Collective Publishing Company Inc: A Social Media Marketing Service Company.

Video Game Buzz of the Month: May 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Bertolin) — Thu, 23 May 2013 01:21:00 +0000

As disappointing as the first half of 2013 was for video games, the end of May is causing spring to heat up really fast, which hopefully will lead to a great summer of gaming and as always, a sprint to the end of the year, in preparation for Christmas. May has seen a few good titles already, but it’s only the last two weeks that’s causing most of the buzz around the gaming world; with the re-release of an old Nintendo classic, the newest installment of Batman and the future of Xbox.

DONKEY KONG COUNTRY RETURNS (NINTENDO 3DS): Growing up in the 90’s there are only a few video game titles that resonate as smoothly on gamers ears as the “Donkey Kong series”. Since the release of Donkey Kong Country Returns in 2010 on the Wii, there was silence from the Donkey Kong's camp until the announcement of its release to the 3DS, and really, it’s about time! The game was so awesome! No other 2D platform brought such thrilling dimensions to a game that also had the potential for 3D. Now that Donkey Kong Country Returns is finally on the 3DS, it will attract a brand new audience to “Donkey Kong” and for those who have already played the game, it will give them that depth that always seemed to be there and eight new levels to explore. Not to mention this is the 3rd decade that the same game has been re-crafted for a different generation, Nintendo is simply remarkable.

Watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KVX82n2UzY

BATMAN – ARKHAM ORIGINS: After switching from Rocksteady Studios to Warner Brothers Montreal the Batman series is in for a new look, with familiar faces. Rock-Steady had crafted 9/10 and 10/10 rated games in the past 5 years and fans worldwide were concerned and confused when the news broke that the switch was to be made from Rocksteady to Warner Brothers. However, recently all that unrest was hopefully put to sleep when the director of the last two games from Rocksteady, Sefton Hill said this in the latest issue of Game Informer " (via GAMESPOT). We are confident this talented team will craft a fantastic experience, bringing the origins of the Arkham-verse to life”, and it looks like they will succeed at making good on Hill’s confidence, the game looks stunningly real. Now in any trailer there’s rarely any evidence that the game play is ever as good as the trailer, but in the one below the movements and fighting centered focus is perking up global fan attention. The trailer showcases Two-face as the mastermind behind the assassins trying to kill Batman, and this game will make you feel in spite of more outnumbered then in the past two games. With the momentum they already have, if Warner Brothers Montreal can produce a similar game with an even better fighting engine, they could be looking at another game of the ear award.

The Movie Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx5Fls0Ea2o

XBOX ONE: After years of problems and after three attempts at remaking the Xbox 360, the outcry for a new Xbox system has finally been met. After unveiling that their new system would be called Xbox One on May 21st 2013, they also had some surprising and futuristic plans for an all-encompassing entertainment unit. First of all, the One is centered around getting your computer, video games, TV and the Internet all feeding through the Microsoft Cloud and the Xbox One itself. The ability to see everyone's else’s favorite shows, trending media and following your fantasy team on one system is also very attractive. The One gives you instant access through voice command to each of the mediums (that would normally sit in your living room) through the new impressively built Kinect motion camera. The hardware speaks for itself with eight gigs of ram, a Blu-ray player and 3 operating systems to enhance gaming on all levels. Xbox One hopes to bring the living room together and create the finest experience in the market for entertainment, all while keeping it open to any device with internet access to Windows. Xbox One looks extremely impressive, and with such promises for a Halo TV show directed by Steven Spielberg, the One is taking huge steps to becoming by far the best and most innovative system to date.

If you’re a gamer it’s almost impossible not to get excited about this summer and the anticipation of a cherished old game rebuilt, a prequel to an existing award winning saga, and seeing what the next generation will hold at least from Xbox’s perspective.

Star Trek Into Darkness Review: The Kirk and Spock Show.

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Bertolin) — Wed, 22 May 2013 01:21:00 +0000

By Christopher D. Spicer

Star Rating: ***

The biggest criticism being hurled at the J.J. Abrams rebooted Stark Trek franchise is the series has been transformed into a fast paced fantasy space adventure that happens to bring along some beloved characters while shoveling out loads of homages to the classic series. It is far too treacherous to boldly go where no reviewer has gone before by actually arguing against this criticism. The original Star Trek was never about being a special effects laden action adventure, but was at its best when it explored social and political issues while celebrating how science can push our civilization towards progress. The modern franchise has shoved away stories promoting philosophy and challenging our current mindsets to make room for stunning visuals and adrenaline-fueled action sequences.

Star Trek Into Darkness is typical high budget blockbuster entertainment designed to have you drift into a nirvana of the shiny and flashy while you constantly shovel popcorn into your mouth. Even if it won’t challenge you or engage you in high concept thinking, it does one thing brilliantly that was a major component of the original series, the Captain Kirk and Spock relationship.

“Bromance” is a word often used in the last decade to explain films focusing on the tight and sometimes rocky relationship of two guys. Star Trek Into Darkness has set the standard with the tumultuous but also surprisingly affectionate friendship between Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto). Pine perfectly conveys the reckless playboy Kirk who still holds to a strong moral code and deeply cares for his crew while Quinto is amazing as the by-the-book Spock who is constantly battling to avoid his emotions from rocketing to the surface. The engaging performances by both men form a unique chemistry between the two characters that for entertainment value rivals some of the best romantic relationships or buddy teams in the history of cinema. The relationship drives the narrative as it takes a roller coaster ride that is filled with witty and sometimes hilarious banter that leads to intense and heated exchanges that then is capped off with a teary and powerful reuniting.

Spock and Kirk aren’t alone drifting in space, and they’re backed up with strong performances by their supporting cast. Unfortunately, the roles are mostly underwritten and exist to enhance the Spock/Kirk relationship or some are to just provide comic relief. Karl Urban has incredibly fun and witty delivery as Bones and Simon Pegg proves he is a diverse actor as Scotty, but both spend most of their screen time spouting out iconic one-liners and getting laughs in between the action. Zoe Saldana provides a great strength and confidence to the Uhura character and her body mannerism effectively showcase a depth of emotion, but it is heartbreaking how underwritten and lacking meat her role ends up being. John Cho has a few very intriguing scenes as Sulu, but unfortunately, they end up being more teases rather than anything fulfilling, but his great talent is obvious. Benedict Cumberbatch proves why he is a rising star with his dark and chilling performance as the mysterious terrorist, John Harrison.

Cumberbatch has all the ingredients to create the most legendary villain in Star Trek history, but unfortunately, the rise gets shot down by Abrams dedication to deliver constant shout outs and winks to the Trekkies. I sense Abrams has a bit of guilt over extensively renovating the franchise to become something different, and to make up for that fact, jams in updated versions of classic scenes and characters from the original series and films. It works when it is more subtle like offhand remarks and jokes about memorable characters, but it is less effective when contrived sequences lead to twists that just remind you of when it was done better the first time. The Cumberbatch story is supposed to be shocking and should be riveting, but is plagued by an attempt to please diehard fans and leaves most just confused by the plot’s logic.

The picture starts out teasing us that it will be a story about Kirk trying to rise back to power and overcome his battle between doing what he feels is right and following Federation protocol. After about 15 minutes in, the story shifts to being a giant “murder mystery”, as we try to piece together why several innocents just were blown to bits. The picture’s goal of being mysterious and full of twists causes some severe brain cramps or at least it did for me. The motives of Starfleet Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) and Harrison will induce dizziness if you try to make sense of them as they go about the most complicated route for simple goals. One of these characters exist solely to bide time for the big shocking moments that Abrams hinges the entire picture on.

This is a space opera and so plot means little, and the incredible special effects provide a substantial visual feast. The opening scenes of the picture instantly beams us into the film with a fantastic CGI rendered planet with some of the best looking aliens ever in the history of the franchise. The futuristic Earth is astonishing, and after years of dystopian science fiction films, it refreshing to have such a beautiful vision of the future. The space travel sequences are flawless, and every set transports your imagination to a universe of wonder. The music and visuals birth an expertly crafted world, and if you have the strength to stop questioning the plot, it will be enough to entertain for the duration of the picture. There is a powerful display of creativity blasting through this film, and Abrams and his crew of make-up and special effects gurus deserve high praise for making such an original and magnificent galaxy full of bizarre aliens and exotic locales that look realistic.

There is a part of the technical side that hurts the film, and that is the action sequences that are laborious to track and rarely lead to any kind of consequence. The picture follows the Bourne Identity handbook and unleashes fights and spaceship battles with frenzied cuts that end up just being a bunch of flashing images. Maybe I’m just getting too old for this type of picture but I couldn’t follow the action scenes, and was usually either bored or irritated rather than thrilled. I was able to follow one massive attack on the Enterprise that had massive holes blown into the ship and cause hundreds of crewmembers be sucked into space. After the intense battle subsides, no one seems too concerned about the cavernous openings to the great unknown that must have decorated most of the hallways and no one seems to notice the workforce had just been significantly depleted. To be fair to Star Trek Into Darkness, these are the type of glaring gaps that most action pictures are almost always guilty of perpetuating, and this film does climax with an emotional and engaging high stakes battle that is enough for me to forgive its prior faults.

This review may not sound like something that warrants 3 stars, and I admit to it coming off a little negative. Despite the missteps and flaws, it’s the strong performances, the phaser-your-mind visuals, and the captivating relationship between the two main characters that makes the picture a great adventure for the summer season.

Best Apps to Integrate your e-Commerce Store with Facebook.

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Bertolin) — Mon, 20 May 2013 20:24:00 +0000

By Benjamin Roussey

With the immense popularity and reach of social media, e-Commerce is fast evolving into “social commerce” to a large extent. With more than a billion active users, Facebook is an ideal social platform to enhance social engagement with your customers. It does matter if you like Facebook or not, to ignore Facebook as part of your social media strategy or to not incorporate Facebook into your marketing model is doing so at your own peril.

You can use Facebook as a powerful secondary marketing and sales channel, and also maintain personalized communication with your regular customers. Here are some of the leading apps that can help you integrate your e-Commerce store with Facebook.

Beetailer

Beetailer is a popular app that allows you to integrate your store with Facebook, and ensures automatic synchronization. Its user interface is similar to that of Pinterest, and it seamlessly integrates with Facebook’s Timeline interface, which will help you reach out to more customers.

Your customers will also find it easier to find your products and share them with friends. Beetailer enables you to integrate your existing e-Store without having to migrate your product data. It will utilize your current stock and catalog information. It will also provide you with historical data about your visitors and provide an insight into their purchase behavior and preferences.

WANT Button

WANT Button app allows your customers to keep a track of products they wish to purchase on Facebook. You can enjoy good exposure on the Facebook Timeslines of your customers, and expect referral traffic from Facebook to your e-Store.

Each time a customer wants one of your store items, it will become auto-posted on his or her Facebook Timeline, allowing all those within the customer’s network to know about it. You can reach out directly to potential customers who ‘want’ your items with targeted messaging.

Voiyk

With Voiyk app you can create a Facebook fan page store. The setup is easy, and most merchants can create the basic pages and a product catalog on their own. The top showcase can include three items, and it is possible to post up to three images for every item. Transactions can be routed through the merchant’s e-Store. Everyone who is on Facebook and ‘Likes’ the page will be able to browse and share the products.

