Posts Tagged ‘social media’

Shawn Butler Speaks on Facebook Addiction in SLC

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011

This is the video of the presentation that I did for Ignite Salt Lake last month on Social Media Addiction. Shawn Butler: The 6th Legal Addiction

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Why I Suck as a Blogger

Monday, May 16th, 2011

In the voice of Chris Farley in “Tommy Boy,” this is why I suck as a blogger:

Shawn: Hey, what’s your name?
Helen: Helen.
Shawn: That’s nice, you look like a Helen. Helen, we’re both internet users. Let me tell you why I suck as a blogger. Let’s say I have an idea to blog about, let’s say it’s an even remotely interesting idea. I’ve thought about it, I’ve even done a little research on it. Well, then I get all excited. I’m like Jojo the idiot circus boy with a pretty new pet. Now the pet is my possible blog. Hello there, pretty little pet. I love you. And then I stroke it, and I pet it, and I massage it. Hehe, I love it! I love my little, naughty pet. You’re naughty. And then I take my naughty pet and I go
[making ripping noises as I tear apart a roll or other visual aid]
That’s the point where I am usually either 300 words into an impossible-to-complete post OR I have been completely de-railed and I have moved on to something else that caught my (oh, shiny!) attention. I have these great ideas, and really the best intentions, but I am truly my own worst enemy. I famously bite off more than I can chew or completely suffer from an imbalance of priorities. At the same time.

Tommy: Uuuuuuh. I killed it. I killed my [blog]. And that’s when I blow it. That’s when people like us have gotta forge ahead, Helen. Am I right?
Helen: God, you’re sick.
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Traditional Goes Social: How New Media is Changing Old Media

Thursday, January 13th, 2011
Yammer Proclaims The Death Of Old Media Through Old Media

Billboard Proclaims The Death Of Old Media Through Old Media

In 2007, when I first started using social media as a marketing tool, it was just called “new media.” In the years since, digital marketers have made large strides, like dropping the vague term “new” and replacing it with phrases like “social network marketing” and, most significantly, adjusting the way that brands and businesses interact with their customers. We have learned a lot from our early experiences with social media. Here are some of the lessons social media taught us that are being applied across all forms of media, new and old.

Targeting the individual. One-to-one marketing is not just for social media anymore. With the recognition of the long tail has come permission to “waste” impressions. I am seeing more instances of marketers using traditionally mass media vehicles to microtarget niche audience.

Previously, to hit a highly specific audience like “Investment Bankers for Web-based IPOs” meant taking out a full page in a highly specific targeted medium like The Kiplinger Letter. This is changing.

Recently, Tim Ferriss wrote about an unusual billboard purchased by Zynga in Silicon Valley. He says, “There was no tagline, and I joked to my passenger, who was in the financing and IPO business, ‘I’m not sure who that’s intended to sell.’

The Tag-less Zynga Billboard

The Tag-less Zynga Billboard

[His passenger] laughed and responded with ‘Dude, that’s not for end users. That’s to get the attention of the bankers driving from SFO to downtown.’

Leveraging Pass-Along and Word-of-Mouth. In that same article, Ferriss cites an example of not targeting your audience at all, but targeting the people who influence that audience. “At American Apparel, many of its best-known ads ran in obscure publications or in short bursts on niche websites. Millions of people know about them, however, because blogs thought they were so interesting that they wrote articles about them.”

The brilliance there is that the brand actually got more mileage out of their ad purchases by getting the pass-along value of what is essentially “free” advertising by highly influential bloggers. However, this type of editorial coverage and the buzz it creates is the type of advertising that big businesses have learned they cannot buy through a media broker.

Everything is Clickable. If someone is on a company’s Facebook page, the marketer knows that posting a clickable link will send many customers to get more information. With the increase of tablet PCs and mobile devices, marketers can now make this assumption with every medium. The QR code is an early integration of print with web. At the Smithsonian museums, visitors will see codes on the displays that are scannable with their web-enabled devices that will bring up apps, information and interactive learning.

Visual recognition programs for mobile devices, like Google Goggles, are being used by companies to deliver more information to their potential customers who take a picture of their products or even their logos.

As brands continue to understand the value of engaging with fans and seek metrics beyond impressions, we will see more integration of social, interactive, and location-based media with traditional media. Already, we see more restaurants posting the “Check In to Foursquare” window clings and counter cards to remind visitors to pair their physical visit with an internet visit.

A few years from now, when social media is no longer a “hot trend” but an additional, accepted marketing tool, I would like us to all look back and see that 2011 was the year that all media became “social.”

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World Cup Means Selling More Coke… Subliminally!

Friday, June 11th, 2010
The 2010 FIFA World Cup Celebration Mix of Wavin’ Flag by K’naan


With the World Cup starting today, the world’s attention is focusing on the number one most popular sport in the world, soccer. And there are many people who are trying to capitalize on that attention. Not least among them is a mostly-unknown Somalian musician named K’naan.

K’naan’s 2009 single Wavin’ Flag was selected as the 2010 FIFA World Cup’s official anthem. But who selected the song and where did it come from? It was not selected by FIFA, instead it was chosen by Coca-Cola International. And it underwent a fairly intense “change” before it could receive this honor, including revision of most of the song’s lyrics, complete removal of entire verses, and most notably, the addition of Coke’s Audio Signature, (The “Oh, oh, oh, oh-oh” from their current “Open Happiness” campaign).

Compare the original album version of the song to the Coca-Cola approved revamp posted above:

The artist, K’naan, had this to say about the world’s largest beverage company and the world’s largest brand asking him to change his song,

“I saw it as an opportunity to reach more people. I don’t work for Coke or anything; what I do is my music. This was a really great opportunity for them to use my song, without compromising my integrity as a musician.

It sounds nice. And as far as “a really great opportunity for them,” I’m not sure, but it is definitely “a really great opportunity” for K’naan to break out onto the international music scene, as one of the most listened to songs in the world and the top downloaded on iTunes today.
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More Cartoons I Found

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Here are two more cartoons I found when I was looking for the one I used in my last article. They are both pretty funny, but were not what I was looking for. Just the same, they’re worth seeing!

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