I am a seasoned marketing and creative professional with the experience and skills to help you identify what is unique and special about your business, your product(s), your service(s). Together, we can perform a little marketing rehab, helping you create the brand strategies and the marketing campaign best suited to successfully communicate the right message, to the right people.
Not particularly happy about Facebook's new Timeline concept and the obligatory, unchangeable public nature of it, nor the "requirement" that I become a developer to participate when I don't even want to participate.
The Touch Wood smart phone commercial, utilizing a handmade wooden xylophone of indeterminate length and carted into a wilderness area that reminds me of somewhere on the planet Endor, plays Bach's Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring as I've never heard it performed before.
It isn't every day that I get an opportunity to participate in something of this magnitude, of this importance and help save a life. I'm not going to let this moment pass without doing my part. This book, End Malaria, has the power to save a life. Yes, good books can improve lives, shape lives, even change lives. But when was the last time a book literally helped save a life? If you're reading this, the answer is right now. Please, read on.
In a recent panel discussion hosted by Ad Age, Judy Shapiro realized that "...there was no consistent understanding of what "social media" was. For some, "social media" meant a new connective layer for the planet (powered by Facebook). For others, social media was the social layer for the planet with a new definition of "privacy" (powered by Facebook). And for others, social media was so broad it meant anything that let people share anything -- which covers a lot of ground beyond Facebook."
To paraphrase a bit, thanks, in large part to this nebulous "social media," marketing is experiencing a fundamental shift that takes every tactical practice of the last 20 years and turns them upside down.
Got what? It doesn't seem to me that anything about the air travel experience finds it's way into this art-for-art's-sake Virgin Atlantic commercial. Least of all, virgins. In an industry under fire for bilking passengers out of billions of dollars in fees normally finding their way into federal pockets, you'd think a "We'll try harder." approach, or "We're knockin' a few bucks off for the holidays." concept might have had a better chance at earning back a little customer respect.
Brian Clark (no relation), founder of Copyblogger and CEO of Copyblogger Media, is one of my favorite people to follow. His latest look at Google+ and his prognostications strike me as spot on. As he says, "In case you’ve been incarcerated in a Turkish prison for the last few weeks, Google+ is the new social networking platform from the search engine giant. It’s been more accurately called a “sharing” platform, and I think that distinction alone means everyone producing online content needs to take a serious look at Google+."
I’ll admit it, I got caught up in the rush to be first generation on Google+. Now I need to figure out how to best integrate it into my personal workflow, assuming it will. I have a lot “invested” in Facebook in terms of keeping up with family and friends that mean so much to me and as a component in my business development strategy. Should G+ rocket to the top of the social media landscape, unless there becomes an easy way to migrate my FB world into G+, I'm guessing I’ll have to come up with a plan to manage both… rather than having them manage me.
“Not every client will be able or willing to create optimized social media content. When the opportunity presents itself, however, you should give it a try. SEO and social media have been on converging paths for several years and it’s time for marketers to get onboard and take advantage of these amazing opportunities.” Here’s a quick little story that clearly shows how the harmonic convergence of SEO and social media can and does make a serious difference.
Every day I see commercial after commercial where I think, "Someone actually paid for this?" With the exception of Super Bowl Sunday, coming across a good spot is a rarity. IMHO, L.L. Bean did a great job on this one, solid concept, good juxtaposition of imagery, good pacing, solid production value and minimalist copywriting. Nice job!