Archives For Blog

Sorry But the Clip You Selected Isn’t Available From Your Location

March 6, 2012 — Leave a comment

The internet was abuzz with a recent episode of Saturday Night Live. Not only did it feature the return of Lindsay Lohan as host, but the SNL cast also did a hilarious spoof of The Real Housewives of Name Your City, with Disney Princesses, titled The Real Housewives of Disney.

I watched the SNL episode live for the first time in several months and thought it was hilarious. In the morning I couldn’t wait to share some of the top moments with my fiance, but I couldn’t find the clip of Housewives of Disney. Results on search engines we’re dominated by links to NBC and other pages that embbeded content from Hulu. But, since I’m in Canada I couldn’t watch it.

I watched the show live on NBC just eight hours ago, but I couldn’t watch it online? If this was 3-5 years ago, I would say I was frustrated, but these days if I can’t find the content on official channels, I’ll find it elsewhere.

In this case, I found the clip of Housewives of Disney on GossipCop. And guess what NBC and Hulu? You’ve accomplished nothing by restricting your content to be viewed only in specific regions. No matter how hard you try to block and prevent people who WANT to consume your content they will find it elsewhere. They will direct their attention and time to other sources. They will bookmarks those sites and share them with friends. As visits and page views go up, other sites will reap financial benefits.

We can argue all we want whether other sources and sites such as GossipCop are legitimate or not, but the end user doesn’t care. The end user WANTS to consume the content. If you block it, they will find it elsewhere.

P.S.

Here’s the link to SNL clip: The Real Housewives of Disney.

In Blog backward practices, content not available, internet, restriction

B2B Marketing on Pinterest

February 14, 2012 — Leave a comment

By now, you’ve probably heard all kinds of buzz about Pinterest. About being the fastest growing social network, its popularity with women, its ability to drive a great deal of referral traffic and their money making secrets. There’s also a great deal of articles in the blogosphere providing Pinterest tips, tricks and expertise on how to best leverage this fast growing social network.

Pinterest works great for retailers, fashion brands, consumer brands, artists, designers of all kinds and everything in between. Basically, if your product or service relies on visual presentation to help sell itself, then Pinterest is a great place to build a following and drive traffic to your site. However, if you’re a B2B company selling services that can’t be (read: challenging to be) represented visually you may feel left out. Don’t fret, many B2B companies can still leverage Pinterest and build a strong community.

Infographics

Infographics are posters created to visually represent data in an interesting way. As humans we love looking at beautiful things. Think about it, what do you prefer, looking at boring Excel charts or a well designed Infographic? (If you’ve never seen an Infographic check out my Infographic Pinboard on Pinterest for some examples.) The answer will always be Infographic. B2B companies collect and have access to all kinds of data. Either create your own infographics poster or scour the blogosphere for infographics that relate to your industry, market or company. Create a Pinterest board where you can collect your online infographics posters.

Showcase Company Culture

Got a cool office decor? Work stations designed for optimal productivity? Staff break room with cool toys? Showcase it. You’ve got nothing to lose. You can help inspire others. It also gives you an opportunity to market yourselves to potential candidates.

Motivational Slogans

Do your employees write messages on whiteboards that help them stay motivated? Why not snap a picture and upload it to Pinterest. These motivational slogans can also be found on sticky notes and company walls. Create a board that showcases how your staff keeps its self motivated, productive and on track.

The B2B Marketing objection to joining yet another social network might be, ‘but our customers aren’t on there.’ Of course they are! Who runs the companies you sell to? People. And where are these people? They’re online; discovering, sharing and communicating with other people.

The bottom line is, don’t be put off by Pinterest’s emphasis on visuals. Every company out there can find enough interesting visuals within their organization or online to contribute to and build their own interesting boards on Pinterest.

In Blog b2b marketing, b2b marketing on pinterest, how to use social media, how to use social networks, infographics, pinterest, social network

How to Succeed in Marketing

February 7, 2012 — Leave a comment

Step back and out of your role, company and industry. Not literaly, ofcourse, but take yourself to the time before you joined your current firm. Before you got involved in the industry you’re in. Before you only heard of the company name but had no idea what they did. Because it was the only time when you were most bold. Had most ideas. Could imagine how others perceived the company.

