dotShout | Digital Marketing News and Views

5 Things to do to Organize your Personal Brand Online

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:48:16 -0400

Need a weekend project? How about organizing your personal brand on the web? We’ve been dealing a bit with “online personal branding” with the executives of some of our portfolio companies, and one of the biggest things we’ve noticed is the feeling of being out of control of “where you are” online. People don’t...

It is Time to Regulate Ignorant Anonymous Guest Posts on TechCrunch

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:36:52 -0400

TechCrunch published an anonymous attack piece on search engines...both the organic and paid side. Lets deconstruct some of it, shall we? techcrunch.com/2009/07/13/the-time-has-come-to-regulate-search-engine-marketing-and-seo/ "It’s now conventional wisdom that search engine optimization, representing the organic result sets on any search query, is...

Embrace Your Inner Geek

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:28:35 -0400

A quick, fun post.Â Today we launched our “first draft” Facebook Fan Page.Â We hope you’ll join and provide some constructive feedback.Â Thanks in advance! While we were developing the Fan Page, we also shot a quick video in honor of our inner geekiness.Â (I’m told that today is “Embrace Your Inner Geek Day” but I

40 Inspiring Blog Designs

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:08:10 -0400

Creating an attractive and unique blog design can often be a challenge because so many of them tend to look the same. To help spark you imagination, here is a look at 40 well-designed blogs, in a wide variety of different styles. These sample blogs have been selected from our blog design gallery, Blog Design Heroes. So if you like being inspired, be sure...

Do You Talk or Stalk Your Fans?

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 15:59:47 -0400

About an hour ago, I sent a Twitter message to Joe Cascio, who I know lives in Connecticut, questioning if he wanted to get together this weekend as I’ll be attending a friend’s wedding and am considering visiting Foxwoods. Since Joe and I haven’t met yet, I thought Foxwoods could be a convenient stomping ground. Lo

Inside Seth Godin's Blogging Philosophy

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 14:50:00 -0400

Let's face it. Seth Godin's blog is a wondrous thing. It's consistently No. 1 or No. 2 on the Ad Age Power 150. More important, it's pure insight. At least once a day, every day, there's a little homily on marketing, or brands, or quality, or something else that makes you say "that's right" or even "that's wrong" -- but...

How NOT To Influence Me

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 14:15:43 -0400

One UPDATE: I got an email from the author. He has a disability that is similar to dyslexia, so I’ll give him a pass for that part. I’m still not cheery with the cold call nature, but the typing is his thing. Sorry, author. Wow, I got the most personalized email today from a marketer: Hey. Were

Internet Marketing Campaigns:Visual Highlighting Added

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:34:52 -0400

Today, we rolled out a new feature to the dashboard page. Internet marketing campaigns now have color highlighting so you get a quick visual representation on how well your campaigns are performing. This is a small update but one that should help simplify the dashboard.

New Survey Shows 71% of Respondents Review Products Online

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:52:00 -0400

Yesterday the interactive marketing agency Razorfish released a survey indicating that 71% of its 1,000 respondents share product and service recommendations in the social mediasphere at least once every few months. According to the data, 29% of the surveyed share product views online at least every few weeks and 10% do so at least every few days....

Brand New is Brand New

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:23:15 -0400

When we launched Brand New back in October 2006 I have to admit that I haphazardly put the blog together. I wanted to do it quick and painless, not knowing or assuming that it would become our flagship blog. 30 months, 420-plus posts and 25,000-plus comments later, it was time to give Brand New a relative taste of its own medicine and we decided to...

Your Phone as Computer Mouse for an Interactive World

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:00:00 -0400

As branded apps go the way of the microsite, this emerging mobile technology of augmented reality will open new doors for marketers.

Ann Handley: Introducing the Social Media Summer Series

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:55:45 -0400

Last week, my friend Jason Baer said on Twitter, “People are going to freak out when they see the 8-part Art of Social Media webinar series that @marketingprofs has cooked up. Amazing lineup.” Well, prepare to freak.Or at least be psyched that this week we launch an 8-week Social Media Summer Series that we believe really connects the dots...

Elaine Fogel: What I Did on My Summer Vacation (Got Aggravated with the Airline, the Travel Agency, the Online Photo Company...)