ShopTab

ShopTab Facebook app that enables e-Commerce store owners to sell their items by setting up a shopping tab on their fan pages, which showcase items from their current online store. This app works with practically every e-Commerce platform. You can export the products from an e-Commerce tool and upload on Facebook using an admin tool. Store owners can also add items individually, if they prefer. Once the items have been added, the shopping tab becomes instantly live with products, categories, and images.

Shop & Share

Shop & Share app from Shoutlet, Inc. is a very user-friendly application to integrate your e-Commerce store with Facebook. Store owners do not require any knowledge of software development or even HTML to create custom Facebook tabs.

Shop & Share is designed to help merchants to transform their Facebook fan page into an e-Commerce store and showcase their complete product line within its own tab. Fans can not only share products with Facebook friends with this app, but also through dozens of other social sharing networks.

What is Facebook's EdgeRank?

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Bertolin) — Sun, 19 May 2013 21:43:00 +0000

By Steve Tocher

Have you ever wondered why there are some businesses and people on Facebook that totally dominate your Newsfeed? Granted you might have liked their page a few months ago, but their posts come through on your wall even more than your best friend’s photos do. Well, it isn’t because your friends have disliked you or have stopped using Facebook, it’s all because of a calculation known as Edge Ranking. Edge Ranking is a formula used by Facebook to determine how regularly you interact with certain friends and or posts that might pertain to you the most. Facebook bases the equation on three main factors, which are Affinity, Weight and Time.

Affinity simply means similarity and relationship. If you’re constantly talking with someone or you’ve recently sent or received a message, you’ve created a better affinity with that user. That means the posts on your Newsfeed will be often from them, and vice versa. So the more you communicate with them, the better chances you’ll have at staying on their Newsfeed. Weight has to do with how relevant your content is to people. So if you post a picture, and people click the Like button that creates a slight amount of weight. Now if user's comment on the post or share it, it’s in spite of heavier and will be reposted on the user's timelines, so other users you don’t even know who will see it. So the more people are talking about each post, the higher your Edge Ranking becomes to their Newsfeed. Finally, time comes down to the perfect moments in the day. Knowing when your audience is online or ready to participate is the key to everything, because if people don’t see it, they can’t interact with it. So why does this formula mean anything to your independent business or personal branding.

Well, according to PostRocket Productions, 27% of time on Facebook is spent scrolling through Newsfeeds, which is a huge amount of time, but it doesn’t stop there. The size of Facebook’s marketing potential is greater than the other six major news channels websites in America combined. That means that almost three billion minutes a day is spent on Facebook’s Newsfeed, and if you can get a tiny slice of that action, even a sliver, your potential for advertising will explode and people will like your page. However, since most people will never go back to pages they’ve liked, what steps can you take to getting a piece of their Newsfeed?

Taking advantage of Edge Rank really comes down to a few simple but consistent points. First you must make your posts nice and short, people don’t want to read a novel, it’s a headline. Secondly, be visual since most if not all of Facebook’s Newsfeed is blue, black and white, so use colourful images to get their attention. Thirdly, try asking questions that will make people want to interact with your post and get them involved. For instance, LIKE if you agree, SHARE if you love and COMMENT if you dislike. Finally, and most importantly remember the timing of your posts is crucial. The best times to post are 7am EST as people are heading to work and school, at 5pm EST when people are heading back from school and work and 11pm EST when many people are finishing events, going to bed or other parts of the world are hitting their peak times. Using Edge Rank is the perfect way to really boost your online presence, and is as much about the presentation, timing and relationship as it is about the content. Please tell us what you think, and if the Edge Ranking equation is working for you!

Your Business Absolutely Depends On Getting Good User Reviews. What Are You Doing About It?

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Bertolin) — Sat, 18 May 2013 21:26:00 +0000

By The Collective Publishing Company Inc.

Getting great reviews on online review sites like Yelp can really give your business a shot in the arm. Certainly, you can try to coax and cajole your customers into writing reviews about your products and hope that they say something nice. Unless you are willing to bribe your customers, though, it can be difficult actually ensure that you get plenty of positive reviews. Are there any legal and legitimate ways to get great reviews?

Soliciting reviews of every kind

To simply see many detailed reviews is incredibly appealing to the customer – even if some of your reviews are bad ones. While bad reviews can cost you many customers, 70% of people who read good reviews about a product they are considering will share it with friends. That’s free publicity. The more reviews you get, the more chances you have of seeing this kind of word of mouth happen.

Pay attention to the bad reviews you get

If you really go to the customers who are unhappy with you, do everything you can to correct the problem and make them feel good about you, their experiences generate some hard-to beat positive press.

Make reviewing easy and interesting to your customers

At first, if your customers don’t seem too eager to write a review from scratch, give them the option to take multiple-choice product quizzes. Think about why your customers don’t want to write a review – is it because they find the process boring? Is it because they don’t take you seriously?

Whatever steps you can take to make yourself more credible and make the reviewing process fun and rewarding, will help you. Put a lot of humor and wit into the review questions you ask. Try to ask interesting new questions – like asking what you can do to make the review process less boring to them. You could make your customers feel powerful by quoting statistics on how much their review can mean for the success of your business.

Create an advertising campaign just to get reviews

Customer reviews have traditionally been seen as an afterthought – something that’s nice to have but that isn’t as important as expert reviews or advertisements. Being stuck to such old ideas is what makes it difficult for businesses to really go after those reviews with everything they’ve got.

What stops them, for instance, from creating a full-fledged advertising campaign to get people to review their products? User reviews are so important that dedicating a good part of your advertising budget to publicizing your review requests wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Make your customer the star

You need to remember how important getting a positive review – getting any kind of review – is to the success of your business. You could invest any amount of effort in this. You could, for instance, create video case studies of how your customers use your products and put those on YouTube. If you make them in a flattering and humorous way, not only would you attract plenty of YouTube attention, you would be popular among your customers. What they see that you put this much effort into getting their opinions, how could they not take your requests seriously?

When Someone Mentions Content Marketing, Do You Think of Text Or Images?

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Bertolin) — Fri, 17 May 2013 21:18:00 +0000

By The Collective Publishing Company Inc.

Images are huge today. Facebook alone gets about a quarter million photo uploads every minute. Add to this what goes on at Pinterest, Tumblr and many of the other image-based websites and the amount of image-based activity is staggering. Small businesses need to realize that there is a fundamental shift that’s happened in content consumption.

Businesses need to find out what they can do to take advantage of this laser-like focus that people have on imagery today. You can’t simply by a few stock photos and put them on your website anymore. You need to invest yourself in finding ways to make imagery central to your marketing story – rather than bringing in images to liven up your fundamentally text-based marketing story.

To have an audience that is focused on visual communication is a great opportunity. It’s far easier to catch someone’s attention with a picture that it is to catch their attention with writing. A picture really is worth a thousand words – you can make a far more powerful impact with pictures that you can with words.

The question is – how exactly do you go about marketing yourself visually?

You need to turn visual

Businesses have always hired photographers for special occasions. This won’t do anymore. Since pictures need to be at the center of your marketing narrative, you need someone working for you who can constantly take that narrative forward by finding and creating beautiful, original pictures that can communicate what your business is to your buyers.

What kind of pictures?

You need to spend a few minutes on Pinterest or Tumbler to see what’s possible in the world of images. It doesn’t matter what business you’re in – there’s usually a way to take it visual. Do you deal in clothing? How about food or transportation or furniture? Finding great new angles to show off your products or the way they are manufactured is all it takes.

You could even be a service company – a cleaning company or an accounting company. You could find hundreds of ways to show how dirt annoys people or create infographics to explain accounting, flow charts or graphs work.

Find new ways to distribute your content and get attention

Certainly, you need to be very active on Pinterest and Facebook with your images. You also need to put your images in your marketing emails, your blog and your website. Think of how Bing differentiated itself from Google by putting gorgeous photography on its home page – you need to be imaginative not only about the pictures you produce but also about where you put them.

If you still doubt that photos are that important, consider this little factoid – businesses that put photos on Facebook find that their photo posts get 50% more Likes than their other text-based posts.

The basic rule in marketing today is – any kind of communication you put out, you need to first consider if you can tell it with a picture.

Let Me Introduce You To Coral Turner, A Fashion Couture Designer from the U.K.

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Bertolin) — Thu, 16 May 2013 23:41:00 +0000

The Biggest Social Media Screw Ups of All Time (and How to Avoid Them)

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Bertolin) — Thu, 16 May 2013 02:01:00 +0000

By Dustin Wright

Arguably one of the biggest social media screw ups of 2013 didn’t occur to a famous celebrity, a large corporation, or even a politician that can’t stop tweeting crotch shots to women (we’ll get to you in a second Anthony Weiner). Instead, it occurred when an unknown restaurant in Scottsdale, Arizona called Amy’s Baking Company was featured on the hit television show “Kitchen Nightmares” starring the always angry but phenomenal chef Gordon Ramsay.

If you are unfamiliar with the show, it tasks the celebrity chef with attempting to “flip” a restaurant in an effort to improve the quality of the menu, the staff, the way business is handled, and so on. Basically, the show aims to improve every aspect of a restaurant, and while Ramsay has dealt with many awful restaurants and equally horrible restaurants owners, the owners of Amy’s Baking Company, Amy and Samy Bouzaglo, were by far his worst. In a first for the series, Ramsay refused to help the couple/owners, and if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, Amy’s Baking Company would go on to embarrass themselves even further.

Although the show was definitely going to promote them in a poor light, the company still promoted the episode on their Facebook page. If you want a great laugh and want to learn more about the couple’s current situation (including a petition to the U.S. Department of Labor and the Wage and Hour Division urging the divisions to investigate Amy’s Baking Company due to the unlawful confiscation of employees’ tips), then read on as it’s definitely worth a few minutes of reading. And when the episode aired? That’s when Amy’s Baking Company committed “social media suicide.”

The truth of the restaurant was unveiled in the episode, as Ramsay discovered a freezer full of packaged ravioli and a bakery case labeled “homemade desserts” which were purchased by other local bakers and sold as their own. Thus, the couple began cursing at their customers and taking away their server’s tips, which was the final straw for Ramsay. Local paper ‘Phoenix NewTimes’ wrote a detailed account of the incident, to which law enforcement was called to the scene. Amy’s Baking Company began trying to “clean up” the mess via a Facebook post, but it was too late. The episode had been aired, their dirty laundry was live on the web, and as a result of users on Reddit, Yelp, and Facebook crying foul against the couple, the Bouzaglos’ followed up with this gem of a Facebook post:

“I AM NOT STUPID ALL OF YOU ARE. YOU JUST DO NOT KNOW GOOD FOOD. IT IS NOT UNCOMMON TO RESELL THINGS WALMART DOES NOT MAKE THEIR ELECTRONICS OR TOYS SO LAY OFF!!!!”

Of course, this only added fuel to the fire, and as a result, the Internet began attacking Amy’s Baking Company. Each post was shared dozens of times, and comments were streaming in from all over the world. The Bouzaglos obviously do not know when to quit, because they posted a handful of other posts on their Facebook and Twitter pages, such as:

“WE ARE NOT FREAKING OUT. WE DO NOT CARE ABOUT A “WITCH HUNT” I AM NOT A WITCH. I AM GODS CHILD. PISS OFF ALL OF YOU. F**K REDDITS, F**K YELP AND F**K ALL OF YOU. BRING IT. WE WILL FIGHT BACK.”

