Biznology

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Twitter’s new Vine has some social media and marketing experts tumbling with excitement. Within a month of its launch, it’s already being declared the next big thing in digital media marketing. But is it, really? How long does it take you to tell your brand’s story? Can you do it in just six-seconds? In video? With sound? Does 140 characters suddenly seem excessive? Welcome to Twitter’s visual challenge. In just a little over two weeks, Vine – the new video app acquired by the company in October 2012 and launched on January 24 – has captured the imagination of many social media and marketing specialists. But Vine has also gathered its share of detractors – and faced its first scandal, if you will. Within a week of launch, porn video clips started to appear. Twitter acted quickly, blocking the #porn hashtag and raising the minimum age to 17. Read the remainder of this entry »

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When I started working at Page One Power as a fresh faced link builder, one of the first terms that caught my ear like a poor cast was the term “above the fold.” I was familiar with the term from my journalism courses in which above the fold was a literal term for what appeared on the top of the front page of a newspaper. This would be the biggest story of the day that would be eye grabbing in hopes of selling more papers. So Al Gore (or maybe it was Sirgey Brin) decided that things at the top of a web page are of more importance than items lower down, and this has been a topic of debate ever since. So, in a digital environment  where exactly is the fold? Read the remainder of this entry »

Something’s always going to go wrong. Murphy’s law demands it. It is your mandatory tithe into the Universe. This is true about everything. I guess character is what shows when things go wrong. And it’s what you do when things don’t go right that defines you. And it’s never the end of the world. In fact, sometimes really messing up can initiate a valuable interaction that wouldn’t have ever happened were the mistake avoided. You’ll always be remembered more for how you handle something than for what you did in the first place. This is what I call “Mea Culpa Marketing.” How to handle something going terribly wrong with as much honestly, aplomb, and grace as you can muster while you’re petty convinced that the end is nigh. And when things go even worse than that, I call it “Mea Maxima Culpa Marketing.” Read the remainder of this entry »

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Are you paying attention to your mobile marketing yet? After years of being the next big thing, mobile might finally be the current big thing. But there is a big problem–most people don’t know how to prove it. A joint study by the ANA (Association of National Advertisers) and MediaVest shows marketers are excited about opportunities for mobile marketing but frustrated about the ability to prove return on investment (ROI). Are you one of them? Read the remainder of this entry »

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This post will be a relatively quick one that is a mini-rant. If you are “rant-averse,” then turn away now. My rant has to do with a piece of LinkedIn etiquette. LinkedIn is becoming increasingly important in the world of business networking. I am hesitant to call the service a social network. It’s really a business networking play which takes out a lot of the silly minutiae that sharing on Twitter and Facebook can enable. By being about business there is less tolerance for the “I just passed gas” kind of updates that make many lose their cookies. (Get it? It’s an Internet pun.) Read the remainder of this entry »