Systems Administrator (contract)

We are currently looking for a freelance/contract-based Systems Administrator to support our growing team’s systems. For the time being, this is a work-at-home position where you keep track of your hours in Harvest and invoice us monthly. (We expect it will be about five- to ten-hours per week to start.) For the right candidate, we see this transitioning to full-time employment when we’re at that scale level. This is a great position for people interested in digital and social marketing, emerging-media communications, and more!

(Visit https://tmedia.wufoo.com/forms/contract-systems-administrator/ if the above form doesn’t render in your RSS reader.)

Opening: Systems Administrator (contract) is a post from: tMedia

Most major brands, by now, have established at least an initial channel in social media — a Facebook fan page, a Twitter account, or more. And with careful content syndication and loving curation, they’ve begun to build a community in those channels. But as easy as it is to set up a Twitter account, it’s just as easy to destroy your growing community if you aren’t watching for these common mistakes.

1. Stop Watering

An online community is like a garden. You don’t just drop a bunch of plants in it at the start of the season and never visit again — and yet, this is the “strategy” employed by far too many companies who believe it’s better to have a garden they ignore than to not have a garden at all. Nothing could be worse.

Conversations happen in social channels because you — the brand — initiate them. Each day, you need to be in your channels watering your existing discussions, adding content (“seeding”), and pruning back unproductive threads when necessary.

2. Sell Out

A couple of years ago, I started an unofficial Facebook fan page about the CBC. Today, through only organic growth, the page has nearly 55,000 very engaged fans — far more than any official CBC page. And not a week goes by when I don’t get at least a couple of offers to advertise something on the page.

In any community, online or offline, there is an implied contract that the community manager will always act in the best interests of the group, collectively. And “collectively” doesn’t include lining your own wallet.

Each item of content — discussion starter, photo, link, or whatever — must contribute to the whole group. Start promoting things just for revenue and you’ll spark a slow, but guaranteed exodus.

3. Speak Like a Company

It’s remarkable how many firms proceed head-first into building a social media community without changing their tone. This is especially true of public companies used to speaking the language of regulation and compliance, rather than the language of — forgive me — normal people.

It’s not called “social” networking without reason.

Keep your forward-looking statements and obligatory CEO quotes (“We are delighted to announce,” etc.) to the news releases.

How to Destroy Your Brand’s Online Community in Three Easy Steps is a post from: tMedia

tMedia Strategies
#1500 – 701 West Georgia Street
Vancouver BC
V7Y 1C6

Please change the address you have on file for us. (Our phone number — +1.888.315.0797 — doesn’t change, nor does our U.S. office address.) Thanks!

P.S. We’re looking to grow our team — see our Join Us page for more info. And be sure to follow us on: Twitter, Facebook, and Ramblop.

We’re Moving! is a post from: tMedia

The web is, essentially, a series of tubes, er… databases: Content, from news articles to blog posts, are stored in tables and fields that live inside databases scattered all over the Internet.

The great thing about databases is that, by their nature, they permit customization of the content within them. If I wanted to (read: “If I knew how to program better”), I could have a window pop up on this site asking you what sort of content you wanted to see and, based on your answer, the database that drives this site would show you just the content you want.

It’s just like how a human would operate. I’d ask you what content you were interested in and I’d give it to you.

So why is the web still so static?

Here at tMedia we use a widely used and respected project management tool. The pricing page of their site recommends I use their $99 package — the “sweet spot,” as they say.

Except here, the thing: How do they know what the sweet spot for my company’s specific needs are? They don’t. They present this plan to everyone. It’s a static page.

In fact, the sweet spot for our team happens to be the “Plus” option.

There are scant few web sites customizing content like this.

One example of a company that’s done a great job is Are My Sites Up, a white-labeled service for Internet agencies to alert their clients when their web sites go down. When I clicked Pricing, I got this message:

And, once I punched in that information, it gave me this:

Of their four primary plans, they recommend the low-end — for our specific needs. Brilliant! And simple to program.

Even better, the site calculated that based on the information I gave it, that I’d lose money and should consider charging our clients more:

Given your 4 sites and the $5 that you’d like to charge for site monitoring, your recommended plan is: One Custom.

You’d make $20 per month, and we’d charge you $40 per month.

Since the amount we charge is higher than the amount you’d make, you should consider charging more for your site monitoring. We recommend $5 a month per site for our regular plans, and $10 a month for our custom plans. If you charged $10 with your current 4 sites, you’d make $40 per month. If you sell all 20 sites in your account at $10, you’d make $200 per month.

Is your business web site acting like a human would?

Is Your Web Site Acting Like a Human? is a post from: tMedia

Fill in the form below and if you’re still subscribed when we make the draw during our “Boosting Foot Traffic With Social Media” webinar on November 18th, you could win the tickets!

Win Two Suite Tickets to the Canucks! is a post from: tMedia

History proves that knowing and understanding your target audience, and earning their engagement, are key ingredients to successfully delivering a memorable message. Identifying productive channels, understanding interests of a target audience, and how the audience members prefer to digest information directs a successful strategy and correlating investments.