Apparently, that was Mrs. Bouzaglos posting these messages, and when Mr. Bouzaglo decided to post his own message, he came across as a mobster:

“This is Samy. I am keeping note of all names here. We will be pursuing action against you legaly, and against reddit and yelp, for this plot you have come together on. You are all just punks.”

No one ever taught the Bouzaglos how to accept criticism apparently. However, this is far from the first social media “screw up” to ever become viral, and although it’s definitely fun for us to watch the train wreck take off, it’s disastrous for the individuals it affects. Consider the examples below, for instance:

Former U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner was caught sending the picture of a man’s crotch (was it his own? Who knows) to a college student via his Twitter account. He proclaimed it was the work of a hacker, but later confessed to sending the photograph and performing the same act to other women over the years. As a result, he resigned in June 2011.
Woody Harrelson made the mistake of treating an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit as casually as he would treat an appearance on a late night talk show plugging his latest film. He indeed did agree to conduct an AMA to plug his new film Rampart, yet every time a fan would attempt to talk to him about a variety of topics, he would always attempt to steer the conversation back to his film. Thus, a huge backlash occurred against Harrelson as “redditors” proclaimed he wasn’t being genuine, and when a redditor told a story involving Harrelson crashing a prom party and sleeping with a student? “Scumbag Woody Harrelson” memes began popping up across the Internet, turning this AMA that should have been a positive aspect for everyone involved into a PR nightmare.
McDonalds started a social media campaign asking people to share their favorite McDonald’s stories by attaching hashtag “#McDStories.” You can only imagine what types of stories were shared with afterward.
Amazingly, Chrysler decided to tweet the following in April, 2012:

“I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f***ing drive.”

Of course, the tweet was deleted and Chrysler apologized.

The social media fiascos mentioned above could easily have been averted, yet everyone has poor judgment from time to time. Of course, there is no excuse for most of the behavior listed above, but how can you avoid social media woes that could make you and/or your business look like an idiot? Here are a few guidelines you should always follow:

#1: Never Oversell

Woody Harrelson made this mistake on his AMA, in that he used social media to continuously push and sell his film to readers. People hate being sold to, and they hate “pushy salespeople,” so for Harrelson to make this mistake (especially on a platform such as Reddit that has a huge user base) was a huge mistake. By overselling numerous times, your posts come across as spam, - an instant turnoff to everyone.

#2: Know Your Audience

Remember the backlash against CEO’s that were publicly stating their disapproval for President Obama via their social media platforms? Papa John’s and Applebee’s made this mistake, and as a result, their sales took a nosedive. If a certain message could potentially offend someone in your audience and created a divide between you and them, think twice before posting. Basically, use common sense.

#3: Never Ignore Complaints

If you are receiving complaints on your social media pages, don’t simply ignore them. People will begin to notice that you only reply to individuals that have something nice to say to you, and as a result, a backlash could potentially form. People will begin to think you do not care, and that is never good.

Also, when responding to complaints, be genuine. Various companies/individuals have seen a host of customers actually stop supporting them because they copied and pasted the same empty and generic message to their customers over and over simply because they didn’t want to take the time to respond to each of them. It shows you don’t care, and it’s a fatal mistake.

#4: Never Ask a Dumb Question

About a year ago, Campbells posted a question that asked a customer their favorite way to eat their soups. His answer: “With my bare hands!” I laughed out loud when I read this, but it’s a lesson you can definitely learn: never ask stupid questions, and never ask open-ended questions that your customers will abuse. For example, if Amy’s Baking Company would have asked their followers, “my favorite place to eat Amy’s baked goods is____,” the answers wouldn’t have been PG-rated, I can assure you.

If you want to see your brand grow via social media, don’t follow the examples of those above (yet do follow the examples of what not to do). Social media is a powerful tool, and by doing the wrong thing, it could have dire consequences. Be fair, be nice, treat your customers with respect, and don’t do anything stupid, and you will not fall prey to any “social media mishaps.”

The Hits and Misses of the New TV Series from 2012/2013

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Bertolin) — Tue, 14 May 2013 23:30:00 +0000

By Christopher D. Spicer

The TV Upfronts are taking place this week, which is when the TV networks and several cable channels unveil their lineup of shows for the fall TV season. The networks are once again promising the newest crop of shows are so magical and magnificent that viewers may achieve the power of flight. In most cases, these new shows just give us the power of the itchy thumb causing us to rapidly press the remote button to avoid them. There are some exciting prospects for the 2013/2014 season such as the return of Michael J. Fox, Marvel producing a live-action series, and Andy Samberg starring in a cop comedy. The fall is still a few months away, but we’re right in the thick of series finales. Here is a look at the success (and failure) of five of the new series that were heavily hyped up last May.

The Americans (FX): This isn’t a network show, but I needed to mention it, because it is by far the best new show of the 2012/2013 season. Antiheroes aren’t a new concept to TV series since we’ve had an army of them over the past decade, but rarely have they been able to provide so many sweet and touching moments that cause the audience to get emotionally connected. The story about KGB agents posing as an American family, with their unaware American born kids, during the Reagan era seems like it would need a CIA agent hero for us to cheer on as he tries to nab the “bad guys.” There is a CIA agent as a crucial character, but this show isn’t really about good or bad, even if each of the characters may believe it is. Kerri Russell and Matthew Rhys are brilliant as the Jennings, and they bring a great depth to the undercover KGB agents. They love their children and even love aspects of America, but have sworn loyalty to the Soviet Union. The series has been able to deliver tons of exciting action scenes, but what really makes it special are the family relationships and its message about trying to make a marriage work. It has also been able to use the 1980s as a way to enhance the story, since spy technology would have been very different, rather than just use the era as an excuse for a retro soundtrack and Pac-Man cameos. I also enjoyed a few storylines involving the kids (such as the hitchhiker story) that were winks to the very common “a very special episode” in the ‘80s.

The Following (FOX): The series garnered some pretty impressive ratings and is considered one of the big new hits of the season. The concept of a former FBI agent coming out of retirement to chase down the serial killer he once put away but then discovering the psycho has now formed an entire cult of crazies is an intriguing horror series concept. But I felt the plot was a little too convoluted and had a few too many far-fetched twists, and it also relied too often on the cops constantly being fooled or finding out yet another person was secretly working for the cult. Yet I found myself watching this show just as loyally as the fantastic The Americans. The reason was the great chemistry between the two leads, Kevin Bacon and James Purefoy. Bacon does an amazing job as the beaten down and emotionally detached cop who is obsessed with catching his nemesis but also trying to work through a very dark past. It was a show that I rolled my eyes at least 50 times an episode, but still found myself invested in the chase thanks to the great performers.

Go On (NBC): Poor Matthew Perry has yet another failed series to add to his post-Friends career. Perry was great in this series as the sports talk show host trying to set his life back on track after the surprise death of his wife. The problem was the wacky characters in his grief counselling group made this show feel like a slightly more emotional and slightly less funny Community. I absolutely love Community (even this past Dan Harmon-less season), but it has only survived this long due to a very vocal following. Go On lacked that, but it also just got weighed down by the sheer number of regular characters. It also struggled trying to decide if it wanted to be a quirky comedy that still tackles the serious topic of grief or just yet another silly relationship sitcom. I’ll still miss Perry being on my screen, because my heart says I must always cheer for him.

The Mindy Project (FOX): This is another show I stuck with because I love the lead actor. Mindy Kaling is a cute and wonderful comedian, and the cast for the most part complimented her style of humour. At the best points in the series, it was a great parody/homage to the classic romantic comedy tropes and clichés, and every episode was littered with witty jabs at pop culture. It had some uneven moments where the jokes clunked hard against the wall or the storyline was a leaping over the line of the ridiculous. Most sitcoms usually need the first season to sort out what they want to be, and there were several episodes where the show successfully went against formula and provided some unexpected laughs. I’m glad it has been renewed, and I have faith the second season will be much stronger and present the very unique series that has been hinted at this season.

Vegas (CBS): Dennis Quaid’s foray on the small screen got Pan Amed. It was another period piece drama with a big Hollywood star, and I’m sure Christina Ricci will send Quaid a gift basket to make it all better. I was initially really excited about the concept of Sheriff Lamb trying to keep order in ’60s Las Vegas as the casinos rise and start attracting the mafia. Michael Chiklis was a great choice as the gangster to rival Quaid. CBS seems set on all their dramas being procedurals, and the show’s storytelling was hurt by the “crime of the week” format. Unlike The Americans, this show never fully embraced its time period, and I often forgot the series was set in the ‘60s. It was a great concept that needed a more ambitious execution, but I’m sure Quaid and Chiklis will find other projects to take a gamble on.

Hey, did I mention you really should watch The Americans?

The Blackberry Q10: A Review

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Bertolin) — Tue, 14 May 2013 02:16:00 +0000

By Steve Tocher

In the past three years, it feels like I've written about the newest Blackberry's company saving product at least half-dozen times. Even in the face of crashing stocks, unsuccessful software and hardware, I must admit Blackberry is very resilient. Now on the edge of complete destruction, Blackberry puts all of its marbles into one bag with the release of the Q10, and there may be no better product to hang the entire fate of the company on, as it looks like it could be a real people pleaser. The Q10 seems to have successfully intertwined business, fun and a strong social presence into one phone, something Blackberry was never able to properly accomplish over the past.

Since hearing about this rumored phone almost two years ago, I for one was excited! I'm still plugging away and doing work on my Blackberry 9000; that's right track ball and all! In fact I'm writing this whole article on my lovely keyboard like I’ve done so many times during the past. The 9000 (with a few small hitches from time to time) has given me almost four years of reliability. So when I heard that a full touch screen was going to be merged together with an even better keyboard and a faster typing interface, I was really eager to try it out and in the summer of 2012 when I first saw the machine, it was truly impressive; The bigger keys for typing, the ability to access just about any website and the nice sized screen for gaming and videos was so refreshing to see from Blackberry. Nevertheless, I had seen such potential before in the past with phones like the Torch, and even though tempted, I wasn’t ready to give in just yet.

Now that the Z10 (the fully touch screen phone from Blackberry) has been in circulation for a few months and seeing how useful the smart keyboard is working, the general public’s faith in Blackberry seems to be growing again. And this is all without the world-renowned keyboard. Aside from that the Z10 and the Q10 are extremely similar. The social hub looks like a marvelous way to instantly keep in touch with people as well as giving the user a chance to get business done right away. The key to using the " hub " is that you only have to swipe left to right, and immediately you can access everything's that’s social, in a seamless messaging feed. This saves precious seconds on every message that would be spent usually going from program to program, which over the day helps out with those pressure deadlines when 5 minutes of extra time on a project, can feel like five hours.

As a social bug myself, the appeal of the " hub " and the keyboard alone draws me in. However, it doesn't stop there, the ability to program your own word shortcuts really makes you feel like the Q10 is your own personal social bug that you fully control. Moreover, when I do have some down time, I can watch a TV show or start gaming on the brilliant sized screen, something that was lacking in Blackberry’s of old. Finally, as Blackberry starts to grow again, hopefully their app store continues to grow as well.