In Blog creativity and imagination, how to succeed in marketing

Go Beyond the Resume to Land a Better Job and Beat Your Competition

January 29, 2012 — Leave a comment

The job market has never been more competitive than it is today. Official Canadian unemployment rate stands at 7.5% (January 2012), American is at 8.5% (December 2011). There aren’t enough jobs to go around and HR professionals and recruiters are overwhelmed with constant flow of resumes. So, how do you stand out? How do you compete with other candidates? What do you do when everyone submits the same two page resume, on a 8.5×11 sheet with 10 point Times Roman font? You need to go beyond the resume to land better jobs and beat your competition.

Wall Street Journal recently published an article No More Resumes, Say Some Firms‘ in which author, Rachel Emma Silverman, reported that many firms are looking at other things other than a resume. This has always been true. Yes, the traditional resume may get you an interview, if it stands out enough, or HR has enough time to read it. But when you get there, you better be remarkable. During my last job search, I’ve been asked about things that weren’t on my resume. Some people didn’t even look at it. That was nearly 2 years ago, and everyone that I’ve met with during that job search wanted to know what makes me wake up in the morning, how I’m going to solve problems for them and what makes me remarkable. I was prepared. I had created enough projects and produced results that I could firmly stand behind. Both in my previous daytime roles and outside of them. I was also involved in a handful of entrepreneurial stints, including my personal training side business. And I still moonlight as a personal trainer to this day.

Employers don’t have the time to hold your hand. It’s different now than it was 10 or 20 years ago. You need to do more than just email resumes all day.

In Blog career marketing, competition, how to find a job, job search, personal brand development

The Best Way To Get Big Projects Done

January 16, 2012 — Leave a comment

If you wanted to take down the biggest tree in a forest, how would you do it? Steamroll it? Charge at it like a linebacker? Throw a grenade at it? Or use an axe? Of course you would say ‘use an axe.’ Taking down a big tree requires patience and hard work. A great thing about using an axe, is with every swing, you get stronger and better at it. With every swing you’re closer to your goal. And the tree will eventually fall.

My mind runs a thousand miles an hour, I have multiple interests, hobbies, ideas and a never ending projects wishlist. It is very easy to get lost in all that and push old projects an ideas aside to clear the way for the ones. But there are certain things that persist. No matter how many new ideas come up, some old ideas still make their way up and sit at the back of your mind. And the only two real reasons why things get pushed back is because there’s no sense of urgency to get them done and perceived the size of the project. But there is a lot of literature on this exact subject on how to get things done, including Scott Belsky’s Action Method, as outlined in his very influential book Making Ideas Happen and David Allen’s GTD Method. Both are aimed to help you stay organized and productive so that you could get things done and make your ideas happen. I’ve learned a great deal from both authors, and implemented some of their ideas to my daily routine. But the best way for me to get big projects done is to chip away at it.

What do I mean by ‘chip away at it’? It’s quite simple, do a little bit every day. You can’t take down a tree by steam rolling it, charging it or throwing grenades at it; unless you want to cause a lot of damage to the environment, your equipment or hurt yourself. For example, if you wanted to write a book, you’d write 1 page a day for the next year. By the end of the year, you’d have 365 pages. If you aimed to loose 1 lbs a week, by the end of the year you’d have lost 52 lbs.

Whatever the project is you need to find a manageable way to chip away at it. Do a little everyday, because the time will pass and you’ll reflect on that week, month or year and realize if only you did just a little everyday, you’d have it all done.

Image courtesy of Alexander Gude

In Blog action method, behance network, best way to complete a big project, david allen, getting things done, making ideas happen, productivity, productivity methods, scott belsky

How to Generate New Blog Topics

December 24, 2011 — Leave a comment

There’s no shortage of lists, articles, and blog posts online that aim to help bloggers find new sources of blog topic ideas. If you’re ideas ever dry up, all you need to do is Google for one these sources for inspiration. My three favorite sources of blog topics come from things I already do everyday: read blogs, answer questions and makes observations.

Blogs and Comments

Other people’s blogs are great sources of inspiration. Start by look at the titles, can you adopt it for your own industry? For example, 10 Marketing Predictions for 2012, change that into 10 Fitness Trends for 2012, if you blog about getting fit. I admit it, that was too easy. But that’s what I wanted to illustrate. Secondly, read the articles. Do you agree, disagree, did you learn something? Comment on it. If you’re going to be leaving a comment anyway, why don’t you just expand it and turn into a post? You kill two birds with one stone, a new blog post and a comment. In your comment, it is perfectly ok to notify the article author that you were inspired to write up a full blog post in response. Be sure to leave a link to your post.

