Marketing

In case you never heard of Reddit, it’s the highest time to open your ears (and eyes). This week Reddit’s new sales and strategy boss, Mike Cole sent an amazing advertising deck to Simon Dumenco from AdAge. And the deck is nothing you’d probably seen before from a media representative… A short introduction: a forum-alike social network with basically all kinds of topics you can think about. And beyond. The variety of sub-reddits is really astronomical and I doubt you would not be able to find what you’re looking for. From the advertisers’ point of view, and even though being universe on its own, Reddit has a huge potential, the trick is to know how to approach it. Maybe this marketing field guide will be helpful. And as mentioned earlier here, Reddit can be the incubator of viral brand stories.  When looking at the stats, 70 million users generate around 5 billion page views. Yes, 5 billion. As the grumpy cat says, Reddit is not the Holy Grail for marketers. But it’s a great place where a conversation can be started, with the right tone of voice and in well chosen space. Also, it’s not for every brand, I highly recommend to have a look at the sentiment and discussions before campaigning on Reddit. And what will you get? Here’s the awesome deck, featuring unicorn, cats, and a great numbers about this platform. Some key facts: 70 million users 5 billion page views average Redditor spends 20 minutes on Reddit and visits at least 3 times a day Did you know that Reddit has the world’s largest gift exchange?   Reddit’s Secret Plan For World Domination Personally I love Reddit, found a lot of interesting information there, had great laughs and spend there more time than an average redditor. From marketer’s point of view, there are only few weird and/or crazy enough brands that I can imagine doing a great campaign on Reddit.   What About You? Are you a redditor as well or never heard of this platform? I recommend to give it a try, warning though: highly addictive! And one more: can you imagine advertising campaign for your client on Reddit? Follow & Share Want more stories on breaking with the status quo? Browse our category Social Media, join us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, RSS and get our weekly E-mail Newsletter for updates and free bonus content.   Source: AdAge – Armed and Dangerous Unicorn-Riding Cat To Help Reddit Gin Up Advertising The post Reddit’s Secret Plan For World Domination appeared first on VIRALBLOG.COM.

In a recent TED Talk, Bill Gates shares this compelling statistic: “Until recently 98% of teachers got one word of feedback: satisfactory.”  We all need feedback. With no feedback, says Gates, no coaching, there’s just no way to improve. Learning is as important as teaching, if not more. As he says in the talk, even great teachers can get better with smart feedback. Teaching doesn't happen only in the classroom Mentors, coaches, and peers who are willing to provide constructive feedback enrich our opportunities to learn more about what works. In the absence of deliberate feedback, I recommend signing up and volunteering to work with people and teams you look up to. For example, on the agency side, one of the main ways in which you can learn what works and what can be improved is by working on pitches. In a short period of time, you will gain feedback both from the rest of the team, and the prospect. The key is to observe, take note, and be available to incorporating what we learn. Learning does not have an expiration date It is a continuous process of seeking both quantitative and qualitative input to get better. Getting and giving feedback is not easy, yet it pays dividends in the long run. Taken and given through the lens of learning blunts the emotional sting. There is a difference between the abstract of how we see ourselves and our practice and the pragmatic and actual output we provide, how it works in real life. Whenever I am invited to keynote a conference, or to moderate a panel, in addition to preparing visuals and an abstract of key take aways, I use a Flip camera to tape myself giving the talk. This accomplishes three main goals: shows me where to improve -- by getting to see how you do vs. how you think you do highlights gaps in thinking -- usually that's where you get stuck acts as dispassionate feedback mechanism -- no emotion involved It's the best method to do a dry run I've found. In many instances, it's enough to be aware of something to improve it.   [hat tip Shane Parrish] +++ Valeria is an experienced listener. She is also frequent speaker at conferences and companies on a variety of topics. To book her for a speaking engagement click here.

