Bouncing around Nerdom is a growing debate about the utility and impact of HTML5 on web development and the web in general. If you are so inclined we wanted to bring this discussion to your desktop. The good news is you can skip the video and rest at ease knowing we’re on top of the trends and always working to bring you the best microsites in the industry. For now that means we’re sticking with the one that brought us this far…Adobe’s Flash.
Archive for the ‘Michael Simmons’ Category
Taking stock
My name is Michael, and I’m an addict. From social media to web-based and iPhone apps I am guilty of a leap-then-look mentality. If you tell me you found a smoking hot iPhone app for 80’s trivia I will download it without giving it a second thought. Tell me about a great new time management application online, I’m there. Yes, I’ll register for inclusion in the industry specific directory of advertising movers and shakers.
Now I find myself in the ugly position of having no earthly idea what I’ve signed up for, how, why or when. What good are all these time management, SEO friendly, networking savvy applications if I don’t use them?
So many apps, so little brand loyalty
This post would be really awesome if provided a link applications that keep track of everything. I know the apps are out there, but if I sign up it’s just another login ID and password and URL I have to remember. Yep, I have a problem. Admitting the problem is the first step.
Stop. You’re killing me
There are a few marketing buzz words that make you cringe when you hear them. Here we are in March of 2010 and my gag reflex kicks in when I hear:
Social media expert: These are usually self-anointed and woefully under qualified. In fact, I have a blog, a facebook account, a linkedIn account, and twitter accounts (yes, multiple). When you add up all VLG’s followers, group members, friends and fans and mine, well heck, we’re social media experts.
Viral marketing: Can you compare a waterskiing squirrel to the more recent Old Spice “I’m a man, man” campaign. Viral marketing might be the pinnacle of web impressions and tough to measure. Isn’t WOM so much better? That’s what we used to call it in the days before YouTube.
Twitter: Actually anything that starts with “Tw-” triggers tinnitus. I applaud Twitter apps that come up with original names like HootSuite, Su.pr and Birdhouse. Tweety Bird tweeting on Twitter would probably send me over the edge, but if I were Warner Bros. I’d be all over that.
I’m putting this post up on a Friday, because it’s a little risky and I need a slow news day to say things like “Tweety Bird tweeting” without wrecking my good name. Negativity is such a buzz kill. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
What not to say
If you take Catherine Toole at her word and believe she’s credible enough to deliver good advice, then you should read a recent post I stumbled upon last week. She’s British. I don’t know why I put that here, but it seemed worth a mention. She’s CEO of Sticky Content, which leans heavily on the color pink.
She put together a top ten list of words we should replace/wipe from our websites. I viewed it as a challenge. Can I use all no-no’s in one VLG overview.
Welcome to VLG. Please visit our website. Click here to read* quotes praising our work. You can check out our library of work by visiting the “Work” section of our website. We also have other stuff there. We don’t carry news on our website. We use Twitter. Please follow us. Our solutions are truly remarkable, because we ask our clients to limit the number of stakeholders involved in copy and design approvals. Cheers. Thanks for your time.
*denotes something mandatory
Next, I truncated the overview into the following.
Hi. Visit our website, because marketing experts think it’s worth your time. Then call 214-299-8688 ext. 16 to buy* a microsite.
*this is optional, but recommended
Good list, Catherine.
Twitter relevance
For those of you struggling to find ways to extract value from Twitter consider these tools.
Twiangulate can be a useful networking tool for those of you whose actually “know” your follows or followers in real life. Use this to triangulate your follows with those of two close friends or colleagues. You’ll find out who you have in common, who they have in common and the app gives you a convenient way to follow others with one sure thing in common. Twiangulate calls them your tweeps, but don’t let the cheesy moniker get in the way of using this tool.