Answer Questions

This has to be one of my favourite ways of getting some ideas down on paper. I am often asked questions related to marketing, technology, social media and fitness. When I provide an answer, I actually send myself an email reminding myself to answer this question in the blog post. I’ve done this a lot on my personal training and fitness blog. Also, if you spend a lot of time answering questions on sites like LinkedIn Answer, Yahoo Answers and Quora, why not turn your answers into blog posts? You don’t have to answer questions on there, you can simply browse categories that you’re most knowledgeable about and see the questions people are asking. Like commenting on blogs, turn questions and your answers into blog posts.

Observe

Look around you. Do you notice how people use certain products? Do you notice how people react to different events? How they interact with others? Turn your observations into blog posts. For example, if you’re a personal trainer and you notice someone lacking motivation to push through the extra rep, can you write a post on ‘how to get motivated to push through the last rep’? Of course you can.

The ideas are all around us, all we have to do is be aware of our activities and surroundings; and always be asking, Can I turn this into a blog post? An answer will almost always be a resounding, YES.

In Blog blog topics, blogging, generating ideas

Groupon and The Psychology of Persuasion

November 8, 2011 — Leave a comment

Now that Groupon is back in the spotlight with a successful second attempt at IPO, I started thinking about the company again and what made it so successful in the first place. Besides launching at the right time, in a down economy with rising unemployment, Groupon utilized all classic principles of persuasion to influence purchase decisions. As identified by Robert Cialdini in his book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, these principles are: reciprocity, commitment and consistency, social proof, authority, liking and scarcity.

Reciprocity

This tactic is pervasive across all disciplines of marketing. This is when you’re given or offered something for free with expectation that you’ll return the favour. Some marketers ask for something in return almost immediately, while others intend to influence your future purchase decisions. Since Groupon’s model relies on the high numbers of users. The more users they have the easier it is to make its pitch to businesses, and better discounts it can negotiate with them. Groupon offers a generous $10 for every friend you refer that makes purchase. You don’t even have to make a purchase, all you have to do is tell your friends about Groupon. The trade-off here is great. It’s no cost to you and you get credited real money for spreading the word.

Commitment and Consistency

The premise behind Commitment and Consistency principle is that people tend to be fairly consistent in their behavior once they make a commitment. If a user invites their network to use Groupon, and even if they do not actually make a purchase, they’re in-effect saying “I recommend this because I just bought something or plan on buying it in the future.” In addition, Groupon has a presence on all major social networks. They make it easy for users to like, retweet and follow the company, furthering your commitment to them. The company has also mastered the art of consistency. You are guranteed to get a daily email with a great daily offer. As a company, they have conditioned their audience by being consistent in the offering and commitment to great deals. What makes this tactic effective is that people tend to value consistency in others as well.

Authority

All marketers know that authority yields a great deal of influence. Think of advertisements for toothpaste, “4 out of 5 dentists prefer this brand over the other brand.” Groupon established their authority very early on. They created a brand new market out of nothing, created thousands of jobs and delivered an astonishing number of deals. With that impressive CV how can you argue that they’re not an authority figure in the space?

Liking

Research shows that we tend to buy from and are influenced by those who we like. There’s a lot to like about Groupon, although they’ve taken a few missteps along the way. However, you have to admire this startup’s drive to constantly improve, educate, and their pursuit of high customer satisfaction.

Social Proof

Social Proof principle states that you are likely to be influenced to behave a certain way if you see others behaving that way. For example, if you’re walking down the street and see group of people looking up, you are very likely to look up as well. Groupon displays social proof by listing the number of Groupons that have been purchased. The higher the number, the further proof you have the deal is well worth it.

Scarcity

Scarcity if one of the most effective tools of influence. Scarcity creates a sense of urgency, thus speeding up your purchase decision. Every time you look at the deal, you are presented with a countdown timer. This forces a user to act quickly if they want to take advantage of the deal.

Robert Cialdini identified six strong principles of pursuasion that have been tested in laboratories and in the real world. Each one on its own is very strong source of persuasion, but when used in combination they become a killer deal hard to pass on.