Yesterday, I spent the day at the Maker Faire, for the third year.  Unlike any other year, the crowds were overflowing suggesting this movement was growing faster than the cottage industry before.  What’s the Maker Movement? As if social or the collaborative economy weren’t disruptive enough, it’s yet (another) disruption to brands: [The maker movement empowers people to build their own products--rather than buying from brands] I must honestly confess, I struggle to keep abreast of all the new technologies, and I suspect corporations are experiencing the same.  It’s my full time job, yet I attend these events on weekend to stay on top of trends, and we’ve a staff of 21 full time employees at Altimeter who’s full time job is to track business disruptions enabled by technology. We see technology accelerating faster than ever before.  For example, social media transferred communication power, the collaborative economy means customers buy once, then trade many times among each other, and now the maker movement means they need very few brands as they can create products on their own. Brands are disrupted by the Maker Movement. Technology empowers the maker movement.  The movement is already connected on digital communication channels, see Make magazine, social networks and online marketplaces like Etsy that enable individual artisans to sell, trade, or buy unique goods.  Furthermore, the birth of 3D printing is spurring on a new class of goods created beyond jewelry and toys as furniture or home designs emerge Several key industries are ripe for disruption:  Energy can be disrupted from biomass converter creates energy from leaves, walnut shells, from a variety of solar solutions. Also, consumer goods, industrial goods, toys, media, consumer electronics, can be impacted from 3D printers, a call out section directly below.  Additionally, even in dense living, food supply chain be impacted as home gardens and solutions become more available. This movement is acceelearting. Technology Call Out: 3D Printer Market AcceleratingWhile there were many technologies feature, I wanted to focus on one area of heat, 3D printers. Previously, Altimeter saw the 3D printer market as fragmented, with the industry not cohesive. While the space is exploding, there are dozens if not hundreds of 3D printers on the market, and an entire expo hall dedicated to them, each with a variety of specs. We expect consolidation as the market matures. Some key findings yesterday: Investor and key contact Vivian Wang shared with me that the number of materials that can be printed are above the 90 range. Beyond plastics, we witnessed items printed from concrete, salt, metals, and even wood. The wood was sawdust mixed with plastic to create fibers, which result in mostly sustainable product creation. There were entire playsets printed 3D printers, furniture, stainless steel jewelry, and we saw Autodesk (an enabling brand) being a key sponsor. There’s been a cambrian explosion of printers, there are many brands, makes, materials, and it’s not clear they’ve interop or there’s a market leader Brands can leverage the movement Mindset change: become an enabler of this movement.  I spent time with RadioShack  (thanks Cosmin) at the show, who showed they were enabling this movement. They were providing free training for soldering education and hands on work, and also hosted a popup store selling components and controllers like Arduino.  In previous years, Google, Yahoo and other tech companies have sponsored booths to enable future creators and engineers. Build a marketplace that builds new products around you.  While I’ll cover this more in depth on my upcoming report on the Collaborative Economy, brands can host a marketplace around them, enabling customers to buy and sell and make their future products on hosted communities.   See how Shapeways enables 3d printed jewelery artists to host, sell,

Does the truth really depend on who tells it? (Read the complete essay at Histories of Social Media)

Episode #358 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to. There are certain people that business leaders and marketers should be paying a lot more attention to. Adam Alter is one of those individuals. He recently published his first book, Drunk Tank Pink - And Other Unexpected Forces That Shape How We Think, Feel And Behave, and it is a truly fascinating journey into the relationship between the forces of our environment and how this shapes the outcomes of our lives. Yes, it's deep stuff, but it is told in a very fun and compelling way (no dry academic fodder here!). Alter is an assistant professor of marketing and psychology at NYU's Stern School of Business and psychology department. His research focuses on the intersection of behavioral economics, marketing, and the psychology of judgment and decision-making. He's also an all-around nice guy. Enjoy the conversation... You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast #358. Tags: adam alter advertising podcast blog blogging brand business book business podcast david usher digital marketing drunk tank pink facebook itunes marketing podcast nyu nyu stern school of business podcast podcasting twitter

Here’s a nice Twitter campaign from We Are Social, Paris, created for finance company BNP Paribas. With the French Open coming up BNP engaged number one French tennis player Tsonga to take part in a Twitter Tennis game. They created ‘Tweet and Shoot’ that uses a Twitter-controlled robot to launch tennis balls at Tsonga live [...] Related posts: Canadian Tourism’s Live Twitter Murals Tweet To Shoot: Social Nurf Gun Wars Plugin: Live Twitter Feeds Into Powerpoint!

The story of Hansel and Gretel is not actually about Hansel or Gretel. You are surrounded by examples and lessons and case studies that clearly aren't exactly about your project. There's never been a book written precisely about the situation you are facing right now, either. Perhaps one day they will publish, "Marketing Low-Cost Coaching Services to Small Businesses Specializing in Graphic Design in the Upper Peninsula for Dummies" but don't hold your breath. Marketing, like all forms of art, requires us to learn to see. To see what's working and to transplant it, change it and amplify it. We don't teach this, but we should. We don't push people to practice the act of learning by analogy, because it's way easier to just give them a manual and help them avoid thinking for themselves. The opportunity is to find the similarities and get ever better at letting others go first--not with what you've got, but with something you can learn from. And the opposite is even more true. We over-rely on things where the specifics seem to match, but the lesson is obscured by the trivial. Sometimes when we see something happen that we can learn a conceptual lesson from, we instead jump to conclusions that the specifics are the important part. Remember that the next time you have to take your shoes off before you get on an airplane.

