left had permanently curled up and unable to move.

Listening to his music (a lot, I admit) inspired me to think about how you can do something similar when writing a blog.

Be Daring Swear.  Be Ridiculous.  Tell the Truth.  In your headline, you should be writing something that pulls attention hard enough to snap someone’s neck.  Okay, maybe not that hard.  But think of how ordinary 99% of all the blogs out there are.  The bar is set pretty low.

Be Innovative Ideas are contagious.  Putting them across in a blog (10 Ways To Have Fun Even If You’re Boring) is a good way to keep yourself blogging.  Think about that opportunity:  You get to invent something new every time you sit down to write.  If your blog is something you have to do, you can forget about ever succeeding with it.

Be Awesome Despite Everything Django was a Gypsy who had been burned in a fire.  An outcast.  It would have been easy to be average.  Instead, he created something new in the world, something brilliant.  You’re not a natural writer?  Learn.  You don’t have anything to write about?  Not true.  You’ve got writer’s block?  Get unblocked.

There’s every excuse in the world not to write a daring, innovative posts.  But you have the chance to be awesome, every single time you sit down to write.

If you can use a three fingered gypsy for inspiration, you should.

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Your Friend is Obnoxious

Monday, January 25th, 2010

Here’s a thought:

If you want your marketing to do direct sales for you, you’re wasting a lot of money and time.  That’s not marketing’s job.  You’re doing it wrong.The Crowds by Marc Forrest

Your marketing is for introducing you to potential customers. Or re-introducing you. Either way, that’s the main function, right?

Marketing isn’t you; it’s an introduction to you.

Think about what that role plays in our society.

The introduction is a big deal.  Like it or not, you’re going to be associated with the character of the introducer, probably forever.

On some level, we look for vouchers in an introduction.  There are all kinds of cues we take from them.  The presentation, the language, and, yes, the source.

The question then becomes who’s doing the introductions?  Is it the person that’s friendly, witty, funny, always interested in what other people are up to?  Or is it that loudmouth jerk who just talks about himself all the time?

Or, worse, that person who never says anything interesting or anything worth listening to.  The one that everyone just ignores.

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Best Ideas Of The Week (1-18 to 1-22)

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

Here it is once again.  Hope you’re having a great Friday.  Let’s dive right in…

-I’ve got a post coming on some good ways to change your mind (or your business).  I think that speaks directly to why New Year’s resolutions don’t work.  It’s a good place to start if you’re wanting to make a change.adam lamber galleria by gadjo cardenas sevilla

-I thought this post from smallbiztrends.com was interesting because it focuses on rural business trends for 2010.  Number 10 is that tourism is staying closer to home, which we’ve known for a while.  I don’t know if that gives the post validity, or makes it outdated.  You’ll have to let me know your thoughts on that one.

-Do you hate meetings?  Well, here’s an idea I’ve subscribed to for a while:  It’s not the meeting that sucks.  It’s the way that the meeting is run.  Here’s the down and dirty on how to run a meeting the Google way.  Now go forth and meet like you’ve really got something you need to share.

-This is just a quick reminder that, sometimes, plans can take a while.

-For anyone out there that’s a little intimidated to link to the outside world from your website or blog because you “don’t want to lose the traffic” (I know you’re out there), here’s some proof that you’re wrong.

-And finally, another word geek link to finish things up for this week.  Corporate-speak has always been a pet peeve of mine.  As the author puts it, we need “a reminder to give anything you write a decent bullshit test before sending it out“.  Amen.

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How To Introduce Yourself With Social Media

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

We talk a lot about the conversation.

But one question a lot of business owners have is, “How do I join?”  That makes sense.  Business owners usually sell things to the people they’re talking to.chat room by iboy_daniel

Or at least, they did.  Now, it’s not up to the business owners to sell as much as it’s up to the consumer who to buy from.  I can buy a $200 import guitar from anywhere.  Everyone has a sale, everyone can ship to my door.  What makes you so special?

What makes you special is I know you.  You came to where I was and introduced yourself.

There are more than a few good ways to find conversations about what you do.  But once you find them, it’s best to spend some time reading up on what people are talking about there.

If it’s a message board, read the notes from the moderators.  Check out the people who post a lot.  If it’s a comments section on a blog, read past entries.  Try to get an idea of the audience.  Take some time to hear what people are saying.

Why?  Because it’s possible you’ll be stepping all over the conversation if you don’t.

You’ve been listening, so you should get an idea of how to best introduce yourself.  It doesn’t have to be a formal “Hello”.  And this isn’t a post about etiquette, necessarily.  But there should be a few cues you can take from the people already taking part in the conversation.

And if you can’t, it might not be somewhere that’s worth your time.  In general, places online where the conversation is “noisy” isn’t a good place to make a suggestion, say hi, offer something, etc.

It’s a rule that the more anonymous a conversation is, the less helpful it tends to be.  In other words, stick to conversations where people are who they say they are.

That’s who you want as a customer.

Also, be humble.  Acknowledge that people have been contributing to the conversation for a while before you showed up.

Along that same line, be honest.  Tell people who you are, and what interest you have in being there.  One caveat:  Don’t sell.  Ever.  Almost.  We hammer this point here pretty regularly, so I won’t go over the finer points in this post.  But instead of selling, just be helpful.  Okay?  Great.

That’s what you showed up to do in the first place, right?

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What Does “Internet Famous” Really Mean?

Monday, January 18th, 2010

It means there are a lot of people out there willing to help you, because you’re being yourself.

That’s my take away from my brush with the internet famous.  It’s strange.  Personal meetings back up exactly what I had gotten from my online interaction with the internet famous.cog by leeAW

What does that mean?