The fact is that people will still be turned off by Blackberry's past failures and may never come back or even attempt to deviate from their full-on touch screens. Nevertheless, as for the new younger social bugs that type even faster and think, Blackberry is a trendy throwback now, there’s room for the Q10 to be loved by a brand new generation. And let’s not forget all the diehard fans that have been greatly anticipating a new fully functional smart phone. For the first time in 3 years Blackberry might be able to take their finger off of the panic button with their solid new Q10.

For more on the Q10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYKFpEOSyUQ

What Is The Difference Between Content Marketing And Social Media Marketing?

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Bertolin) — Mon, 13 May 2013 11:07:00 +0000

By The Collective Publishing Company Inc.

Even today, at a time when many businesses realize that content marketing is the future of their marketing effort, some still aren’t clear about what exactly this term means. One of the most basic mistakes they make is to conflate content marketing with social media marketing.

This isn’t a completely mistaken notion – content marketing does involve the use of Facebook and other such channels and social media marketers get their point across through the use of interesting content on their social networks. Social media marketing and content marketing, though, are two distinct kinds of marketing effort with different aims and methods. The following are the ways in which they are different.

They have different objectives

Businesses usually use social media marketing for two main purposes. They use it to create brand awareness – marketing buzz around their name. They also use it to let consumers ask questions about their products or voice their complaints.

In content marketing, by contrast, the aim is long-term engagement to the customer base to try to generate goodwill and demand. Businesses place high-quality content on their website to bring people there. Once they arrive and are engaged with the brand, they hope to funnel them to their social media presences in order to convert them into paying customers.

The difference, then, lies in how close to the conversion step each kind of marketing method is.

They focus on different spaces

When a business does social media marketing, all the content it creates lives right on the social media – on Facebook, Google+ or Twitter, for instance. Social media marketers are flexible about the content they create. They could create 140 character messages if they were dealing with Twitter, for instance. The aim of the content is to entertain or educate right there on the social network or to get the consumer to visit the website of the business to buy something.

When content marketers use Facebook, their aim is not to put their message across right there but to inform visitors about the content present on the main content website. They don’t try to convert the reader into a customer then and there. Content marketers aren’t flexible about their content, either. They don’t try to create attractive content for Twitter. It’s all about where the focus is – in content marketing, the focus is not on the social networks.

Social media marketing is far more common today

Social media marketing has been around for several years now. Marketers are far more aware of it and more involved. On the other hand, content marketing is newer. Fewer marketers are aware of it or are willing to go along with the expense involved in long-term customer engagement that doesn’t directly lead to conversions.

The Internet gives even small businesses today the ability to directly get in touch with their customer base without going through the advertising industry in the middle. Content marketing and social media marketing are not opposed in any way. They are simply two important parts of the modern online marketing effort.

Vintage Seashell Jewelry is the Perfect Summer Accessory

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Bertolin) — Sun, 12 May 2013 11:29:00 +0000

By The Collective Publishing Company Inc.

Have you been searching for the perfect accessory to accent your summer wardrobe? Look no further than vintage necklaces, earrings and bracelets strung with seashells. They are a perfect fit for this summer's chunky jewelry trend. There are many vintage seashell beauties out there. They can be found in antiques and collectibles shops, flea markets and yard sales by the dozens. Here are some reasons why you'll love wearing vintage seashell jewelry:

Lightweight:

In the summer time, we gladly cast aside our extra layers for breezy lightweight and sheer fabrics. Much of our heavy winter jewelry is too oppressive for the casual and comfortable summer style we crave. Seashell pieces are as lightweight as trendy plastic resin jewelry. But they are made out of a natural, earth-friendly material. Natural pieces are so much more pleasing because they mimic the vibes of the outdoors -- the fresh air and sunshine -- of summer.

Visually Soothing:

Are you a fan of brightly colored summer styles reminiscent of the tropics? Or do crisp, classic nautical lines in red, white and navy blue appeal to you? No matter your summer style, vintage seashell jewelry will compliment your look perfectly. Seashells are typically found in beiges, browns and muted pastel colors. These soft colors give the eye a soothing resting place on your ensemble.

Pleasant Sound:

Have you ever noticed the faint rustling sound that multiple shells strung together make as they move? It sounds a lot like a summer breeze blowing through the dry leaves on the forest floor. This soft rustling sound is wonderfully calming. It's like pond ripples lapping gently upon the shore as a small fishing boat passes by. Or a set of soothing shell wind chimes by a baby's crib that lulls it to sleep. You will carry this calm aura with you as your seashell jewelry gently rustles in response to your every move.

Budget and Eco-Friendly:

When you reach a certain age, you realize that fashion trends follow a very cyclic pattern. There is no knowing when treasured articles of clothing and jewelry will be popular again, but rest assured, they will indeed come back someday. That's just how it is with seashell jewelry. It has been a beloved accessory on and off for over a hundred years. Amazingly, many of these vintage treasures can be purchased for ten dollars or less. The fact that vintage seashell jewelry pieces are eco-friendly is an added plus. They were made long ago with natural materials. You can't get much more eco-friendly than that!

Complement your wardrobe this summer with vintage seashell jewelry. Seashell necklaces, bracelets and earrings are stylish and comfortable. They are also budget and eco-friendly. Whether at the opera house or at the beach, vintage seashell pieces will provide you with a lovely look in harmony with nature and the glorious summer season.

Will Facebook Become the “King of Search?

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Bertolin) — Sat, 11 May 2013 03:57:00 +0000

By Dustin Wright

It was early this year that the question ‘Will Facebook Revolutionize Search As We Know It,’ was introduced, yet the question has yet to be fully answered by Facebook itself. However, it’s still a very valid question, as Facebook’s Graph Search has yet to be ready for “prime time.” Currently, Facebook’s answer to Google is still in beta and only available to a few Facebook members. The reasoning for this is because many of the “bugs” have yet to be worked out, as you have to know that Zuckerburg and company are going to do their part to ensure Graph Search is as perfect as possible before it is rolled out to everyone.

For those not in the know, Graph Search differs from traditional search provided by Google and Bing. Rather, Graph Search focuses on four main areas: people, photos, interests, and places. By focusing on these four core categories, Facebook users will be able to conduct personalized search queries based on their Friends ‘Likes’ as well as the entire demographic of Facebook.

If you’re still confused, consider this example. Let’s say you were in the mood to watch a new movie, yet you wanted to make sure you weren’t going to be disappointed with your choice. Using Graph Search, you could simply type a search query such as “Films my friends enjoy,” and from there you will see a list of films your friends have liked. Going further, let’s pretend you saw Die Hard as a film listed in the search query, which made you think to yourself, “I’m in the mood for a great action movie.” Simply type, “Action films my friends like” (or the variant), and you will see a list of action films your friends have ‘Liked.’ Going further, you could also narrow the results down by year, the language spoken in the film, and who starred in the film.

But what if you don’t trust everything your friends like? Graph Search will also allow you to compare the films your friends ‘Liked’ across Facebook users in your area. However, this isn’t always ideal as sometimes you need a much broader list of results. As another example, let’s say I want to watch a thrilling Asian horror film, yet because I live in the Midwest of the United States, not enough people are going to have ‘Liked’ enough Asian horror films for me to be able to discover which particular Asian horror films are worth my while. Again, with Graph Search, I can expand my search to Facebook users across the United States, North America, the entire Western Hemisphere if I preferred, and likely the world. I could even expand this search to discover which Asian horror films rated the highest on Netflix, making Graph Search invaluable for finding personalized information on the fly.

Of course, this philosophy of search is incredibly different from anything we are used to, and it begs the question: how flexible will Graph Search actually be, and how can it possibly dethrone the king of search, Google? Sure, it may very well become the prominent way to discover new forms of entertainment, and it may even become many people’s go-to destination for finding new attractions in their location, but beyond that? How well will it be able to find the information you need?

For example, if you have a child that is conducting a research paper, how flexible will Graph Search be whenever your child tries to find the discoverers of Plutonium? The meanings behind certain phrases in the works of Shakespeare? To that end, it seems as if the traditional way of searching (typing in a certain search query and being provided listings based on keywords rather than ‘Likes’) will be the preferred way to search for this type of information.

It’s because of this that Graph Search does not appear to be a “Google Killer” by any means. Sure, Facebook is partnering with Bing to help them in their quest to overthrow Google, but even so, it doesn’t look as if it is going to happen, and for one reason: Google has 30-trillion pages indexed, whereas Facebook relies the ‘Likes’ of your friends and its users. Even though Facebook has more than 1-billion monthly active members, how many ‘Likes’ is it going to take per user to even come close to challenging the sheer amount of pages that are indexed with Google? Literally, Google has the entire Internet indexed, and it will continue to do so.

In the end, the only way Facebook is going to win the search engine wars is if they make it easier for us to search for the information that we need. We need to be able to search and find literally anything in a matter of seconds, and we need to be able to do so without sifting through pages of search results no how specific or non-specific the search query made be. It’s going to be difficult, and the chances of Facebook being able to pull this feat off is very unlikely (especially because, again, Facebook’s search infrastructure is based on ‘Likes’ rather than indexes), and because of this, you should expect Google to stay on top for the foreseeable future. Then again, Facebook has always been surprising.

Do You Really See Why You Should Put Your Business On Tumblr?

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Bertolin) — Fri, 10 May 2013 02:56:00 +0000

By The Collective Publishing Company Inc.

Marketers are supposed to maintain a great presence on a half-dozen social networks these days. What with Facebook, Google+ and Twitter, among many others, is there really a call for one more? Should you consider Tumblr?

Getting on Tumblr does make sense

Getting on Tumblr is a great idea because Tumblr’s features encourage visitors to engage the business just as much as the business engages them. What are we talking about? How could it engage anyone better than Facebook?

Starting at the beginning, what is Tumblr exactly?

Tumblr is a microblogging platform – it allows you to create little free blogs on the Tumblr website. It has gathered about 100 million bloggers ever since it got started six years ago.

Tumblr is famous and well-loved for having pioneered something called re-blogging. If a blogger on Tumblr likes a post that he sees on another Tumblr blog, he can reblog it (with comments added of his own if he wants).

It appears on his Tumblr blog then as if it was his own (attributions are often included). This allows bloggers to populate their blog with content without doing much of their own sometimes. It is also an idea that Pinterest made its own later with considerable success.

Many content marketers are horrified at the idea of basing their marketing on a site where it will be freely copied? You do gain in two ways, though.

If you have a link placed in a popular and trending post, you can have traffic come in from that. The other way in which you gain comes up below.

Here are a few pointers on how to win with Tumblr.

Target one niche group on Tumblr and serve them

Tumblr blogs are meant to appeal to tiny, specialized niches. You need to pick your most important target demographic and cater to them. Until you learn about what they like, it’s usually a good idea to only choose one or two topics to do with your brand that you really understand. A look at your competitors’ Tumblrs (not to mention the Tumblrs of trendy businesses) should help you understand what to aim for.

You can often get ideas for lots of great content by exploring all the tags that are most popular on Tumblr. Looking for posts attached to tags like WTF and LOL often get lots of good material.