One of the benefits of being a member of the International Associations of Business Communicators (IABC) is the bi-monthly magazine, CW. Every other month, the printed publication originally known as Communication World would come through your letterbox filled with useful and highly-readable content that offered knowledge, insight, interviews, case studies, how-to features and a host of articles addressing issues, trends and the actualities of modern communication management, internal and external, as practiced by people across the world. In my two-plus decades of IABC membership, I regarded CW as among the top three most valuable member benefits, alongside professional development and member connectivity. I was an occasional contributor to the magazine for a number of years since the early 90s. Some months ago, it emerged that IABC would cease publication of the printed CW and offer it only in digital form. On May 14, IABC announced the first edition of the new CW digital that will be published monthly, available on desktop, mobile and iOS devices with an Android version coming (and which is now available). [...] “The great thing about going completely digital is that Communication World will be available to download anywhere — on your smartphone, computer or tablet. And all the content is shareable with a tap of your finger, even video,” said Natasha Nicholson, executive editor for Communication World. “Having CW available as an interactive app is going to create a much better, more interactive experience for the reader.” One of the main reasons the magazine went completely digital was because some overseas members of IABC wouldn’t receive their copies for several weeks after mailing, making the content far less timely. Nicholson explains that by going digital, everyone will be able to receive each issue as soon as it becomes available. There’s more to IABC’s news, too. For the next three months, IABC says that CW digital will be free of charge to anyone. […] the magazine will be available to anyone in the world for free for the next four months (until the end of September 2013), at which time the subscription will continue to be free to members while non-members will pay $119 per year or $12.99 per issue. I think this is a great move by IABC although I can imagine the complete shutdown of the print publication won’t be easy for some members to warmly embrace. Part of winning those hearts and minds to the new-format CW will be what the “CW digital experience” is like, one that ought to be utterly compelling so that you don’t really miss not having the paper magazine in your hands. I would define “utterly compelling” as a combination of things like these: Great content which, in IABC’s case, can literally go without saying. Easy access and seamless retrieval of each edition, whether that’s downloading or reading on the website. Mobile apps that not only aid the pleasurable content-consumption experience but also enable and encourage reader/author/publisher engagement. Based on my experience with this first edition of CW digital, the content is unquestionably terrific! However, IABC has some major work to do with the other two items I’ve mentioned. Some screenshots illustrate what I experienced. Accessing CW digital from the link in IABC’s press release produced a visual mess in my default Chrome browser on a Windows 7 desktop computer. I just couldn’t get that menu to reduce or minimize or whatever so that I could see the content itself. Maybe a glitch at the time I accessed the publication. But it did this every time I tried it. The only success I got was using Internet Explorer. It’s not a browser I ever use unless I have to… Not a good start. I decided to download the publication from the download link at the top right of the screen display. Clicking it produced a little window telling me that a 4-meg

Thanks to Rubbishcorp for pointing at this wonderful Oakley site for their new Airbrake MX Google. It's a great piece of merchandising. HTML5 and CSS3 are enabling all kinds of design-rich in-browser experiences using infinite and parallax scrolling (where an illusion of depth is created by background images moving slower than foreground images). One of my absolute favourites is the fabulous Life of Pi site which is quite incredible.  Here's a few others I really liked. Von Dutch used parallax scrolling to tell the story of its original founder in a rather charming way. This site makes a great use of it to talk about the dangers of fracking. Peugeot created a rather cool autoplaying comic to promote its hybrid technology. Olympic and World champion cyclist Jason Kenny's site is about as nice a personal site as you'll see, and here's a great ad agency example. It's all rather lovely. There's even a rather nice one from a tatoo business.  More here and here.

Web site promotion, as the name implies, is all about promoting a website so that it can rank higher on search engines. This is important because a high rank means you will appear higher in SEPRs s and the increased visibility means you will get greater sales and you will pass your message to a lot more people. Promoting your website is not difficult and only requires a little effort, brainwork and patience. To promote your website, begin by ensuring that you are selling the right thing. You should consider the competition when developing a product or a service and you should consider creating a niche product or service if you want to attract more people. To promote your website, ensure that the website is working properly. This is important because even if you are to attract a large amount of traffic but have a website that is half-built or is unattractive, the visitors will just click away or will not return to the site. There are many methods of promoting websites that have been used over the years and when making your choice, make sure that you are getting value for your money and that the method suits your particular circumstances and needs. Some of the most popular methods that have been used over the years are doing keyword optimization and placing keywords on the URL, the title page, the Meta tags and the first paragraph, submitting the website to all the major search engines and indexes, paying for hits using PPC or pay-per-click methods such as Yahoo! Search Marketing and Google AdWords, and building links. Other methods are promoting your website thorough a blog, through a press release, and in the author bio and the call to action in articles placed in article submission websites. An effective but rarely used method of promoting a website is by running a competition. Competitions attract those who want to win the prizes and while there, they will see what you have to offer. You could also give discounts. With the increased use of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, it is also possible to use such sites to create a buzz about your product and your website. You should consider enlisting the services of a professional to help you in Web site promotion. This will give you professionalism and unparalleled convenience.