First, the story…

We had grabbed a cab from the Austin airport to head to Pubcon, where Pat was speaking on a panel.  This was going to be one of the first internet marketing conferences for me.  I was a web writer, going to find out what all these developers were doing with the content I made.

That part?  Fascinating.  Edifying.  A different story altogether.

But back to the internet famous.  I was already interested and a little nervous about the conference.  When the cab pulled into the hotel, I jumped out, grabbed my bag, and prepared to check in as fast as I could so I could try to bone up on the conversations I could expect in the following days.

Which is exactly when I turned to see Chris Brogan walking into the hotel.  I did my best to quickly match a 30×30 jpeg to a real human, figured out who it was, and said, “Hey, Chris!”

Chris stops walking into the hotel and proceeds to have a really nice short conversation with me about what it is Matterhorn does and what I’m hoping to learn from the conference.

Now, his was one of the first social media blogs I read, and it was interesting to find that he was exactly as he came across in his blog.   One minute in, and I’ve talked to the person I consider to be the goto guy for learning about social media.  And he’s not in a rush, or condescending, or anything other than interested and helpful.

Next day, on my way to the conference, we share a cab with Guy Kawasaki.  Now, how many entrepreneurs would kill for that opportunity?  And sure enough, we talk pretty much the whole way about what businesses that are new to social media (there was a self-admitted newbie also sharing the cab with us).  And Guy was full of ideas, even when our cab got lost.

Two days, two brushes with the internet famous.

Here’s what it means:  People who are internet famous are very much like who they are online.

That tells me that I need to be online very much like who I am in real life.  And businesses, partners we work with, should be very much who they are (not just what they’re selling).   Transparency isn’t just a BS marketing term that the get-rich-quick-on-the-net folks throw around.

And it’s not even “transparency”, necessarily.  The internet famous don’t have anything to gain by conning you into helping them.  It’s a genuine case of things being better when you give than receive.  Internet fame is best leveraged when it’s not leveraged at all.

But I would trust Chris or Guy if they told me something, or asked me for something.  Especially if it lined up with my goals.  And I can make a reasonable expectation that the same is true for them.  And I’m not talking necessarily about just making money.  I’m talking about goals.

And those entities that are just regular, plain old famous, like McDonald’s or NBC?  I’m way, way more skeptical.

At least, that’s how I’ll interpret it.  What about you?

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If Twitter Had A Fairy Godmother…

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

It would be nice if there was a Twitter intervention service.

I’m thinking of something like a fairy godmother that would step in and gently correct those misguided businesses that are out there shouting.sydney angel by erinisfunky

Alright, cue bad sitcom dream sequence…

—–

@newtosocialmedia: Right Now!  50% off every single thing from our summer stock!  Check it out http://snip.li/026a07 #michaeljackson

@therealfairygodmother: @newtosocialmedia you’re doing it wrong, dear.

@newtosocialmedia: @therealfairgodmother Thanks for the RT love! 50% off every single thing from our summer stock!  Check it out  #britney

@therealfairygodmother: @newtosocialmedia I’ve cut you off.  ur tweets aren’t going anywhere right now.

@newtosocialmedia: @therealfairygodmother what? #haiti  #google

@therealfairygodmother: ur tweets aren’t going anywhere.  except to me.  and stop using those hashtags.

@therealfairygodmother: that’s the first lesson  : – )

@newtosocialmedia: I don’t understand #tcot

@therealfairgodmother: exactly.

@newtosocialmedia: ?

@therealfairygodmother: You ran in and started shouting before you had a chance to understand what it is ur doing.

@newtosocialmedia: I’m marketing my business.

@therealfairygodmother: You’re making an ass of yourself.  And your business.

@newtosocialmedia: But how do I sell things to people using Twitter if I don’t, you know, sell things to people. Using Twitter.  ?

@therealfairygodmother: That’s just it.  You don’t.

@newtosocialmedia: Then why the hell am I doing this?

@therealfairygodmother: Good ?

@therealfairygodmother: Social media isn’t for direct sales.  Or, it is if u want to spam.  r u a spammer?

@newtosocialmedia: No.  I just want people to know about my business.

@therealfairygodmother: Awesome.  That’s a great place to start.  What’s the best way to talk about your business?

@newtosocialmedia:
Radio?

@therealfairygodmother: lol no.  If you went to a party, and someone asked you what you did, would you tell them everything they could get for 50% off?

@newtosocialmedia:
No.  I’d tell them what I did.

@therealfairygodmother: Right.  And what if they asked you where the best coffee was near you?

@newtosocialmedia:
I’d tell them.

@therealfairygodmother: Right again.  And what if they told you about the bad day they were having?  Would you give them your specials?

@newtosocialmedia:
No, I’d probably tell them that joke about the mother-in-law who dies and she’s talking to St. Peter and he asks her to name her sins.

@therealfairygodmother: Okaaaaaay.

@therealfairygodmother: What I mean is, you’d have a conversation, right?

@newtosocialmedia:
Right.

@therealfairygodmother: Well, that’s what Twitter is.  A way to have conversations.  Some of those conversations will be about what you do.  Some won’t.

@therealfairygodmother: But you can’t choose all the time.  That’s selling.  And selling isn’t having a conversation.  It’s selling.

@newtosocialmedia:
And Twitter isn’t about selling.  It’s about having conversations, meeting people who have some interest in me, and vice-versa.

@therealfairygodmother: Now you’re getting it!  Nice job.  I’m going to put you back in the stream now.  Go use what you’ve leaned.

@newtosocialmedia:
Cool. #superbowl

@therealfairygodmother: : – (  alright, let’s talk about hashtags first…

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