F.Y.I. • Driving Traffic with Repeat Tweets – A Test Case

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Guy Kawasaki, a major figure in high tech marketing circles, in his regular "How to Change the World" column for Aug 18th, writes a very interesting post on a hot topic: 

"One of the dogmas of Twitter is that you should not repeat your tweets."

Read the full post here.

Guy's point about what I will call a "tweet-blitz" is an interesting one, and makes sense for business users from a market testing standpoint. 

By the way, I tracked part of his test live from the ground up on Facebook, and was fascinated by the comments he got on both sides of the fence. He did indeed get both cheers and jeers.

What makes all the difference in his results?

In my opinion, it's that his repeat tweets were just frequent enough to get noticed as repeats, thus gaining in positive recognition, but not so often as to drive people to "unfollow" him on Twitter in significant numbers. 

His repeat tweets (not to be confused with re-tweets) were no closer together than 8 hours, and as far apart as 24 hours. Take a look at his results charts. 

Food for Thought: Effective marketing takes discipline, and continually tests to find better ways to address changing market conditions and shifts in audience perception. 

While you may not be able to control all the variables in your test, setting up your marketing to isolate as many variables as possible gives you the edge you need, and a proper through-line for improving results across time as you roll-out, and even repeat, successful campaigns.  

— Diane A. Curran

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Word Today • Headline

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"Read all about it!"

Thinking about headlines always brings the image to mind of a fast-paced 1940's movie, where music blared while a newspaper spiraled toward me at dizzying speed on the big screen, to announce a dramatic plot point, as a kid in a wool cap shouted the news and peddled stories "Hot off the press!"

Heck, I'm old enough to remember when Boston was a 2 newspaper town, with the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald competing hotly with morning and evening editions!

Great headlines sold papers, often with intentional puns, bad grammar and non-sequiturs generously applied.

These days in L.A., the local champion of pun-filled headlines is none other than Daily Variety, which cheekily plays footloose and fancy-free with its show biz fodder, relying upon clever copy to sell stories, just like in the olden days, to a very savvy, often jaded, audience of industry insiders.

Does small business need headlines?

In a word, yes. But why?

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Word Today • Brevity

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I have just 4 quick things to say:

One: "Brevity Is the Soul of Wit"

Thus spake Shakespeare's Polonius, in a speech full of voluminous verbiage, yet parched for wit. 

We'll cut him a bit of slack, as he is the bearer of bad news to Hamlet's royal Mum and Daddy. Perhaps his news about their son was more than Polonius could handle with the emotional clarity needed to communicate elegantly. Or maybe Shakespeare had some private joke going, giving Polonius the classic symptoms of stage fright and fear-of-public-speaking.

How many times have any of us, even all of us, blathered on and on, completely unaware of the glaze building in our audience's eyes and minds?  Or, aware of it, but unable to stop ourselves?

Two: "Less is more."

Indeed. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then that might be the secret to keeping our soliloquies short in business conversations. 

• Can you paint the picture in a brief, smart story, and trust your audience to get it? 

• Can you give them just enough so they wind up wanting more?

• If you are blessed with your audience then asking you, "Tell me more!" … can you stay focused, stay just as brief, and ask them a question to draw them into real conversation with you? Aha! 

Three: "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter."

How's that again?

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Q & Aha! • Social Advertising with Prius

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At the beginning of the year, the disappearance of car ads on TV left gaping holes between show segments. Nobody was buying, so nobody was selling. No high-testosterone trucks, no sleek sexy sports cars. Instead, we had local ads with tiny budgets in spots they'd never had access to before.

But slowly, slowly, cars crept back to the tube. Recent ads seem less macho and more… quirky. I love that series with various naughty guys or gals high-tailing it away from who-knows-what-trouble with the aid of a conveniently speedy, wind-in-your-hair, Infiniti sports coupe.

Toyota's Prius has gone in a whole other direction.  See the "Harmony" Ad

Here's the Q:

Why can't I get that car ad out of my head— the one with all those people dressed up like wavy flowers and growing grass and tumbling waterfalls and shining sun and baby butterflies?

Well… "there's a reason." Actually, at least 7 very good reasons, for that.

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Word Today • Cloud

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Cloud the Issue. Cloud Nine. Cloud Computing?

In business, and especially in marketing communications, it's essential to be clear. Your audience wants to know… and quickly!… why they should pay attention to your message. Your words and meaning cannot be cloudy. Well-written copy uses the most succinct, yet compelling, words to connect with your audience, so they buy and stay loyal.

What happens to that clarity when a word has more than one meaning? 

The same word, in a different context, can change its meaning, and sometimes it's not clear. Other times it is.

"Bear down, and this pen will make a thicker line," is obviously worlds away from, "Bear sighted in the area, follow campground safety rules!"

Cloud the Issue

It would be so much nicer if running a business, or even writing great marketing messages, were as straightforward as steering clear of bears, or using the right pen!

Independent business owners wear multiple hats as they jump from task to task, and too often, from fire to fire.  

Rushing to the latest fire in your "Smokey the Bear" hat may keep you in shape aerobically, but it's the wrong use of this hat! Of course fires need putting out, but Smokey is all about preventing fires. 

What can you do in your business to elevate your focus to see the whole forest, so fires don't start as easily? 

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F.Y.I. • Netflix Crowdsourcing Algorithms

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Crowdsourcing and the Internet are made for each other.

Crowdsourcing seeks to tap into the collective consciousness to create an ingenious solution to a design or technology challenge. With the Internet, that call goes out massively and quickly. Previously unknown talent raises its hand, or hands, with some happy results.

This reminds me of Open Call auditions, long a part of theater tradition. 