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:44:27 -0400

What's going on in Consumerland? It's awful out there. First, it was the fiasco with the airline and the travel agency that booked our flights, followed by a ridiculous experience when I tried to print our vacation photos. Thank goodness we had a good time at our destination, 'cause traveling SUCKS!Aside from experiencing catharsis in writing this post,...

Paul Dunay: When Will Amazon Go Social?

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:35:13 -0400

I was just searching on Amazon for my new book Facebook Marketing for Dummies (Wiley) which is due out in late August. And I was looking at the “personalized recommendations” that Amazon provided me.There was a section on books that were “Frequently Bought Together” with my book. Obviously it lists Facebook for Dummies and maybe...

The Killer and the Poet: How to Get Rich as a Copywriter

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 09:50:08 -0400

‘Most good copywriters . . . fall into two categories. Poets. And killers. Poets see an ad as an end. Killers as a means to an end.’ If you are both killer and poet, you get rich. ~ David Ogilvy Who knew that a dead Scottish ad guy, writing 25 years ago, would so succinctly capture what

A Giant Leap Forward for Link Intelligence Tools & Data

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 09:45:38 -0400

Posted by randfishIn the last 10 months, we'veÂ taken a number of dramatic steps to improve the link information available to webmasters & SEOs. Today, I'm pleased to announce even more progress in that direction, as well and cover the impressive store of data now accessible. Sections in this post: Linkscape's Web Index Over Time Upgrades to Link Data &...

What I Can Fix

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 09:25:43 -0400

If you’re not synching with your PR team, I can fix that. If the “ink” isn’t coming by the barrel, I can probably either fix it or give you a rational explanation for what the problem is, and how it can be fixed. If you need more strategic counsel, I can give you that. If you need some

Real-Time Conversations Gain in Influence, Hasten Social CRM

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 08:27:50 -0400

This is the unabridged version of my latest post on TechCrunch, “Real-Time Conversations Hasten Social CRM“ At the Real-Time Stream Crunchup on Friday in Redwood City, TechCrunch Editor-in-Chief Erick Schonfeld hosted a panel of industry heavyweights who are either building solutions or defining how they’re used in the world of business...

Can Copy Create (added) Value On Its Own?

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 08:24:15 -0400

If a pack of Pokemon cards cost under $7 new, how much do you think an unopened pack would go for on e-bay? What if the seller told an amusing story about that particular pack of Pokemon cards in the product description – would you bid more based on that? Do…

How To Evaluate Social Media Street Cred

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:51:49 -0400

You may or may not have heard that Best Buy, when recently announcing they were hiring a director of emerging media listed a requirement that qualified applicants have a minimum of 250 + followers on Twitter. This launched a flurry of debate specific to this one issue, but the bigger issue as we've discussed here before is that organizations are...

Barriers To An Effective Web Measurement Strategy [+ Solutions!]

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:49:57 -0400

I was quite impressed by the Econsultancy’s Online Measurement and Strategy Report. Many Analyst “reports” tend to push a company / vendor / consultant agenda, refreshingly the Econsultancy report did not. They asked a wide spectrum to actual customers and reported the reality on the ground. They had some biting, but fair, observations...

A Migration to WordPress MU

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:01:55 -0400

I've been working on one of the largest WordPress MU projects we've taken on so far the last couple of days. We've been migrating the blogo.nl blogs (a Dutch blog network started in 2005) over to WordPress MU. There were several things in this project that were nice to figure out, I'll go over two This is a post from Joost de Valk's Yoast - Tweaking...

Finding and Using Niche Blogs

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 03:29:28 -0400

Posted by Lucy Langdon When I talk about 'niche blogs', I mean blogs that are regularly updated and focus mainly, but not exclusively, on a certain subject area like, for example, crocheting or tea. More often than not, a blog with a specialty will be of a much higher quality than your average 'rambling and musings of x' site. However, with a zillion new...

Social Business Meetup - New York, Monday July 20th

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 03:13:00 -0400

Dachis Group will be hosting a social business meetup in New York, one week from today.If you're in town, we'd like to meet you in person. Click here for more details and to RSVP.