Get your own Tumblr look

Since you are a business with resources, you don’t need to use generic Tumblr templates. Tumblr is all about the visuals. Get a beautiful custom Tumblr look that would go over well with your audiences.

Put your stamp on it

The main utility of creating your own original Tumblr post is that other Tumblr bloggers will pick it up and reblog it to the end of time. You get your name spread to the four corners of the world this way. This is the main point of getting on Tumblr. You just need to make sure that your name is always attached to your original creation – place a visible watermark on each post.

Is Google Keep a Keeper? Or Is Evernote Still The Best?

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Bertolin) — Thu, 09 May 2013 02:00:00 +0000

By The Collective Publishing Company Inc.

Evernote has been the worldwide standard for years now for anyone using the Internet who just needs a place to quickly store notes, links, ideas, pictures or anything else on the fly and to keep them organized. The service has been so successful that Google has decided to get in on the business.

Google launched Google Keep in March – its digital note-taking challenge to Evernote.

Google is positioning Keep as a way to organize all the Post-It notes that you create through your day – both online and off – in one convenient place. Once your notes are online, they appear on any device you may use Keep on.

Keep even has a fun little audio transcription feature that lets you dictate an audio note and have it transcribed automatically. If you’d like to create a picture note, you get to annotate it in whatever way you choose.

The selling point to note-keeping software, of course, is that it lets you organize and search through your notes. Google, being the search company that it is, has a robust search function included on Keep.

Once you have a bunch of notes prepared, Keep displays them as a list or as a grid. You can color code your notes, too. This is a useful and intuitive way to categorize your notes.

Sharing is the order of the day

When it comes to keeping online notes, sharing is a killer idea. If you have a quick set of notes jotted down or a to-do list, Keep lets you easily share it with anyone you choose. To share, you simply view the note in full-screen mode and then tap the Share icon on it. Right away, you get to share it with Gmail or another app.

Storing and sharing webpages is a possibility on Keep, too. You could open a webpage on Chrome, for instance, tap the Share icon and pick Keep from the list of options that opens up. Right away, Keep gets a copy of the webpage. The webpage grabbing function doesn’t work quite well yet. Keep doesn’t seem to be able to save and display images and URLs properly.

The desktop version is less capable

If the poor webpage grabbing on the Android version of Keep seems like a let down, the desktop version is even worse. To begin, when you try to access your Keep on Google Drive, you see that there isn’t a link there yet. You need to type in the entire Keep URL out by hand.

If you try to copy a link to a webpage to save to a note on Keep on your computer, it isn’t able to make the link active. It just saves it as plain, unclickable text.

In conclusion…

The bottom line is that Keep is a promising note-taking possibility today that isn’t quite ready for prime time. If your entire life is on Google, you will probably appreciate having Keep keeping you company. Otherwise, for now, Evernote is still the right choice.

‘Iron Man 3’ Review: A Spectacular Blast Off into Blockbuster Season

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Bertolin) — Wed, 08 May 2013 02:02:00 +0000

By Christopher D. Spicer

Comic book films from a few decades ago were expected to be campy, humorous, and tongue-in-cheek. It would still normally serve up great visual effects, action, and atmosphere, but the goal was to be easily digestible fun. The expectations for comic book films have changed greatly in the past decade. Christopher Nolan’s Batman series shifted comic book films towards being grittier, darker, and sometimes even thought-provoking. The pictures often spoke on social and political issues, and would have some major dramatic scenes. Iron Man 3 and director Shane Black plows through the current expectations of the comic book action films and brings the genre back to the goofy and fun.

Black is best known for writing the scripts to the Lethal Weapon series, which were action pictures that didn’t take themselves too seriously and provided better jokes than most comedies. The flavour of borderline parody mixed with amazing special effects and high octane action is present in this picture. This is a comic book film of old that expects you to not think through the plot or details too much, but rather just enjoy the fast cinematic roller coaster thrill ride. This film diverges from those past movies with jaw dropping special effects and heart pounding action sequences. This picture looks really good and the action scenes aren’t just a bunch of mindless and loud explosions, but rather sequences you can actually follow.

There is also a little thing called a plot, but Black seems to realize most don’t come to a film like this for such things and so it is paper thin at best. A terrorist known as the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), who purposefully makes you think about Osama Bin Laden, is perpetuating a series of large scale attacks and bombings on America. The terrorist is also aligned with a mad scientist names Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) who has a vendetta against Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), because he left him out on the roof of a building one cold New Year’s Eve. In order to increase the stakes, Stark’s girlfriend, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) plays damsel in distress for the majority of the picture and must be rescued while Stark battles with constant anxiety issues.

Downey embraces the camp and comedic elements of this picture to pull of an absolutely unforgettable performance as Tony Stark/Iron Man. I am confident that he is the only actor in Hollywood that could have brought this level of charm and magic to the role, and along with the great special effects, is what makes this a worthy picture. There is some depth to his role such as how he conveys the anxiety attacks and he has a wonderful chemistry with Paltrow, but he steals the show with his wit and charisma. It is an award nominee worthy level performance, but unfortunately, I doubt the selection committee would consider a big blockbuster action film for actor categories.

A comic book flick can only be as good as its villain. Both Pearce and Kingsley are effective in their roles, especially Pearce who has a creepy charisma. I may not have really understood all the motives or how they implemented their plans to rule the world, but everything they did was with the right level of flair and deliciously over-the-top evilness. They’re also backed up with a bunch of super powered soldiers fueled with a diabolical drug that gives them the strength and abilities to be a real challenge for Iron Man.

Don Cheadle is an absolute delight and a great partner for Iron Man as James Rhodes who also dons his own mechanical armour to become Iron Patriot. He fires several great action move one-liners and seems to fit in perfectly with the action setting. Cheadle is an incredibly talented and diverse actor who really helps elevate every scene that he is in.

The last cast member that really deserves mention is Ty Simpkins who plays a young boy named Harley. Cute kids in action pictures are usually the recipe for disaster, but his relationship with Stark never gets too sentimental or sappy. Actually, Simpkins proves to have a fair amount of wit and some of the funnier scenes in the picture are the exchanges between the two. This is the shining example of how a child can be used effectively in an action film, and he turns out to be a great character for the all the young audience members to relate with.

For a big budget action focused thrill ride, it has a few unexpected twists and surprises. I was impressed that a third film in a series actually still had some originality left and I wasn’t able to call the end result of every scene. There are also a fair share of predictable elements but it is done with such energy and it’s often surrounded by eye popping visuals that you won’t be disappointed. Though how much you appreciate some of the twists and surprises is going to depend if you’ve been enjoying the vibe of the film, because this really is a film embracing camp and the comical side of the genre. If you accept this is a movie with a pure objective of entertainment then you’ll happily follow the direction the film takes you and enjoy some of the bigger turns.

The film does end up straying a little too far into parody and comedy. The absurdity is largely entertaining, but it lessens the impact of what are supposed to be some of the more dramatic scenes. The terrorism aspect of the film seems out of place in what is a fun romp, and so the picture may have been better off with a more James Bond-like villain who is just content with world domination. There is a film long storyline about Stark’s anxiety attacks, but more often just feel like comic relief rather than actual depth to the character.

It is rather foolish trying to complain about such things, because this film’s aim is to just be a giant party. I watched this picture in a packed theatre and the crowd was rocking the entire time. After about a half hour I realized one must turn off the brain and just allow the film to amaze and entertain. This is an explosive and charming kick off to the wild summer blockbuster season.

Rating: ***

What Experienced Marketers Are Saying About Inbound Marketing and Seniors!

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Bertolin) — Tue, 07 May 2013 02:03:00 +0000

By Diane Bertolin

We received a great deal of attention when we did two blogs on marketing to seniors and baby boomers. It was actually surprising the number of hits we got on these blogs, which leads us to believe that we (the marketing companies) are mystified on how to market to seniors via the Internet.

So to pursue the matter further, I decided to sit down with the principals of Vicbar Marketing, Vicki Griffiths and Barry Solway, who both have more marketing and PR experience and success than I could even dream of. They represent and work with some of the biggest real estate companies in Canada. Their client list is considered to be a “who’s who” in Toronto’s real estate circles. They have provided services to many other industries as well. With more than thirty years of experience each, they are superstars in the business.

I asked these two boomers what it would take for a business to appeal to them online. Solway went to what he thought is at the heart of the matter. “Marketers are treating seniors and boomers like their parents,” he said. “Their marketing approaches are often condescending and assume that seniors don’t know anything about the net, which simply isn’t true.” Griffiths went further and stated, “Marketers and brands should be welcoming seniors and boomers to their sites and social media channels.”

Griffiths further explained that seniors and boomers have adapted to the technology for a number of reasons, and none is more important than being able to stay in touch with children and grandchildren. “So they are on Facebook or Twitter, and they know how to text and do a search.”

Apparently, they are not wrong. According to a study conducted by Stats Canada that explored consumption of culture by older Canadians on the Internet, “Older Canadians increased their Internet usage markedly over the 2000s but remained less likely to use the Internet than younger age groups. In 2010, 29% of people age 75 and over and 60% of those 65 to 74 had used the Internet in the previous month, while Internet use among those ages 15 to 24 was almost universal.” Although the study focused primarily on older people who used the Internet for the consumption of cultural products, such as books, movies, and music, it did draw one conclusion that applies to all marketers: “As Internet-literate baby boomers are about to enter their later years, they represent an important market for new products and platforms, which may be designed to meet their needs.”

Griffiths and Solway agreed with the study’s findings. They both stated that companies and brands must welcome older people to their sites. “They have to recognize there are a number of things they want: travel, fashion, health products, care solutions, wise investment advice. They may not be comfortable giving credit card information on the net; they would be more than willing to order something and call it in!” Griffiths said. Solway added, “It is really about marketers and companies being innovative and inviting—and recognizing that their customers who may be 70, don’t feel 70 or see themselves as old.”

So the message is simple to inbound marketers everywhere: older people are already looking at your websites and social media channels. The question is, are you talking to them?

If SEO Doesn't Get You Results Anymore, What Will Take Its Place?

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Bertolin) — Sun, 05 May 2013 23:30:00 +0000

By The Collective Publishing Company Inc.

Only a few years ago, search engine optimization was the most cutting edge marketing science possible. Today, though, as difficult to master as SEO still is, it isn’t as relevant as it once was. Instead, marketers have moved on to concentrate on the next big thing – content marketing.

When SEO reigned supreme, marketers (especially the fly-by-night kind) realized that all they needed to rank high in the search results and attract plenty of visitors was to pull a few cheap tricks. They just had to create keyword-stuffed articles, create websites with names that were exact matches to popular keyword phrases and so on. When users saw these websites rank at the top, they would naturally visit them (only to be horrified at the kind of unintelligible keyword-filled nonsense they saw there). Some would click on an ad or two, though, which was all they wanted. There were always ways available to profitably optimize for the search engines without being of interest to people.

Fortunately (for the reading public – not the marketers), the search engines aren’t easy to manipulate this way anymore. Online businesses now owe a large part of their website traffic to the social networks. To some retailers, even Pinterest, the image-based social network, is a top traffic source.

Google, though, is still an important way to get visitors. What marketers need to do, then, is to relearn the rules of search engine optimization. They need to bring to SEO the best practices that work for social media popularity.

