This promoter effect is having an effect in the work place aswell.. There is often at least one Apple Evangelist in the workplace, and they are the ones that make the hard sell around the benefits of the Mac OS and Apple products to their management, not the advertising, not your Local apple store specialist.. This article on businessweek.com goes on to tell this story

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_19/b4083036428429_page_2.htm

( via Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog )

So my facebook starts showing up with friends posting photos which has their face photoshoped in with a old school yearbook black and white photos.. sporting awesome fashion and hairstyles from way back..

The photos start coming from other friends who have also transformed themselves..

The photos have a very minimal url in the bottom left hand corner which strikes intrigue, and instant recognisation that this website is providing the great photos that are springing up all over my facebook feed..

It took me a good 2 weeks to give it a go myself, but after being at work and seeing people “yearbooking” themselves and the fun that was shared between the onlookers, i couldn’t resist..

Yearbookyourself.com is a great campaign from Taubman what looks like a chain of shopping malls in America.. it provides the visitor a easy and commitment-less form of entertainment, and social media has enabled visitors to share these comical yearbook photos with each other..

When you upload your photo and position is correctly it gives you a list of shopping malls to choose from.. (thought not specifying the point or purpose of this selection) then it gives you a timeline of photos to place your mug into.. starting from 1950 all the way til 2000, It tries to relate these times to styles of clothes and fashion that can be purchased by displaying stores inside the mall that are relevant..

Its a great platform for a campaign to use, creates entertaining engaging content for the visitor, and then creates these great photos that the visitor MUST share with their friends.
Its a shame that they havent positioned the product strongly to link in with the idea.. maybe there could of been a better product that could of taken advantage of such a campaign… The other shame is that they havent enabled users to share on their desired social media straight from the site.. a “share on facebook” would be great!

I love it..

Thanks to Sandra Hanchard at Hitwise for the report

The growth of twitter has been aided by the surge in mobile internet devices such as the iPhone, allowing users to tweet on the run! and now even geo tag their posts starting conversations with fellow micro bloggers in their vicinity..

Twitter still has quite a niche geek/uber cool advertising type following, and is definately a great distance from being mainstream. (Im getting a bit bored of explaining what the “Twinkle” app on my iPhone does..). Corporations are catching on, and realising that twitter is being heavily used by this “in the know” crowd, which provides a great oppurtunity for marketing and conversations to be had between these companies and their potential customers. I personally follow @VirginBlue, @forrester, @SBS not to mention i also have being enjoy news updates from the likes of @news_com_au and @macdailynews and enjoyed getting all my olympic updates from @AussieOlympics

There has been a couple really good examples lately of companies saying sorry, when they haven’t performed aswell as they should/could have..

I will try and dig the other examples i that had popped up a while ago..

So here is one the examples i could dig up.. (There will be more after more searching)

JetBlue kept customers waiting on the tarmac for up to 11hours on Valentines day Last year..

They were quick to respond with David Neeleman, the CEO appearing in this video…

Neeleman is very sincere in admitting the mistake, and taking responsibility.. He also outlines their plan of action to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Neelman puts a face to the company and personalises the apology, its pretty hard to be bitter at someone who is genuinely apologising to you. And the best thing about the video is they used social media as a great channel to distribute the message, and such it got picked up by many marketing blogs..

Skitch is a absolutely awesome app for the mac. Made by Plasq, the guys that brought you comic life, these guys are making some really great apps

Drag a photo onto it, or snap one from your screen..

Use the cool tools to draw and edit it, resize it.. and then one click upload! to FTP, flickr or other webgallery!

Another click will copy the <a> tags into your clip board ready to paste into your HTML..

“Seduce At Vbar” added me as a friend on facebook..

Because i’m aware to this type of SPAM, i naturally assumed from the name, that a place called Vbar is trying to promote a event or “night” called seduce..

At seeing this friend request, i see that a have 4 mutual friends.. this might of given me a very small additional bit of interest.. but i was 1 second away from ignoring and blocking this “person”..

I clicked on the link to check it out.. (just because im interested in how they are promoting).

I get the to the page and its blank…

I visit the profile page and there is no information about the bar or the event… all i see is a blank picture, someone writing “whaaaa???”  (which is similar to my reaction), and a post saying that i have one month to “GET READY TO GET SEXY AND SEDUCTIVE…….”

Firstly spamming people adding them to facebook is annoying.. Secondly they dont have any content, anything engaging or sticky to make this spamming useful..

Why not create a Fan Page… some content (information, upcoming DJs, Photos, even Videos!) and use facebook ads to target exactly the demographic you want!..That would be cheap… it would be MUCH less time consuming and much more effective!

Im in the process of writing my next blog post about a local mobil gas station…

I check out street view to get a nice picture.. and got more than i expected..

Internet users in the US check their personal e-mail throughout the day, including at work.

This research from eMarketer sparks my interest..

From a direct marketer perspective it is most important to work out what time of day to send out your edms..

Personally i am checking emails on my iPhone from 8am right through til 11pm..

Nearly one-quarter of Internet users surveyed in June 2008 for an AOL-sponsored survey by Beta Research Corporation said they were most likely to check their e-mail upon waking. But more than one-third said they checked throughout the day, and the rest of respondents said they checked at various times, including throughout the night.

More than seven out of 10 employed respondents also said they checked their personal e-mail at work—and nearly one-third said they did so more than three times a day.

Nearly 70% of respondents said they had multiple e-mail accounts.

It is no secret that a lot of what arrives in users’ inboxes is spam, but much is legitimate marketing. More than three-quarters of online marketers in the US surveyed by the Direct Marketing Association in June 2008 said they used e-mail more than they did three years ago.