Archive for the 'social media' Category

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Z-lister link love update

Many thanks to Mack for putting together the original list of “z-list” bloggers that need a little attention. The goal was to disrupt the Technorati rankings by sharing a little link love amongst authors with great content but without the recognition of Top 100 bloggers.

Here’s the original list:

Shotgun Marketing Blog
BrandSizzle
bizsolutionsplus
Customers Rock!
Being Peter Kim
Pow! Right Between The Eyes! Andy Nulman’s Blog About Surprise
Billions With Zero Knowledge
Working at Home on the Internet
MapleLeaf 2.0
darrenbarefoot.com
Two Hat Marketing

The Emerging Brand
The Branding Blog
CrapHammer
Drew’s Marketing Minute
Golden Practices
Viaspire
Tell Ten Friends
Flooring the Consumer
Kinetic Ideas
Unconventional Thinking
Buzzoodle
Conversation Agent
The Copywriting Maven
Hee-Haw Marketing
Scott Burkett’s Pothole on the Infobahn
Multi-Cult Classics
Logic + Emotion
Branding & Marketing
Popcorn n Roses
On Influence & Automation
Bullshitobserver
Servant of Chaos
converstations
eSoup
Presentation Zen
Dmitry Linkov
aialone
John Wagner
Nick Rice | marketing & branding thoughts
CKs Blog
Design Sojourn
Frozen Puck
The Sartorialist
Small Surfaces
Africa Unchained
Perspective
gDiapers
Marketing Nirvana
Bob Sutton
¡Hola! Oi! Hi!
Shut Up and Drink the Kool-Aid!
Women, Art, Life: Weaving It All Together
Community Guy
Social Media on the fly

Customers are always

Small Business Branding

z-list

The jump to Wordpress

It’s coming up on one year of blogging and I’ve had the best time. I started on Blogger and tweaked the heck out of their templates before I made the decision to switch platforms. Wordpress is great and doesn’t have the stigma that Blogger does; not that there aren’t a lot of valuable blogs on Blogger, just that there’s a lot of splogs too.

Anyway, here’s the new home. Hope you continue to enjoy the posts.

Best of 2006 follow up

I mentioned David Armano’s push to capture the best of 2006 (from a social media perspective) the other day.

He’s compiled his report and it’s available on his blog. I opened it up and lo and behold, there was part of my comment to him on page four.

David is really making a dent in one of the largest marketing companies around. And his good work has not gone unnoticed, a few months back he was promoted to VP. So now that he has greater reach and visibility, I’m looking forward to seeing him influence and shape new media . I hope he doesn’t get too bogged down in the management aspect of his new role. Thanks David.

Best of 2006

For those of you not familiar with David Armano, you should definitely check him out. He’s a rising star in the blogging space and one of my few daily reads.

He’s started a great thread on the biggest marketing/advertising impact in 2006. Most of it is centered on web 2.0-type things, but that’s where the entire industry is moving anyway. This thread was just covered in BusinessWeek and it’s still picking up steam.

You’ll see my responses around comment #15 or so…

technorati tags > marketing, 2006, businessweek, david armano, impact, trends

A little news, a few jabs, and a lot of laughs

I was recently turned on to Ze Frank and the Show. You should check him out. He does a daily video blog of current events with more than a touch of humor. He cracks me up and everyone that works hard deserves a little break.

technorati tags > ze frank, humor, laugh, break

Best blogs in Branding

Small Business Branding and Marketing was named on the Canadian Trademark blog as one of the branding blogs they’re tracking.

I’m proud to contribute to a site that’s so well respected. Keep your eyes open for some major changes we have coming in the next few months.

technorati tags > small business, branding, marketing, branding blogs, small business branding, small business marketing

My posts on Small Business Branding & Marketing

With vacation winding down, here are my posts from my other blog, Small Business Branding & Marketing

The Power of the White Envelope

Role of Creativity in Business

How to Succeed with Direct Marketing

Lead Generation Strategy for Small Business

5 Tips for Getting the Biggest Bang for your Buck

Let me know your thoughts.

technorati tags > small business, smb, branding, marketing, strategy, nick rice

Don’t squeeze the Charmin

Great post from Olivier Blanchard on Charmin’s latest ad in the UK – there’s even a blog to go along.

It took me a little while to catch on, but it’s pretty clever. Great job on getting people to talk about toilet paper of all things. If TP can be viral, anything can!

technorati tags > advertising, viral, toilet, paper, UK, branding, blog

Branding 2.0

Here’s a quick tutorial of some of the web 2.0 sites that are driving viral & social networks.

Branding 2.0 – Mashable

technorati tags > branding, web 2.0, youtube, myspace, ask a ninja, social networks

What’s the point of Marketing Communications?

To keep your name in front of your target audience? Yes, but that’s really about long-term branding not revenue or ROI.

To support the effort of your sales team? Sure, that’s important but they typically are just looking for another excuse to call the customer. A new white paper, brochure, or sales tool is a great reason to reach out.

How about differentiating yourself from your competition? Interesting, but Marketing Communication (marcom) is simply the vehicle for talking about your true differentiations like consumer benefits, unique business model, industry leading features, etc…

I believe it’s really about changing behavior.

It’s easy to make money off of run-rate business – typically you don’t have to work very hard to keep it flowing. The real challenge is getting a brand new customer to buy. Becoming a preference in his or her eyes – now that’s a big deal (a long term, strategic, profitable big deal).

Marcom is the art & science of combining your value to the audience, your unique elements, and a reason to act NOW. I believe that a “call to action” is a critial component of any marketing communications effort. It could be as simple as a unique URL to visit to or some type of bundled promotion, but you need something to keep a new customer moving towards a purchase.

Marketing communications is about creating a bread trail for your audience to follow. Get them hooked, keeping feeding them value, and they will buy.