The new rules

Content that tries to attract search engine interest with a few simple, old-fashioned tricks doesn’t work anymore.

Your content needs to pique people’s interest enough to make them want to share it.
You should do your keyword research, but only to find out what topics people are interested in – not to find a keyword to stuff your content with.
Keep your social appeal in mind as you create your web presence. People don’t simply care about what you do now – they care for what you stand for, as well. Your stand should be apparent to your audiences. Exxon isn’t going to fool anybody simply by getting on the environmental bandwagon and writing fascinating content about the health of the planet, for instance.

Successful content publishers today rely on the social networks for timely traffic after they publish a video or article. They build a vast catalog of content that gets huge social share numbers over time and do basic competent SEO. This is how publishing success comes today.

Going for holistic appeal

Search engine algorithms today favor the really invested publisher. Only such a publisher usually has material that is able to get consistent social signals, great search signals and links from authoritative websites, all at once. Even if one does find a way to cheat the system on all three counts, chances are that it won’t work for long. The search engine algorithms are constantly refined.

Working on content distribution

If you can’t depend on cheap SEO tricks to get readers to your content, what ways do you have to get readership? Certainly, promoting your stories on the social networks is a great way. But there are other things to do, too.

Our brain is one possibility. This content recommendation service places links to your content in front of readers everywhere. There are others too –Zemanta is a useful service, for instance.

It doesn’t pay to simply depend on Google anymore. You need to expand your reach.

Why I love being a Social Media Manager and Why You Should Hire My Company to Do Yours.

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Bertolin) — Sat, 04 May 2013 20:53:00 +0000

By Diane Bertolin

I don’t often write about the company I own and the services it provides, but today I’m going to do exactly that.

The company is quickly approaching its second anniversary. We have published 773 blogs in that time. They have covered politics, the economy, pop culture, fashion and inbound marketing. We have done book, game, technology, and restaurant reviews. Why do we write on such a variety of topics? We want to be interesting. We also want our readers to have all the information they need to run their business. You cannot make decisions about your business without a clear understanding of what is happening in the economy or in the political realm—at least that is our humble opinion.

All of our content is original and, as the publisher, it can be challenging to keep the blog fresh. Nevertheless, I love it, and my goals are to expand the magazine one day and hire an editor-in-chief to run it, but I’m getting too far ahead myself.

However, I love something more than running the magazine, and that is inbound marketing. I’m crazy about the work, and I never imagined in a million years that I would be doing such a thing. There is just something so cool about working with companies and individuals and developing their online presences.

When I’m hired by a business, I have the privilege of getting to know that company and the people who run those businesses. I need to know who they are, what they value, how they communicate, what their foundation is, what their talents and creativity are, how they get their work done, what their relationships are with their partners, what they want that they don’t have, what their culture is, what they see as their highest potential, how their customers see them, and how their internal bureaucracy works.

It is from this point that my detective energy emerges, and I begin to seek keywords that will be optimal, list directories that will be appropriate, and link building opportunities. From there, my storyteller energy puts together a plan that will communicate and clarify the businesses vision online. What’s important as an inbound marketer is that I don’t impose my vision on the business I’m working with. It’s significant that I get its story right, and that its vision is articulated. I love spending time to figure it out for the client.

I work hard at making sure that anyone who uses our services understands that integrity is necessary when developing your online presence. If you follow any of our blogs, you would have noticed that a number of them deal with what not to do with your inbound marketing. There is a reason for this. We have seen the disasters. We like to point to J.C. Penney when they purchased bad back links and, afterwards, were punished by Google and found themselves no longer ranking on the web. We remind our clients this race is more like a marathon than a sprint.

I could be one of those flashy agencies that provide you with a super-slick sales pitch that promises you the world, but that is not me. I’m just a no-nonsense gal who wants to get you noticed on the web by clever blogging and posting.

However, my personal satisfaction comes when a client is freed from all the worry of inbound marketing, and they go back to being the creators and thought leaders in their business. It’s not that they don’t watch or pay attention to their online presence—they certainly do. But what they notice is more traffic to their websites, more calls to their businesses, more comments on their social channels, and, most importantly, new customers. And that is when I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

We would love to help your business get noticed! If you like our approach, go ahead and give us a call at 416-571-8514 or 519-967-1422. You can also e-mail us at diane@thecollectivepc.com. Please note we do work with international clients.

Not the flashiest sales pitch you will ever get but it is sincere.

Content Marketing is Changing – Here’s How to Stay Ahead

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Bertolin) — Sat, 04 May 2013 00:39:00 +0000

By Dustin Wright

Without a doubt, content marketing has become one of the most important tactics individuals and entities alike can use to market their brand, products, and so on. The old saying is “content is king,” and this is especially true on the Web. You need content to stay relevant, no matter if you are an online florist, a self-published author trying to sell novels, or even an auto mechanic that wants to be seen by individuals in their community. Gone are the days of simply having a website, sitting back, and watching your business skyrocket (in fact, those days were never here in the first place – it’s simply a mindset many people had 10+ years ago), as you need to continuously produce new content for your website in order to stay relevant. Content equals relevance in the online world, and you cannot escape that fact.

However, there is a new trend emerging in the content marketing world; a trend that aims to replace short, simple blog posts with long posts filled with visuals and the like. Video marketing and blogging have become popular among Internet marketers as of late, as widely viewed videos related to one’s website improves page ranks considerably. If you think about it, it makes sense – especially when you consider the popularity of YouTube. Millions of people watch videos on YouTube alone every day, meaning video content is in higher demand more than ever. Thus, when you create a video that garners a large quantity of views and is linked back to your website, you will see your page rank climb. Apply this approach in your marketing game plan, and again you are going to see your page rank climb steadily.

However, creating video to apply to your content is simply one tool that you have at your disposal. You see, content marketing is moving into the visual realm, in which it is imperative that you use visuals in your content to compliment the text of the content whenever possible. Moreover, it is also crucial that you use multiple visual tactics in each piece of content in order to maximize your reach.

Thus, effective content marketing no longer consists of publishing one sole type of content. For example, to use content marketing to its maximum benefit, it is no longer suitable to publish a blog posts full of keywords, a post with a short description followed by an embedded YouTube clip, an embedded gallery of images and minimal text to make a particular point, and so on. Rather, you must take the YouTube clip, the images, expand the blog post, piece them together, and turn your content into a “content powerhouse” that is going to get the attention of your audience.

This next evolution of content marketing takes Aristotle’s quote, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” quite literally. You can also think about it in terms of an automobile. While a vehicle must have dependable tires, transmission, and a body that will protect you, by themselves what good are they? The same can be said about using videos, images, and short blog posts on their own: while they are all crucial to your marketing game plan, by themselves they really will not help you to reach that “next level” that you are striving for. Rather, you must use visual imagery and blog posts in unison to create content that will not only get your point across as easily as possible, but will also attract the attention of Google and increase your page rank considerably.

Moreover, using visual imagery such as videos and images to get your point across without driving your audience away is easier than ever (and luckily for you, Google loves visual imagery that is seen often and is popular). Literally anyone can use visual imagery tactics to get their point across in an effective manner, and the best part? Making your own visual images such as videos, pictures, and even infographics has never been easier! Anyone can create a video from a webcam, post it to YouTube, and embed it into a post on their website, and services such as Infogr.am allow individuals to create their own infographics with ease.

However, this does not mean you can simply litter your content with visual imagery and call it a day. For example, if you were tasked with creating content that described complicated money-saving patterns and predictions that followed workers from their youth to retirement age, you wouldn’t want to describe this information in writing (besides, how many paragraphs would it take to describe this information to someone anyway)? However, you wouldn’t want to litter the content with pages upon pages of Powerpoint images, followed by a set of videos of you talking about the topic. Likely no one would finish reading the content to begin with, meaning your page rank for that particular piece of content would basically stay at a standstill. Thus, the trick you must learn when appropriately applying this new content marketing technique is not how much visual imagery you use, but how you use it.

So how would you use visual imagery to get your point across in the scenario above? This is where I will showcase the beauty of infographics. When using infographics appropriately, you will be showing your audience a particular piece of information rather than telling them the information (this is a lifesaver when the information is boring). By inputting this information into an infographic, you are able to describe paragraphs of information in one, easy-on-the-eyes infographic. Infographics are like viewing pages of knowledge and digesting them in an instant, and they are assuredly lifesavers when it comes to getting your message across quickly and efficiently.

Of course, infographics are simply one tool you can use to create stellar content that will rank incredibly well. Videos, images, even audio clips are all fair game, and as stated previously, it is now easier than ever to create this type of content for yourself. The rule you must remember is to use content that compliments the text in your content, and by following this simple yet vital rule and practicing it religiously, ranking in Google and other popular search engines will no longer be just a dream!

Is Your Business Guilty of Trying to Score a Few Cheap Points on Twitter in a National Tragedy?

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Bertolin) — Fri, 03 May 2013 00:34:00 +0000

By The Collective Publishing Company Inc.

Many businesses don’t entirely understand how to work with the social media. For instance, they’ve learned that it’s often a good way to gain popularity to use Twitter to say something relevant about a trending story. What they seem often to not have learned, though, is to use their heads and to be sensitive.

Take the Boston Marathon bombing tragedy, for instance. As soon as the story broke, many businesses got on Twitter to say something relevant, and promptly did a terrible job. Like Arkansas politician Nate Bell, they would say something offensively partisan (this politician put out a tweet that went “I wonder how many Boston liberals spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a hi-capacity magazine?”), or something quite insensitive like the food website Epicurious (this website tweeted “In honor of Boston and New England, may we suggest: whole-grain cranberry scones!”).

It can take businesses a long time to recover from such unpleasant comments on the social media. It’s important for businesses to respond with tact, sensitivity and intelligence when a major event takes place.

First, feel honest feelings

Whatever feelings you wish to have your Twitter followers see you feel, try to honestly feel them first. What would you do if you really felt those feelings – would you send an email to all your employees expressing solidarity or anything else that was appropriate? If you would, you should take those actions first.

Don’t say anything simply to take advantage of an event

Only weigh in if there’s a reason for you or your business to have personal feelings about the event – say, because it’s happened in your area or it’s a cause that’s dear to you. If you do have to weigh in even without the personal connection, keep in mind that saying anything that could be construed as political could seem lacking good taste.

Don’t be a source of bad information

It could be a good idea to pack your tweets with information that could help people. This would be the compassionate thing to do. Many hurriedly composed tweets contain bad information or links, though. You won’t look good to anyone who uses your information and finds out that it’s inaccurate. Every tweet should be thoroughly vetted for factual accuracy and for the accuracy of its links.

Make sure that the sentiments expressed in your tweets don’t disagree with your other marketing activities

If the person in charge of your tweets isn’t in touch with the rest of the marketing department, your business could put out tweets that seem very compassionate on the one hand and draw attention to itself over its super Friday afternoon discounts on the other. This can look very unbecoming. It’s important in any crisis, to put a stop to all regular marketing activity.

The social media aren’t a marketing afterthought anymore. You can’t make mistakes and easily recover now the way you could a couple of years ago when Twitter and Facebook weren’t very important to the marketing success of a business. It’s important for any business today to have a social media crisis plan in place. That’s the only way to prevent any serious faux pas.

Is This Why Your Content Marketing Doesn’t Convert Well?