In Blog authority, commitment and consistency, email marketing, group buying, groupon, influence, ipo, liking, psychology of persuasion, reciprocity, scarcity, social proof, startup

Avoid Facebook as Your Online Hub

October 18, 2011 — 1 Comment

As you’ve probably heard, Facebook is experiencing some kind of bug that is affecting brand page post impressions. As you can imagine, some brands are growing frustrated as there’s hardly anything being done about it. It’s been a month now, and no resolution in sight. It is almost on monthly basis now, Facebook manages to anger and annoy either its users, app developers or the advertisers.

I started drafting this blog post soon after the Roger Ebert fanpage going down story broke. So the urgency to publish it, couldn’t be greater. The marketers who solely rely on Facebook as their primary marketing channel and brands that use it as their central online hub for all their online activity are about to get a rude awakening. As relying solely on Facebook can and will bring your marketing and social media engagement efforts to its knees.

This is not an anti-Facebook post, but rather a cautionary article. Yes, facebook should be part of your marketing mix, yes you should connect with fans on facebook and you should use it to help build your company, product and/or brand awareness, but don’t make it your online hub. There are a number of reasons to approach Facebook with a plan B in your back-pocket.

Terms of Service

Facebook’s Terms of Use (ToU) aka Terms of Service (ToS) is mess. Seems like Zuckerberg and his legal team never know what to put in. And when they do update the Terms, they seemed to be in a need of always hoping to clarify some parts. Why don’t they just make it clear in the first place? I understand that ToU evolve over time, but Facebook never seems to get it right. I can’t even think of any other company that had to make so many ammendmends and backtracks on new changes to their ToU in such a short time. Backlash and petitions are well documented.

Too Much Control

Just when you think you have a solid business model and a common place to connect with your audience, Facebook can simply pull the plug on anything at a whims notice, if any at all. The common denominator is mostly because something doesn’t fit Facebook’s mantra (read: draconian terms of use), or their business model. So, putting all your eggs into one basket (read: facebook) will have a detrimental effect on the survival of your business, as was the case with Blue Noodle. A Toronto based company that ‘helps casual social game publishers monetize in-game advertising.’ Most of their efforts were focused on the Facebook platform. An anonymous Blue Noodle employee was quoted on a CNN Fortune blog article Investor immorality: The strange case of Blue Noodle :

“All seemed okay until January, when Facebook announced that game publishers would be required to use Facebook Credits as their exclusive currency. We had put most of our eggs into the Facebook basket, and that was like a shot through the heart,” says a former Blue Noodle employee who requested anonymity. “There wasn’t really a Plan B.”

Blue Noodle is partly to blame as well, but this incident illustrates the type of effect Facebook changes can have on 3rd party developers’ and partners’ business models.

Furthermore, facebook has a history of shutting down popular fanpages, groups and profiles. In addition to Roger Ebert’s page going down mentioned earlier, they also shutdown a fan page for Realtors which had over 47,000 fans, and Robert Scoble’s profile in 2008. Facebook can give you all the tools you need to connect with your audience and marketing insights you need carry out effective campaigns. But at the end of the day they ultimately have the final say if you get to use those tools or not.

Lack of Customer Support

If your profile is disabled, fanpage goes down or app isn’t working, how are you going to get help? Is there a number to call? No! For a company with such a large base of developers and high-spend advertisers, you’d assume there would be a better way of getting instant help. But there isn’t. Some users take their questions and frustrations to Twitter where in some cases it generates so much buzz that Facebook reps are forced to respond immediately.

No Respect For Users’ Privacy

Facebook is locked in constant battle with users over its privacy controls. One of the most annoying and frustrating things most users find with Facebook, is the default position of ‘opt-in’ to being set to ON whenever they introduce a new feature. More recently, Facebook introduced a face recognition feature which groups similar faces together to make tagging of your friends easier. This angered and annoyed many users as the feature was ‘on’ by default without users’ knowledge. A history of disrespect for users’ privacy has led the lawmakers to ask Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to probe Facebook. If Facebook’s leadership has no respect for their users’ privacy what do they have to ensure you trust them with your brand?

Unethical Business Practices

This post is full of examples of Facebook’s bad behavior, but the incident involving Facebook paying off a PR firm to smear Google takes the cake. These kinds of tactics are usually reserved for dying, spineless and desperate companies. Is Facebook really that insecure about Google’s latest attempt at ‘social networking’ with Google+?

