marketing

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This may be a bit excessive for a blog post about how a small Twitter interaction influenced a purchasing decision, but I think it’s an important lesson for some brands. Follow the chain of tweets below to see how a little social listening paid off for the Able Baker bakery and coffee shop in Maplewood, NJ.

Personal touch matters.

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I know the payoff is only about five bucks today, but I had a positive experience and would consider the Able Baker first if I was in the market for gourmet pastries, cakes, you name it.

Dissolve Teaches Us to be Bold and Have a Little Fun

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Be bold. Stock footage provider Dissolve Inc (http://www.dissolve.com) wants to sell, so what do they do? They do just that by brilliantly poking fun at their own business.

The video above was created using all of Dissolve’s footage and was written by Kendra Eash for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. McSweeney’s is a San Fran based publishing company that also operates as a daily humor website.

Read Eash’s complete poem below. The link to the site follows.

THIS IS A
GENERIC
BRAND
VIDEO.

BY KENDRA EASH

– – – –
We think first
Of vague words that are synonyms for progress
And pair them with footage of a high-speed train.

Science
Is doing lots of stuff
That may or may not have anything to do with us.

See how this guy in a lab coat holds up a beaker?
That means we do research.
Here’s a picture of DNA.

There are a shitload of people in the world
Especially in India
See how we’re part of the global economy?
Look at these farmers in China.

But we also do business in the U.S.A.
Or want you to think we do.
Check out this wind energy thing in Indiana,
And this blue collar guy with dirt on his face.
Phew.

Also, we care about the environment, loosely.
Here’s some powerful, rushing water
And people planting trees.
Our policies could be related to these panoramic views of Costa Rica.

In today’s high speed environment,
Stop motion footage of a city at night
With cars turning quickly
Makes you think about doing things efficiently
And time passing.

Lest you think we’re a faceless entity,
Look at all these attractive people.
Here’s some of them talking and laughing
And close-ups of hands passing canned goods to each other
In a setting that evokes community service.

Equality,
Innovation,
Honesty
And advancement
Are all words we chose from a list.

Our profits
are awe-inspiring.
Like this guy who’s looking up and pointing
At a skyscraper or a kite
While smiling and explaining something to his child.

Using a specific ratio
of Asian people to Black people to Women to White men
We want to make sure we represent your needs and interests
Or at least a version of your skin color
In our ads.

Did we put a baby in here?
What about an ethnic old man whose wrinkled smile represents
the happiness and wisdom of the poor?
Yep.

Source: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/this-is-a-generic-brand-video

The New Myspace and What it has to Offer Brands

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NewMyspace1

Welcome to the New Myspace! Gone are the days of feverishly stalking your latest crush, spending endless hours creating bulletins and filling out surveys that include the important questions such as “What was the last thing you touched?”

The new guys over there at Myspace have taken our old friend, added a dynamic user interface, loaded it with a robust music library and enhanced profiles to appeal to designers and musicians alike. By selecting your intended use upon registering, your New Myspace profile will enable the appropriate functions for you to do your thing (e.g. video upload for filmmakers and music upload for musicians).

Bigger and more brand friendly

Brands will have no complaints with the creative opportunity New Myspace’s 1600 x 1024 profile image yields. The new profile layout also features a 130-character allotment to describe yourself/brand.

NewMyspace2

Despite the site being deeply rooted with it’s music browsing and sharing capabilities, users are still very much able to produce text (1024 character limit), photo and video posts that can be viewed on user’s connection feeds.  Posts can then easily be shared to Twitter and Facebook.

READ MORE

What Google+ Circles Mean to Us by Jerry Rizzo

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Do Google+ circles have your head spinning in circles? Having trouble deciding whose in and whose out?  Have no fear, I’m here to hopefully quell your Stokenphobia.

Sto·ken·pho·bi·a/ˈfōbēə/ Noun: An extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to round objects.

It’s easy enough to continue Facebook style categorizing and adding every user to your “Friends” circle.  By solely using a “Friends” circle you are essentially implying that you don’t care who sees your posts and you don’t care whose posts you see.  There is no harm in this categorizing method, but you may miss out on lots of opportunities to engage interested users.

 

If you want your posts to be read and you want to tailor your feed to your interest you must be a little more selective.  This may seem daunting, but it’s important to remember that the G+ experience is all about YOU!  When you are faced with the decision of which of your circles another user belongs to ask yourself the following questions:

  • What kind of content does this user share?
  • Do I want to read this users content regularly?
  • What kind of content do I want to share with this user?
  • Does this user have an interest in what I’m posting about?
  • How often does this user post?
Most importantly, I advise against becoming overly consumed by determining whether somebody is a friend , acquaintance or random.  It’s okay if you find that most users end up stock piled into one circle, because let’s face it many users are still new to Google+ and are not frequently sharing interesting content yet.  Ultimately it’s about the content being shared and if YOU want to share or be shared with.

Hopefully the room has stopped spinning and you can now create more appropriate circles to create a more favorable G+ experience.