Jaw, Meet Floor

July 15th, 2009
Thats how I felt, too

That's how I felt, too

Have you heard about Google Wave? If you haven’t, don’t worry;  It’s only the most game-changing technology on the horizon (assuming it doesn’t get relegated to the Google great ideas wastebasket).

Wave is hard to sum up. At it’s most general level, it’s a communication tool. Ho-hum, right?

But this one is different. First, it updates very close to real-time (I’m guessing this has to be some kind of AJAX wizardry, but I’m not a programmer). So you could watch an email being written to you the same way you could see someone typing a response to you over instant messager.

… whoa.

That plus level upon level of what I like to call ‘PFM’ (i.e. “Pure Frikkin’ Magic”) technology, makes this the kind of innovation that could render email obsolete. And render me a drooling, wide-eyed, ecstatic techie.

See a 10 minute abridged presentation about wave here

For the real nerds like myself, you can watch the whole 120 minute presentation here

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14 Common Search Engine Marketing Errors

July 9th, 2009

I’m having another one of those weeks where there’s barely time to breathe between open projects. And that’s awesome, but I always feel a bit bad that I don’t have time to write a solid blog entry.

It occurs to me, however, that these weeks when I can’t write something work out pretty well for you, because I find someone else’s great stuff to pass along. And having a second opinion or another point of view is a valuable thing.

This week, I found a great article from seobook.com about common Search Engine Marketing (SEM for short) errors. It’s really good advice for those of you whose marketing is largely based on the web.

Check it out here.

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4 Ways to Get the Most Out of Social Media

July 1st, 2009

Everyone knows the names of the social media powerhouses: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, with MySpace dwindling but still holding a significant share of participants.

But have you heard of any of these? Maybe one or two like Classmates.com, but the other few hundred on that list are probably new to you. And it’s far from exhaustive. It’s even left off major names like Squidoo (run by famous marketing Guru Seth Godin) and Virb, a network for artists of all types. Some estimates put the number of social networking sites at around 250,000.

My point is this: social media is a gigantic, expansive field. Too big for even the largest companies to leverage as a whole. For small companies like you and me to take advantage of it, there needs to be some strategic thinking. Here are some things to keep in mind either before embarking on a social media marketing push, or if you think your social media marketing needs to be re-evaluated:

1. Do Your Research yes, Facebook and twitter have b0-jillions of users. But if you’re in a niche market, one of the smaller, more focused networks might be a better place for you to spend your time.

2. Be Honest with Yourself You could spend all day on social networking, but that means all your other duties go by the wayside. Before embarking on a social media campaign, think about how much time each day you will be realistically able to spend on it.

3. Get Your Messaging Straight Social networks are fast paced. People will decide whether you are worth ‘friending’ or ‘following’ in just a couple of seconds. Before you get out into the fray, make sure you know how you’re going to introduce yourself. Make sure you’ve got a good reason for people to stick with you.

4. Decide How You Will Add Value Social Media is all about adding value to your friends and followers. You need to have a few different ways ready before you start communicating. And beware of ‘interesting’. Sharing ‘interesting’ thoughts or articles doesn’t count as adding value. You can do it, but don’t rely on your audience to have the same interests as you do.

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