Spam and Phishing

Spam and Phishing is nothing new. As the users shift their time spent on internet to Facebook, so do the spammers and scammers. These illegal activities come in different forms. Some are disguised as legitimate applications, others are just links or fan pages. Spammers and phishers can quickly hijack latest craze, event or even a brand, and disguise it as a legitimate app or a fan page. If Facebook scammers can exploit Steve Jobs’ death and take advantage of naive and unassuming Facebook users, what’s there to stop them from hijacking your brand?

To conclude, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using Facebook as a marketing channel and a place to connect with your customers, fans and followers. However, I would be wary of treating it as the only online marketing channel and a central hub of all your online activity. Instead, you need diversify and setup a hub of all your activity elsewhere. A place where you have more control and that connects to your other online properties, including your Facebook fanpage.

In Blog digital strategy, facebook, facebook privacy, marketing, marketing channel, online hub, online marketing

How I Use Different Social Networks

September 27, 2011 — Leave a comment

Not all social networks were and are created equal, or with the same intended purpose. Some intend to help you stay connected with friends and family, some focus on your business life, some help you explore and share online content and others are everything in between. But they all do the same thing, help you stay connected to people in your life, hence the name social networks. When I meet someone for the first time, they are often surprised that I am part of so many social networks. So the most common question I hear is How do you use all these networks, don’t they all do the same thing? Here’s my answer:

Facebook

I use it to stay connected to close friends and family. I never accept invites from people I don’t know. In order for me to connect with you on Facebook we would have had to meet in real life. I don’t share much content on here as I used to. If I wasn’t in marketing, I’d probably close my account.

This is where I stay connected to my professional and business contacts. LinkedIn also serves as my live resume. I am more likely to connect on LinkedIn than on Facebook. However, I only connect with current and former colleagues, classmates, thought leaders, like-minded individuals, people I’ve done some kind of business transaction with, and sometimes for strictly networking purposes. I tend to share content that is relevant to my contacts, my industry and career.

Twitter

The bulk of my social networking/social media activity happens on here. It’s very easy to get a pulse on what is happening in your neighbourhood, your city or the world. Very easy to connect with me as my profile and twitter stream are public. I tend to follow back if you seem interesting, have a real name in your profile and are a conversationalist. I broadcast almost everything and anything on here. See for yourself @andreipetrik

Stumbleupon

One of my favourite sites and web discovery tools. I use it mostly for web discovery than it’s social networking functionalities. It’s a highly addictive service that helps you discover online content that you wouldn’t have thought of looking for on your own. It also serves as my social bookmarking site. Check out my discoveries.

YouTube and Vimeo

I am not very active on these two sites as much as when I was doing video and film work. If you find my profile, feel free to connect, but if you send me a message through YouTube or Vimeo don’t expect a quick response. I watch the videos, but almost never subscribe to channels or participate in comment sections.

Slideshare, Goodreads and Flickr

These three services are used to bookmark, favourite and keep track of content I find interesting. I never use their social networking functionalities.

Foursquare

This is a location based social network that allows you to check-in to various locations to earn rewards, meet friends and discover other places around you. I am not actively building my network on here, as I have already connected with friends, colleagues and followers from existing networks. Useful to check out local deals nearby.

Google+

It’s a new network, launched in Summer of 2011. My usage is slightly increasing every week. One day I hope it replaces Facebook. At the moment I’m in the network building phase, and ever so often I’ll share some content. Follow me on Google+

Quora

Quora is a Q&A site with built in social networking functionalities. In addition to connecting to my existing following, I also use to connect to thought leaders and experts. Whenever I seek outside expert advice, tips and opinion is this my one and only go to Q&A site. LinkedIn has same functionality built into their service as well.

Tumblr

A blogging platform, stuck somewhere between Twitter and WordPress. Although I am not a frequent user, I do love this service. I have created an account, which one day I hope to put to a better use. This is one of the (social networks) accounts I created strictly to expand my digital marketing knowledge and experience. And to that point, I have a number of other social network accounts. Created them simply to explore, and expand my knowledge and expertise of the digital marketing space.

In Blog facebook, flickr, foursquare, how to use social media, how to use social networks, linkedin, quora, social media, social networks, stumbleupon, tumblr, twitter, vimeo, youtube

A Digital Sandbox

August 1, 2011 — Leave a comment

It’s what I refer to my blog as. Like a regular sandbox where you play, build and share; my blog serves that purpose. It’s my digital sandbox.

In Blog