In today’s complex media landscape, as is often true in life, history repeats itself.

Here’s another way to think about it: As is true with old movies, pin-up girls and the chocolate shake, the classics continue to prove their endless worth over time. The only difference today is we get geo-targeted coupons to buy them on Foursquare.

Emerging media communication tools — social, mobile, digital, etc. — are taking customers, candidates and employees by storm, empowering individuals to originate and share information in real time. The notions of what drives productive business messaging are changing rapidly and many businesses are paralyzed in the face of increasingly demanding stakeholders. Other organizations have embraced the new “open-dialog” marketplace with record-breaking speed, allowing emerging media to quickly become the basis of their campaigns, replacing traditional advertising, marketing and public relations.

Just as organizations are beginning to emerge  head above water from the influx of new communication mediums introduced in the last decade, a new critical tool has arrived.

Enter, Transmedia.

Transmedia, increasingly implemented in the film industry, offers a balance to the aggressive replacement strategies described above. Although some companies are productive using only emerging media strategies, most organizations that fully replace traditional methods actually see a decline in audience engagement. This creates trends in the re-adoption of traditional mediums but also creates a new challenge — the need for channel integration.

Corporate transmedia storytelling is defined as business messaging that is intentionally designed to reveal itself across multiple traditional and emerging media platforms — with each new entry point providing a distinctive, independent and engaging element of the full story. This doesn’t mean that any cross-platform campaign qualifies as transmedia. Transmedia requires each communication effort to both stand alone as a valuable message, as well as encourage the audience to move to the next messaging entry-point.

The art of corporate transmedia storytelling is only obtained through a dynamic approach towards storytelling and interaction that results in a treasure hunt for the target audience.

Transmedia, an expression of the right balance of traditional and emerging media, is an art that is just making its mark on the corporate world. We have seen effective transmedia campaigns in Hollywood emerge rapidly over the last decade. There are now small armies of professionals that have embraced the power of translating these Hollywood learnings to strong return on investments in the business landscape. And these small armies are quickly using transmedia to share the best practices and benefits of the integrated approach.

It’s definitely easy to get caught up in the sexiness of emerging media, but just like classic movies, history and tradition continue to wow (think The Godfather Part II, or Casablanca). When new and traditional forms of media are combined to produce transmedia — treasure hunt messaging — the corporate storytelling effect is irresistible.

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Transmedia: The Power of Treasure Hunt Marketing is a post from: tMedia

We are pleased to announce that Trevor Turnbull has joined tMedia as an Executive Consultant.

Trevor came to tMedia with a strong background as a successful entrepreneur, business development professional, multi-media producer, social media consultant, and trainer.

He is principal of T3 CONNECT, a strategic consulting firm assisting brands in developing measurable ways to connect with their audiences using emerging media.

Prior to launching his own successful consultancy, Trevor was a strategic account executive at zu interactive, where he oversaw business development functions. His work at zu lead to very successful online marketing campaigns, including the development of an award-winning social media platform for a major-league sports team. That platform connected the team’s online, offline, and game-day strategies and resulted in new revenue streams and a deeper connection between the team and their fan base.

Before his work at zu, Trevor owned a successful online marketing and website development firm in Saskatchewan. Trevor holds a Bachelor of Commerce – Marketing degree from the University of Saskatchewan.

At tMedia, Trevor is an Executive Consultant, both developing business opportunities and working on implementation of our clients’ projects.

Welcome, Trevor! is a post from: tMedia

tMedia — short for TransMedia — continues its thought-leadership in the transmedia space.

We’re pleased to announed that our senior strategist Tod Maffin will be teaching a workshop on Transmedia Story Structure at the British Columbia Institute of Technology this fall.

His work will cover foundational messaging in designing and communicating a compelling narrative across a number of media, such as online, radio, film, and television.

Maffin has been actively involved in transmedia storytelling for many years. One of the world’s first podcasters, he developed and launched CBC Radio’s network podcasting strategy. He produced and hosted todradio.com, a national CBC Radio show which aired alongside a live Internet interactive panel, letting the audience contribute to the program.

He also produced and hosted the documentary series Real Life Chronicles on CBC Radio One for two seasons, and was the Western Producer for the network’s national weekend culture program Definitely Not the Opera.

tMedia’s Tod Maffin to teach Transmedia Story Structure is a post from: tMedia

We are looking for two confident North American sales consultants with experience in executive-level, complex sales, preferably in the marketing/branding/advertising space. You are well versed in identifying opportunities across a variety of industries and departments. You have a proven track-record and exceed quota consistently.

Your sales style is to listen to our clients’ challenges, then select or help develop solutions that provide a measurably positive impact on their bottom lines.

This is an unparalleled opportunity to set your own earning goals and work in a fast-paced, sales-oriented environment. You’ll maintain the customer relationship, providing for continued residual reoccurring income.

Part-time and work at home are both options. Must be willing to travel.

If you can not see the application form below, click here.

We’re looking for two Executive Sales Consultants is a post from: tMedia