American Idol raised it to new levels of popularity, creating major careers even for runners-up like Jennifer Hudson and Kelly Clarkson. Britain's Got Talent recently discovered its own from-out-of-nowhere talent, raised to super-phenomenon in what seemed like nanoseconds after her video went viral on YouTube: Susan Boyle. She's recording her CD now, and chapter two of her story will soon unfold.

What brings these stories to mind now is today's news item and blog story about Netflix. Netflix has used the Internet to build massive success and completely up-end the movie-rental business. Hopping into your car late at night to get to the video store before it closes? Those annoying late fees? They are both so over.

In typically 21st Century viral fashion, Netflix posted a major announcement on its own Forum, Associated Press reported the news, CNET news blogger Josh Lowensohn wrote about it in the Web Crawler blog, and now I'm passing the news along to you. Whew! What is this hot biz news?

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Word Today • Monday

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Why do so many people hate Mondays?

First the bad news. It starts when we're little kids in school. Lots of bad feelings about homework, and pop quizzes, and being cooped up indoors, can ruin a perfectly good day. 

Poor Monday has a pretty bad reputation among adults, too. Is there anyone who's never called in sick to a job on Monday morning… only too happy to submit to even a hint of a sniffle?

Fats Domino, The Mamas and The Papas, and The Bangles all had huge hits trashing the first day of the work week. Blue Monday, Monday Monday, and Manic Monday. The Boomtown Rats made it plain as day in their hit song "I Don't Like Mondays." Are we ready for a vacation yet?

And what about Monday morning quarterbacking? That's certainly never meant as a compliment.

Is there any good news about Monday?  

There is, if we make some! Let's start with the word itself, of course. 

Monday is the Moon's Day. How luminescent and inspiring! In folklore, "Monday's child is fair of face." Okay, we're on our way to a rather pleasant perspective.

Yet curiously, I hear the same complaints about Mondays from business owners as I do from employees.

It's a bit strange, because as business owners, we really do have the discretion and power to create what we want.

New options for virtual commerce on the Internet make pajama commuting almost as much fun as skipping school. Plus, it's the environmentally green and economically smart thing to do in many cases.

Here's the irony. We don't have a "boss," yet we become the new ogre, and our own worst enemy! We've got all kinds of hidden voices running mean little tapes in our unconscious, and we become our own bad boss taskmaster.

How can you solve the Monday morning doldrums— that desire to turn off the alarm and bury your head in the pillow? Two quick tips:

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Word Today • Brainstorm

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How many brains does it take to make a storm?

When I ask myself that question, I like it.  The picture that comes to mind is a lot less boring than the one that usually pops up for brainstorming.

Traditional brainstorming conjures up the image of a committee, captive at some conference table, with a motley collection of suggestions on the topic at hand, and a facilitator diligently scribbling them all in a list on a whiteboard.

In a brainstorming group, it's pretty easy to tell who the habitual nay-sayers are. 

I remember doing a naming exercise for a new piece of software back in the 70's. A handful of agency and client-side people sat reeling off ideas at a pretty good pace. The toughest part of the whole exercise was managing the human desire to hurry up and choose the name as soon as possible. We're talking a roomful of adrenaline-paced marketing types. The habit of editing and judging was so ingrained in everyone that it was all the facilitator could do to keep the conversation from being derailed in the mud of comments like " No, that sounds old fashioned" or "It's too hard to spell" or "That doesn't make sense" or worst of all, "Nah, I don't like it!" Ugh! We spent most of the session pulling people out of that mud.

Researchers use exotic terms like "production blocking" or "social loafing" to describe group dynamics that torpedo the free exchange of ideas. 

A group often silences people who are less socially confident, or low on the totem pole, thus squeezing the life out of the process. The results diminish unless there's either a skilled facilitator, or a group that has already bonded and has an unusually egalitarian dynamic.

What does it take to make brainstorming work?

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Q & Aha! • Flash M’Ad in Times Square vs. Slow Grind Cuppa Joe

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When is a flashmob… not? 

When is a customer not right… but claiming squatter's rights?

Two questions, raised by two stories online from New York City, caught my media mind today:

1. Bollywood Hero Flash M'Ad in Times Square

Was this a Flash Mob… or a Flash Ad? …I say, it's a Flash M'Ad.

See the Video here.

Back in the day, in ancient 2003, the original flashmobs embodied the true antithesis of corporate advertising. Bill Wasik is credited with seeding them into Manhattan. They spread, with appropriately incendiary spirit, far beyond Manhattan, to the far corners of Beirut and Sydney.

Born of the Internet, the viral nature of flashmobs has spread to such things as global pillow fights and an odd phenom known as the silent disco of London's Underground. But was the Times Square Bollywood Hero event really a flashmob, as the media says?

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Word Today • Budget

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Oh no! I can see a whole lotta entrepreneurs running for the exits as soon as the word Budget gets into the conversation.

Hold on! Sit down, maybe snack on some comfort food…  how about a nice big piece of home-made pie? … and let’s rethink this budget word for a bit.

The low regard we have for the concept of budgeting as a whole makes sense. We can’t chalk it up solely to the distaste for structure that characterizes many entrepreneurs and independent business owners. It’s pretty well ingrained in all of us. After all, look what comes to mind instantly. Thoughts like… Tight Budget, Low budget, No Budget… pretty unpleasant stuff to contemplate.

Having an unlimited budget seems like a dusty old relic of history, here in the 21st Century. On the political side, governments at every level are dealing with a Broken Budget in news story after story, ad nauseam. Even venture-capitalized start-ups don’t have nearly as much free rein as they used to for their “Burn Rate.”

Is there any good news, or at least a more palatable mindset on the matter of budgets?

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