Category Archives: advertising
Social Media Club, Victoria
On March 31, 2009, Catherine Novak and I helped to organize an inaugural meeting for Social Media Club in Victoria. We met at the University of Victoria, Faculty of Business. Thank you to Herman Thoene from EcoLog Homes for shooting and editing the following video: Interested in coming to the next meeting? Join the FaceBook group, and RSVP for the next meeting.
Smartest Twitter Spam Ever
We’ve all had “spam followers” on Twitter. Presumably this is done to promote websites and products. Most of it is idiotic, and the accounts get closed pretty quickly. I just discovered one, however, that impressed me greatly. Some smarter spammer out there came up with this. At the risk of educating spammers, I have reviewed some Twitter spam to help educate ordinary folks who use Twitter. Here it is: Where are the updates? In detecting a spam account, the most obvious bit is no updates and following lots of people. This spammer solved this with the following update: i just deleted my old updates. i don’t like living in the …
The Real Value of Twitter: Three Predictions for 2012
People who enjoy micro-blogging on Twitter include a group I’ve already pretty clearly identified. Computer Geeks Marketing Types Egomaniacs Social Butterflies (I’d include myself in all 4 to varying degrees.) There’s a few others along the same lines. Others will reluctantly sign on, because they feel they need to – for business or what not. But there are a whole lot of other people in the world who will not use “Twitter” as we know it. Not EVER. Prediction #1 is that the actual percentage of broadband-capable, English-speaking people who actually “use” Twitter will probably land somewhere between 5% and 10% by 2012. (More may sign up, but many will …
One Month of Twitter
It’s been one month since I skeptically started using Twitter. Wow. I’m convinced that every marketing person, Internet geek, computer programmer, opportunistic, or egomaniac should be using Twitter! Here’s what I’ve done in 28 days (in addition to my regular job managing the company): I’ve created profiles for all 3 of my business divisions and assigned somebody to maintain each one. For my eBrands division, I am syndicating the eBrands Twitter feed onto the website, and have plans to syndicate the other 2 to the company blogs (which are being prepared right now). I launched a profile for our popular news aggregator website, CanWire.ca (we are building the RSS interface …
Social Networking – MySpace
Q: What does MySpace have going for it? A: It is well established, as the first-to-market social network. It has hundreds of thousands of users. It is owned by News Corporation, which (in “normal” economic times) gives it pretty deep pockets. Q: What does MySpace have going against it? A: Almost everything else. I am one of those 30-somethings turned off by MySpace because of its early reputation. Nonetheless, I finally joined – mostly just to educate myself about it. These are my immediate thoughts. It’s (still) ugly. It’s crowded. I could not find any useful applications that integrate other social networking tools into your profile (i.e. Twitter). It’s easy …
Avoiding Domain Name and Web Hosting Scams
I wrote this in response to a local Better Business Bureau warning about a web hosting invoicing scam. As somebody who has been in the domain name and web hosting business for 8 years, I hope to provide some insight on the matter. It is written to be as simple and straightforward as possible. Avoiding Domain Name and Web Hosting Scams Know The Parties You Pay The first thing your company should do is make a complete list of the names of companies you pay for your website needs. The three standard parties for every website are as follows: The domain name registrar – registers your domain name – xyz.ca …
Social Networking Primer – Update
I’m meeting later today with an old friend of mine, Catherine Novak, who is a communications expert with a particular interest in Social Networking. Then tomorrow, I am meeting with another old friend, Michael Allison, who is also a communications expert, and has a thing or two to say about social networking. I thought it would be fun to catch up with old friends, but also to meet with these guys who will undoubtedly have a completely different take on social networking than your average Search Engine Optimization/Internet Geek crowd (my usual circles), and see if I can’t tie these two worlds together concisely. Check back for updates on this, …
Social Networking Primer
I spend a great deal of time going to conferences on Search Engine Optimization, Affiliate Marketing, Webmastering and so forth. Not as much as some of my crazy friends, but often enough. For the last few years, the buzz has been “social networking”. For the first few years it was “building your own social networks”. Now it’s shifted to “taking advantage of existing social networks”. You have your FaceBook and LinkedIn for your “basic” profile. Then you have your blogs. Then you have Twitter for micro-blogging (or, as I explain it to new people – like “broadcast instant messaging, only less likely to be read”). Then you have your social …
SuperBowl Ad Commentary #1
News to Coca Cola: Your product is barely consumable for humans. I can’t imagine it’s terribly healthy for animals. Stop with the cutesy little animals already. Polar bears, penguins and now insects. Now that Coke Zero ad – that was very good! And Conan O’Brien – very classy. I’m going to predict that “vroom vroom der party starter” becomes a popular greeting amongst young males over the next several months. And, Conan, nice bunny ears!