TweetStats gives you, well, stats based on your volume, keywords, and followers. TweetStats keywords are presented in a cloud so it’s easy to spot your most frequently used. It looks like I tweet about VLG, people, marketing and Texas. It also gives you your #hashtags in a cloud. #Marketing is a clear front runner. Twitter volume could help you adjust and schedule your tweets so you aren’t slamming your followers. If you want to stay top-of-mind throughout the day this will help you adjust accordingly. BTW- Su.pr is a handy tool for scheduling tweets and I’ve found more time and attention goes into what you tweet when you schedule for the future.
Give these a try and give us some feedback. Do you have a favorite Twitter app?
Mobile for the masses
It's just a matter of time (measured in days).
How important will be is mobile advertising and mobile marketing? It’s difficult to wrap your brain around that fact that advertising is being disbursed on a one-to-one basis so quickly and into so many emerging markets. As long-time advocates of one-to-one marketing we want to embrace this shift and seek new and better ways to tie mobile into consumer or B2B marketing programs. Researching…
The Economist sheds new light on why we (Americans) are not the center of the universe when it comes to mobile marketing. However, many of our current customers are now reaching out to decision makers in these markets as technical infrastructure, cloud computing and other solutions find ways into India, Africa and Eastern Europe. That happening today.
25 in 5 Challenge
Inspired by Colin Alsheimer’s Social Media Challenge (follow @levelten_colin, #smschallenge) that encouraged all of us to stray from mainstream content and share a little more variety in our tweets, I have a somewhat related challenge to lay before you.
My wife uses Facebook and I’d guess spends at least and hour on the site spread throughout the course of a day. I don’t. Rarely do I use facebook to communicate with others. In fact I go days without even logging in. Despite having 302 Facebook friends, 261 LinkedIn connections and 177 followers on Twitter I probably communicate with no more than 10 people across all three media in a given week—so, not very social.
For the next five days I’ve decided to challenge myself and I encourage you to do the same. Whether you are a heavy user or passive participant in social media let’s put social media to the test.
The Challenge:
I challenge you to contact twenty-five people over the next five days that you’ve friended, connected or followed.
The Rules:
Only contact those you friended, connected or followed, but have not communicated with since that day.
Use only social media to make contact (e.g. post to a wall, send a LinkedIn message, direct message when you can).
Share:
We want feedback. Whether awkward or awesome please post comments here, on our Facebook page, or LinkedIn group. Tweet about it using #25in5 and suggest others you think we should follow. I’ll aggregate comments/thoughts on the blog next week and you can follow live action here:
http://twitter.com/mosimmons/twentyfiveinfive
If you’re a passive user of social media like me this will take you out of your social media comfort zone. Otherwise it’s just an excuse to check in with old friends, acquaintances or random people you friended on the Internet.
Ready, Go!
Knowny
For any of you that will or will not admit to answering email, tweeting, or texting while in the WC, might relate to this excerpt from The Colbert Report. Social media brings new meaning to the WORD ubiquity.
Give Away the Store?
Chris Anderson, Wired magazine’s editor in chief, follows a trend in media these days whereby media no longer interviews an expert, but becomes the expert. Despite this I still tuned in yesterday for a synopsis of his new book “Free” which you can relive here.
As heavy users of 37signals products we’ve been on the consumer end of a freemium business model. We first signed up for free Highrise and free Basecamp. We experimented with free BackPack before dropping it at no cost. Now we pay for Highrise and Basecamp as do several hundred thousand others at about $50 a month. Read more about this business approach here.
But what about the services industry…
Without software or packaged goods to sell what do we give away for free. Would you, our customer, commit to spending dollars or euros with us down the road after we give you “X”. Other than this blog and a couple tweets per day we don’t really have freebies out there. To be honest, I’m not sure we have a clue. Can the freemium business model work in the services industry? What should we give away?
Any advice? via Comment or Twitter @wefightboredom
Eliminate the middle man
If you already use Wufoo and Highrise you know that form submits go directly from one to the other. If both are new to you I encourage you to check out this Wufoo blog post and learn more about sending form data into the Highrise CRM.
We offer our clients the ability to do the same into Highrise, Salesforce.com or Sugar CRM, so you can eliminate the manual labor and use that intern for something a little more productive. Your intern will thank you. Trust me.