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Bertolin) — Thu, 02 May 2013 02:12:00 +0000

By The Collective Publishing Company Inc.,

Does your content marketing department always apply the best principles of conversion rate optimization (or CRO) to the work it does? Many content marketers merely think of good CRO in terms of the niceties– such as deciding on where the hotspots on a webpage are to place offer ads.

In truth, though, CRO goes much deeper – the aim of the exercise is to create a satisfying user experience overall that encourages conversion.

Quality CRO isn’t difficult. It’s something that many content marketing websites simply violate for reasons of carelessness, though.

Choosing too small a font

The world can be an intimidating place to anyone over 40. A lot of the print used on websites and on devices like mobile phones, is microscopic and indecipherable to presbyopic eyes that cannot focus very well at short distances. It’s astonishing that retail websites that need to convert visitors and sell to them would make themselves inaccessible to the wealthiest demographic they had.

Presbyopia apart, small print simply tends look academic and uninviting. A medium-sized font appears more inviting people than a small one.

Is your website meant to be read or looked at?

Currently, one of the most popular ways for web designers to try to look cool is to use light print on a dark background.

You’ll usually find such print schemes on the websites of graphic design companies and advertising agencies. These content managers (and their web designers) forget that the content they distribute is meant to be read – not to be looked at for its coolness.

The shorter the paragraphs, the better

Internet reading is more difficult than print reading. It’s more difficult to keep your attention span focused when it’s a screen that you read from. This is why content writers for the Internet always make a point to write short sentences. Long ones tend to be complex and turn people off.

Much the same could be said for paragraph length. Even if all you have a short sentences, it can put an Internet reader off to see them bunched together in large paragraphs. It’s usually good idea, instead, to give your readers plenty of line breaks.

Make sure your site has emotional appeal

If you were trying to sign up for an online bank account and looked at the different options, which would immediately appeal – Ally Bank or Evantage? Ally’s front page is informative with their attractive online annual percentage yield in large print and lots of other information. EVantage has information, too. But they choose to place the picture of a young woman rubbing noses with a fat piggy bank front and center.

Many content marketing websites overlook the importance of emotional appeal to a healthy conversion rate. Websites that use pictures of workers, information about their hobbies and case studies about clients convert better. The more personal a look into your business you allow visitors, the better they feel about you.

There are other ways to make a connection. Research shows time and time again that great logic is not the best way to convert anyone. The best way, instead, is to show people that their peer group is doing something and they don’t want to get left behind.

This, in fact, is the reason why businesses talk about how many Facebook Likes they have. They hope to inspire visitors with information about how their peers are headed one way and they don’t want to get left behind.

The upshot of this is – you should find ways to show your visitors that members of their group find your products or services useful. This all you ever need to do.

The conversion part

You wish to wow your readers with great, easy-to-read content for one reason – to try to convert them into paying customers. When the reader finishes reading a great post on your content marketing site, how do you make use of the enthusiasm he has for your company now? The answer lies in creating a great blog footer with all kinds of conversion motivators.

First comes a soft conversion link – an offer for a free e-book on the subject and more articles on the same website.
Next comes information about the author and an invitation to join his Twitter feed. Others social media sharing buttons could find a place here, too
A slightly stronger conversion offer comes last – an offer to have the visitor sign up to a mail newsletter with information about how many of one’s peers have already signed up.

These pointers about conversion rate optimization aren’t very difficult to think of or to implement. They do require some sincere thinking about once visitors, though.

The Guide to the 2013 Summer Blockbuster Season

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Bertolin) — Wed, 01 May 2013 01:51:00 +0000

By Christopher D. Spicer

The 2013 Summer Blockbuster season is here and film studios are marching out an army of special effects and star studded extravaganzas. They’ve even tossed in the occasional smart and thought provoking cinematic fare. It should be a fun season at the movies, but you may not know which films are worth your hard earned dollars. I’m going to list all the wide release pictures and a few limited releases that could eventually turn wide, and then tell you if the film is worth your time and money.

I’ll assign each film with one of the following designations based on how much I recommend seeing the picture: “Be willing to fight a hungry bear to see it”, “Run through slightly hot coals to see it”, “Possibly better than eating glass”, and “Rearrange the sock drawer instead.”

Iron Man 3 (May 3): This film is set directly after the cinematic roller coaster that was The Avengers and a sequel to one of the most thrilling comic book franchises. The trailers have been promising the usual big blockbuster requirements like breathtaking special effects, pump your fist action sequences, and a lovable, witty one-liner spouting superhero. There also seems to be the promise of some solid dramatic scenes and an intriguing human element, which means this may be one of the smarter thrill rides this summer. Plus Robert Downey Jr. is one of the most entertaining performers in Hollywood.

Recommendation: Be willing to fight a hungry bear to see it

The Great Gatsby (May 10): The novel is a treasured classic, but that doesn’t always mean a watchable film. Director Baz Luhrmann has proven to make visually stunning movies, but they are not always critically acclaimed. But he directed the Academy Award Best Picture nominee Moulin Rouge, and lot of the appeal of the novel was its imagery and depiction of the “Roaring Twenties.” Leonardo DiCaprio is a heavyweight talent and has worked with Luhrmann before, so there is a chance this could be a surprise hit. At the very least, you’ll get delightful eye candy to go along with your popcorn.

Recommendation: Run through slightly hot coals to see it

Tyler Perry Present Peeples (May 10): Tyler Perry has his loyal group that turn out for everything he does, and there is just as a loyal group that avoids everything he makes. This will likely be just as popular and just as good as any of his films where he isn’t starring in old lady drag. It does have the added bonus of starring Craig Robinson who is one of the funnier actors around.

Recommendation: Possibly better than eating glass

Star Trek Into the Darkness (May 17): For all the people who are worried about how J.J. Abrams will handle Star Wars, I point to his Star Trek reboot and the trailer for this film. It not only has cutting edge and incredible special effects, but it looks like the perfect sweeping space saga. This is ready to meet your big, loud, action sci-fi cravings, but also looks to have an intriguing moral tale. Abrams has made this franchise appealing to far more than just Trekkies, and he looks to repeat all the magic that made the first one a smash hit but also has some exciting additions like Benedict Cumberbatch as the mysterious villain.

Recommendation: Be willing to fight a hungry bear to see it

Fast and Furious 6 (May 24): By this point, you’ve either had a blast with this franchise or you’ve checked out a long time ago. I only ever bothered to watch the original, but this one does seem to be an all-star version of all the past main characters from the series. It seems louder and more explosive than the previous films, and even promises a tank.

Recommendation: Possibly better than eating glass

EPIC (May 24): Have you ever wished there was an animated version of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, but with the addition of an army of leaf people? No? Well, you’re getting it this summer, and even if the dialogue seems a little weak, it is a beautifully animated film. This has the chance of the epic adventure quest that has been missing from some of the modern animated films lately.

Recommendation: Possibly better than eating glass

The Hangover: Part III (May 24): The first one was a comedy classic that was a breakout for its three leads (Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms, Bradley Cooper), but then the second one just felt like the same thing in a new locale. This time around it appears to be a slightly different story that is bringing back some originals like Heather Graham and Ken Jeong, but also bringing in some awesome talent like John Goodman and Melissa McCarthy. The trailer caused me to laugh from the beginning to end, which makes me hope the film will be a riot. On the negative side, comedies traditionally don’t make for very strong franchises, and the jokes definitely tend to get tired by the third go around. My hopes are very high that this will break that trend.

Recommendation: Run through slightly hot coals to see it

Only God Forgives (May 24): Drive was a terrific picture that established both Nicolas Winding Refn and Ryan Gosling as two of the futures of cinema. It is great to see them team up for yet another gritty and provocative thriller that will trigger a huge range of emotions. Gosling has become the master of playing the dark and tortured soul, and this film should further establish him. It won’t be uplifting or maybe even inspiring, but it’ll stir up emotions and some deep conversations. This will also be also be a very adult style picture.

Recommendation: Be willing to fight a hungry bear to see it

After Earth (May 31): M. Night Shyamalan hasn’t directed a quality film in a very long time. At least, the trailer and title reveals the dangerous planet is Earth, and hopefully, that means the “twist” is out of the way quickly. Will Smith doesn’t star in too many films anymore, and so it is always a treat to have him. It is intriguing to see what kind of chemistry he will have playing alongside his own son, Jaden. The special effects look superb, and there is a lot of potential for an exciting, sweeping adventure. This may be one of the films that leads to non-franchise sci-fi becoming a legitimate hit at the box office again, and this genre has always been the true love of Shyamalan.

Recommendation: Run through slightly hot coals to see it

Now You See Me (May 31): The story of magicians pulling a Robin Hood is a pretty fresh concept. The film looks like it will have a solid blend of humour, charm, and action. The most exciting part is the appealing cast with incredible performers like Morgan Freeman, Jesse Eisenberg, Michael Caine, Isla Fisher, Mark Ruffalo, and Woody Harrelson. This isn’t one of the massive blockbuster films, but it has huge potential to be the sleeper hit of the summer.

Recommendation: Run through slightly hot coals to see it

The Kings of Summer (May 31): This gives off a wonderful Stand By Me vibe, but with a much stronger comedic touch. The picture seems to have a huge heart and some really endearing moments, but will likely deliver a lot of wit, charm, and humour. I could probably watch this trailer repeatedly and be entertained for about an hour, and the film should be twice that long with even more wonderful scenes. The cast is magnificent and talented, and will finally allow us to see what Ron Swanson would be like as a dad.

Recommendation: Be willing to fight a hungry bear to see it

The Purge (June 7): Don’t you just love when a film has a brilliant concept like a government in the future allowing all crimes for a 12 hour period as a way to decrease the crime rate and unemployment, but then uses it to make a very tired genre film like a family defending against home invaders? Me neither.

Recommendation: Rearrange the sock drawer instead

The Internship (June 7): Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn made a great team in Wedding Crashers, but that also had a funny script with silly but semi-believable characters. This time around we’re supposed to believe that guys in their 40s have never heard of the X-Men and are less aware of how to operate a webcam than our grandparents. It is hard to laugh when you can’t believe in the scenario or situation. This is only worth your time if you like watching a film that makes you think, “Man, I remember when these guys were hilarious and not making me wish I was gagging on my popcorn.”

Recommendation: Rearrange the sock drawer instead

This is the End (June 12): The apocalypse may come someday, even if the Mayans appeared to be way off. When that day comes, we need to understand proper “giant gaping hole to the centre of the Earth” etiquette. This is the movie that is doing the noble task of making sure we are properly prepared. It also happens to look absolutely hilarious while bringing some fresh material to a pretty well-worn concept.

Recommendation: Be willing to fight a hungry bear to see it

Man of Steel (June 14): The really great super powered hero stories are about the protagonist trying sort out his place and responsibility to the world. Superman appears to be torn between protecting his identity and trying to keep society safe. It also looks like an action packed film that is going to deliver several thrilling scenes. Christopher Nolan attached as both a writer and producer makes me think this will be a deep and thought provoking but also very entertaining picture. It should finally erase the memories of the massive letdown that was Superman Returns. Plus it is pretty awesome to see Kevin Costner again with a chance to prove his talents to a wide audience.