Interview with Scott Monty, Global Digital Communications Manager at Ford

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 03:09:00 -0400

Scott MontyÂ is the Global Digital & Multimedia Communications Manager atÂ Ford Motor Company. Â He is anÂ expertÂ in the corporate use of social media and was named one of theÂ TopÂ 25 Internet Marketing Leaders & Innovators by iMedia.Â He is serving as a Judge of theÂ SAMMYÂ Awards this year and the author ofÂ The Social Media Marketing Â Blog.Â 1. How...

Social Media as Modern Telephone, Frank Eliason, Comcast

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 03:00:00 -0400

He struck me as the real deal from the first time I contacted him via Twitter. In the last year plus, Frank Eliason has become the face and experience of Comcast for many of us. Rather than me talking about him I thought it a good idea to let him talk directly with you here. Our conversation: Can you talk a little bit about your background? How you got to...

The CPM gap

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 02:36:00 -0400

Ads online typically cost $5 to $20 for one thousand impressions. A fancy magazine might cost two or three times that. But it's still pennies a person.Attending a conference, on the other hand, costs $1000 by the time you add up the expenses. That's a CPM of $1,000,000. One thousand of the right people at the right conference costs a million dollars, as...

Can Hyperbole Generate $50,000 Corporate Speaking Engagements?

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 01:07:09 -0400

Lots of people are writing about the economic secret that is the free pricepoint: As Anderson himself says, “I’ve got a lot of kids and college isn’t getting any cheaper.” His own strategy, one outlined by Dyson way back when, is to charge little or nothing for his writing and use it to generate lucrative speaking gigs. “You...

12 Ways To Conduct A Great Interview

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 23:16:57 -0400

"Just write out some questions and ask them." That could well be one of the biggest mistakes when it comes to conducting an interview. A friend shot me an email this week and asked for my opinion on how to conduct a great interview (the fact that they thought I did this well was very flattering). Instead of letting the response die in a personal email...

SPOS #162 - Six Pixels Of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast - +1 (206) 666-6056 – Media Hacks #13

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 22:01:29 -0400

Welcome to episode #162 of Six Pixels Of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast. Life from New York City, it's Media Hacks #13. Recorded late one night last week at The Roger Smith Hotel, this episode if full of the latest news and views, including a very vocal Julien Smith (yes, that means that this show is not work safe). C.C. Chapman and I were simply...

What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 20:18:52 -0400

Ahead of this post, I give you full permission to tell me that I’m talking out of my butt. I’m drinking a delicious McDonalds iced coffee. I prefer their brand over Starbucks and over Dunkin Donuts (which is sacrilege in Massachusetts, where I live). In my neck of the woods, they use a

The Layman's Personal Branding Platform

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 20:03:18 -0400

Posted by Danny DoverÂ Personal branding is the art of showcasing your experiences, accomplishments and perspectives. Like many of you, I knew the importance of this but had always put building a personal branding website on the back burner because I didn't think it was very important and because I felt uncomfortable talking about my accomplishments in...

Who is the #1 Domainer in the World?

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 18:25:02 -0400

Obama has been known to use domain names to go after emotionally charged empty words that are easy to support (like change), but now the government is going after commercial keywords like cars. Cars.gov was launched on June 30th and is already ranking #3 in Google for cars! What does it do to the value of cars.com when cars.gov is a co-opted business deal...

Blogging Elsewhere

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 12:24:52 -0400

Here is this week’s summary of links to my posts appearing on other blogs: GigaOM’s WebWorkerDaily Take Advantage of Twitter SearchÂ Operators Maximize Productivity Without BurningÂ Out If you want a feed of all of my blog posts across multiple sites, you can also subscribe to my Ã¼ber feed. Disclaimer: I am a paid blogger for the GigaOM...

Recent Links

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 12:19:17 -0400

Here are a few interesting things from this week that I wanted to share … Caveat Emptor: Do You Know Enough to Buy or Hire Social Media Expertise? Red Cross Social Media Strategy/Policy Handbook: An Excellent Model Guidelines are important, but interpretation is key 2009 Facebook Demographics and Statistics Report: 513% Growth in 55+ Year Old Users....

Get Ready As Corporate Sites and Social Networks Start To Connect

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 10:52:29 -0400

To Increase Engagement, Brands to Allow Users To Login With Facebook, MySpace, Twitter In a recent report titled the “Future of the Social Web” we found that we are entering the era of social colonization, every webpage and experience will be social–even if brands choose not to participate. I spent time with Palo Alto startup Gigya