Recommendation: Be willing to fight a hungry bear to see it

The Bling Ring (June 14): Director Sofia Coppola is talented at telling tales about broken humans thrown into complex situations. This picture appears to be a superficial and goofy story, but the well-written dialogue shows something far wittier and complex. Emma Watson’s performance in the short trailer looks fantastic and one that will hopefully launch her promising career. There is a lot of subtle humour, but I’m guessing there will also be lots of solid discussion bait too.

Recommendation: Run through slightly hot coals to see it

World War Z (June 21): The answer to the question, “Can you ever get enough zombies?” It looks like a very over-the-top effort in trying something very different with a usually cliché riddled genre. It will also satisfy any cravings for a big budget B-film with an A-list actor.

Recommendation: Possibly better than eating glass

Monsters University (June 21): Pixar has hit a bit of a rut with Brave and Cars 2. It would have been nice to get an original story rather than a prequel. It has also been over ten years since the original Monsters Inc., and so it feels a bit like reuniting with some old friends. The plot is a fun parody of the countless college comedies from the ‘70s and ‘80s. The fact is that even subpar Pixar films are better than almost any other animated movie. This one looks like it’ll be pretty fun.

Recommendation: Run through slightly hot coals to see it

White House Down (June 28): I’d call it Die Hard in the White House, but that was Olympus Has Fallen. Maybe it can be called Deep Impact to Olympus Has Fallen’s Armageddon. To be fair, Channing Tatum is a bigger star than Gerard Butler, and Jamie Foxx has a habit of being awesome in absolutely everything. It will also extend Roland Emmerich’s record of destroying the White House on film. I’m sure disaster will never look more beautiful, even if we’ll all be hit with a case of déjà vu.

Recommendation: Possibly better than eating glass

The Heat (June 28): It sort of looks like Miss Congeniality 3, which is probably not something anyone in the world was demanding. In the right role and with a funny script, Sandra Bullock can bring the comedy goods. Melissa McCarthy can make reading a phone book funny, and she is the next superstar of comedy. Even if the film seems generic, there is a strong chance this could still be very fun.

Recommendation: Run through slightly hot coals to see it

Despicable Me 2 (July 3): Confession time, I never watched the original Despicable Me. I am pretty sure there is a good chance I could be banned from ever watching a cartoon again with that confession. The trailers for this sequel have convinced me I was wrong for ignoring it, and I need to get acquainted with this universe. Pixar may have a decent challenger for best animated sequel of the summer.

Recommendation: Run through slightly hot coals to see it

Lone Ranger (July 3): The famous masked cowboy with his Native American partner is one of the most well-known fictional characters, but so is Ronal McDonald, and no one is demanding a picture about him. The other problem is that Westerns haven’t done well in the last several decades, but Disney obviously hopes the Western slump ends this summer. It looks like Pirates of the Caribbean in the Wild West, which can either excite you or force you to swear off movies. I’m not sold on it, but I know many are eager for this one. Johnny Depp is almost always entertaining even if the film flops.

Recommendation: Possibly better than eating glass

The Way, Way Back (July 5): This is the perfect wide release palate cleanser after gorging yourself on the buffet of special effect spectaculars. Based off the trailer and the incredibly deep cast, this will likely be better than almost all of the higher budget extravaganzas. Hollywood almost never makes wide release movies like this anymore, so it is really refreshing to have a funny and sweet coming of age tale. I’m pretty sure I’ll likely cry as much as I’ll laugh in this one, but also come out just feeling better about the world.

Recommendation: Be willing to fight a hungry bear to see it

Grown Ups 2 (July 12): I opted to get a root canal rather than watch the first picture. I’m pretty sure I went with the much less painful choice. I think my teeth may need to be checked out again.

Recommendation: Rearrange the sock drawer instead

Pacific Rim (July 12): It is Godzilla vs. Voltron. Or maybe you’d prefer Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots vs. the Kraken. Either way, I wouldn’t expect a profound film experience. But Guillermo del Toro is an incredibly talented director that has added much depth to his horror films, and there is a chance this one could be a huge surprise. This picture also owns one of the greatest action film lines ever, “Today, we are canceling the apocalypse.” If you’re craving a loud and visual amazing experience then this likely will satisfy.

Recommendation: Run through slightly hot coals to see it

Turbo (July 17): It is about a really fast snail voiced by Ryan Reynolds. If that line got you excited then I really don’t have much more to say. To be fair to this film, it is coming from DreamWorks Animation that has delivered a parade of hits over the last decade like Shrek, The Croods, Madagascar, and Kung Fu Panda. It will definitely find an audience, and likely be a blast for the kids.

Recommendation: Possibly better than eating glass

R.I.P.D. (July 19): I can’t help watching that trailer and think, “But Men in Black 3 just came out last year.” Despite it not looking like the most original idea ever, it may be a lot of fun. Jeff Bridges seems to be having a blast as a gun blazing cowboy, and his performance may be worth the ticket price. Mary-Louise Parker also appears to have a pretty fun character who delivers some dry wit and dead pan humour. Against my better judgement, I’m looking forward to what could be a fun little popcorn muncher.

Recommendation: Run through slightly hot coals to see it

Red 2 (July 19): Speaking of silly and fun, John Malkovich, Bruce Willis and Helen Mirren seem to be embracing the camp and charm of this goofy action flick. It doesn’t look like it will revolutionize any genres or maybe even be remembered by the end of the year, but I’ll bet you’ll have fun for the two hours you’re watching it.

Recommendation: Run through slightly hot coals to see it

The Conjuring (July 19): Hey look, a film about a haunted house. What a novel concept! The one thing that keeps this film from being completely forgettable is the ‘70s time period and the possible focus on the relationship between the Ed and Lorraine Warren. It is teasing a deeper story than the typical jump scare films. I could also be possessed with foolish optimism.

Recommendation: Possibly better than eating glass

Girl Most Likely (July 19): There has been a surge of wide release comedies starring ultra talented female comedians. Okay maybe a surge is a bit of an overstatement, but a really big spark. Kristen Wig is an amazing talent who hopefully will get many more opportunities to showcase her great acting and comedic abilities. This picture looks like it will be emotional and smart, but also pretty funny. It is another low key film that will provide something different than everything else taking over the cinemas.

Recommendation: Run through slightly hot coals to see it

The Wolverine (July 26): The last X-Men picture was the surprisingly great X-Men: First Class. The last critically blasted X-Men film was X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and was bad enough to kill the planned series of Origin films. So of course, the next film in the franchise is a follow-up to Wolverine or maybe this is a reboot with the exact same actor playing the role. Now that is a unique concept. I do have to admit that this trailer does seem interesting, and the Japanese setting is at least a bit different.

Recommendation: Possibly better than eating glass

Smurfs 2 (July 31): I Smurfing Smurf this Smurfing picture. It does seem like a good film to see if you’re a little blue.

Recommendation: Possibly better than eating glass

Innovative Social Media Strategies

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Bertolin) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 02:32:00 +0000

By Benjamin Roussey

Social media is here to stay, despite the naysayers and doomsday prophets. With more than a billion active users on Facebook alone, businesses can afford to ignore social media only at their own peril. Webmasters and Internet marketers are looking to build innovative social media strategies, considering the growing impact of social networking on search engine rankings of a website.

Here are five very innovative social media strategies to put you or your business in a leadership position on various social media sites:

1. Go for Multiple Social Networks and Integrate Them

It is no longer a very effective strategy to confine yourself to just Facebook or Twitter. It is important to have your active presence across various social networking platforms and leverage the strengths of each one of them to your advantage. An integrated social media approach can help you achieve optimal exposure. LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+, Pinterest, Instgram, and Tumblr are some of the social networks that must be a part of your social media strategy, apart from Facebook and Twitter.

2. Get Aggressive about Building Google+ Account

One of the best investments of your time to develop your social media strategy can be to build your Google+ network effectively and aggressively. Google has been dropping wide hints for quite some time now that individuals and business with Google+ account profiles will have an edge over others in terms of Internet search exposure in the times to come. It is not rocket science to understand and acknowledge the immense power of Google, and it is a wise step to invest your best social media resources in cultivating Google+.

3. Identify Key Influencers and Reach Out

Social media is much more than just about looking at micro gains in terms of achieving exposure and engagement with a handful of potential customers. If you wish to maximize your social media impact with minimal effort, you should look for the authority figures in your industry or sphere of work. Important journalists, industry heads, directors of local associations, local politicians, and related business leaders are some of the key influencers that can yield unexpectedly high gains and help you achieve your social media goals with the least amount of effort.

4. Hold Social Media Contests

Most people are unaware about the power of simple contests that you can hold on social media. A creatively fulfilling and exciting contest can drive an unbelievably high amount of traffic to your social network and attain more ‘Likes’ or ‘Follows’ than you ever imagined. If your contest link goes viral on any social network, the results in terms of traffic and back links can do a world of good for your business.

5. Give Away Freebies

Social media is all about sharing – you ought to take this literally. Create an amazing e-Book, white paper, article, webinar, or an infographic with valuable information, and offer it for free to new people who are willing to become a part of your social network. You could even create a unique video with insightful information and allow people to download it for free once they subscribe to your social network. These freebies can popularize your social network much quicker than any other marketing tactic.

5 Internet Marketing Tips

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Bertolin) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 10:31:00 +0000

By The Collective Publishing Company Inc.

When you first begin your internet marketing journey, you will likely have many more questions than answers. The good news is that there are plenty of places to find answer to your questions and many ways to effectively market your business online. When you first start out, you may wish to choose the lower cost methods because you will not have a lot of money in your budget for marketing purposes.

Here are five ways that you can start marketing your business online:

Free website listings on search engines. When someone is searching for a specific item, you want your businesses website to show up in the organic search results as close to page one as possible. The problem is that depending upon which keywords you are trying rank, there may be a great deal of competition. You will need to do some careful research to ensure that your choice of keywords is going to rank your site. Of course, you need to be listed in the search engines, and it may take some time for a new website to show up. In the meantime, you can manually add your site to ensure that it is listed.
Create a presence through social media sites. If you are not familiar with these sites, take time to look around sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Youtube. Creating a presence on these sites can allow you to share content, post interesting tidbits and gain a following, increasing your reach over time.
Email marketing. Building an email list is one thing you should be doing from the moment that you launch your website. The next thing that you need to do is market to your list. Send your subscribers special offers, exclusive deals, news about exciting new products and any changes that you make to your website. It is simple to manage email campaigns when you run them all out of one site, using templates and scheduling delivery of your message at the most ideal times when people will be most likely to open and read the messages.
Create valuable backlinks. Link to sites that have a similar topic as yours, contact webmasters to see if you can guest post on their site and exchange links. The quality of the links that point to your site is extremely important over the quantity, so don’t try to create a ton of back links in a short amount of time.
Make certain that your URL, your content and your theme all correspond with your niche. Conduct research to ensure that the product(s) you are promoting are in demand. There is no point in putting a lot of hard work into a niche that is overly saturated (you have no chance of competing) or is not in demand at all.

Through trial and error, you will eventually determine which inbound marketing methods work for you and which do not. It is a good idea to have a schedule that you need to follow which has specific tasks that you need to complete daily, weekly and monthly.

http://www.google.ca/ads/learn/market-online/videos/five-smart-ways.html#