Dive into the archives.
- Surprise!!! Social Media (and Life) Is NOT A Competition
Spend a few minutes browsing through recent headlines about social media and you will most likely be left with the impression that all of the networks are in a fierce competition with each other. Facebook is the king, with more paticipants than any other. Twitter recently boasted that its users are posting an average of 50 million updates a day. Google Buzz burst onto the scene and the pundits immediately pitted it against the others in comparisons and contrasts. The list goes on and on, with countless also-rans and quickly-developed newcomers waiting in the wings, all hoping to compete for your membership and usage.
Zoom in and take a closer look within the individual social networks and you will witness users clamoring for significant increases in followers and friends, regularly checking numbers and trying a myriad of techniques to grow their counts to what those who are paying attention might call ‘respectable’. Tools that rate, rank and grade feed the frenzy and give us all the ability to measure our success in order to insure that we are doing things ‘correctly’.
A few weeks back I got involved in a conversation on Twitter in which another user (identity to remain anonymous) was tweeting complaints to TwitterGrader (a tool that ranks users based on an algorithm that goes beyond simple numbers). This person was upset because they have almost twice as many followers and updates as I do, yet TwitterGrader listed me in the top 5 in my city while leaving him somewhere further down the list. I told him it really didn’t matter and that this whole thing is not a competition, to which he responded vehemently, “EVERYTHING is a competition! LIFE is a competition!”
Really? Is that the world we live in?
- A Social Media (and Life) Lesson I Learned From My 12-Year-Old
Today is my son’s 12th birthday.
It seems like only yesterday that he was without a doubt the cutest toddler on earth, and as the youngest in the family it is definitely with much melancholy that we approach the incoming teen years with him, never to steer through the early childhood years again. From day one he has been his Mom’s “baby”, the youngest and only son and more-than-willing recipient of all the benefits that are a part of that special mother-son bond. So it is probably most difficult of all for my wife to watch him grow into a young man. Still, we are proud of who he is becoming, and it is part of this that I want to share with you in a simple but profound lesson I have learned from him.
- Don’t Let Your Bad Attitude Or Ethics Ruin It For The Rest Of Us!
The other night my wife and I went to our eldest daughter’s high school basketball game to cheer her on. We took our regular spot up at the top of the bleachers so we could lean back against the wall rather than slouching on the hard wood for the entire game. As we settled in, we noticed a few parents from the other team had the same idea and were setting up camp about 15 feet away. We commenced with the standard smile and nod acknowledgements and then turned our attention to the beginning of the contest. What transpired over the next hour inspired a range of emotions, from anger to frustration to disappointment. And I’m not talking about what happened on the court.
- AT&T, Verizon, and the Major Fail of Mudslinging Marketing
If you have watched any live television in the past month with the unfortunate inability to fast forward through the commercials, you have most likely witnessed the back and forth advertising campaigns of AT&T and Verizon. It started with Verizon’s launching of the new Droid phone and an all-out bashing of the current king of all smartphones, the iPhone. Verizon decided to seize the opportunity to point out AT&T’s lacking 3G coverage along the way, playing on the iPhone’s catch phrase, “There’s an app for that”. Verizon cleverly changed it to “There’s a map for that”, showing US maps displaying the disparities between the two competitors’ 3G coverage.
Not to be outdone, AT&T has launched its retaliation campaign, bringing in celebrity Luke Wilson to point out that AT&T has coverage for 97% of the country (deceitfully refraining from stating the fact that this number is not reflective of their spotty 3G-specific coverage, which is what Verizon was attacking), and attempting to punch back at Verizon by stating that the only comparison chart column they excel in is the one for a company name that starts with the letter ‘V’.
It’s only been a few weeks since the feuding began, but I’m already disgusted and exhausted with it. From my perspective, this type of advertising would be enough to drive me to cancel my contract with either one of them and find another cell phone service provider.
- 190+ Links For October 09: Freelance, Web Design, Social Media and SEO!
One of the primary services I try to provide on Twitter is a seemingly endless supply of resource and news links in subjects that I am interested in. Primarily these include freelancing, web and graphic design, social media and search engine optimization (SEO). So today I have gathered some of the top links i have shared over the past month and organized them for you to bookmark and sort through at your leisure.
- Social Media Strategy Minus Human Engagement = Business Fail
Last night I went to my daughter’s first Freshman Chorus concert. Of course, my little girl’s voice stood out among the pack, but the beautiful sound of angelic voices blending perfectly together was wonderfully soothing and enjoyable, even though the majority of the songs they were singing were remarkably antiquated and, in my opinion, emotionally sterile. As a musician myself, I am admittedly a bit of a snob, but this was more about a lack of connection with and passion for what the songs were about. Each selection, including the big finale splattered with corny unison hand claps in what I guess was an attempt to display enthusiasm, left me disappointed for my daughter’s personal musical progression. Afterward we discussed the differences between singing well and singing with a passionate desperation from the depth of your soul. This is a perpetual rant for me, and one my family is probably exhausted with. But every time we sit through an American Idol show, or hear another sticky sweet pop song on the radio, or encounter anything else that pits passion against perfection, I can see that they get it, and that’s important to me as their father. If there is one thing I most want my children to carry with them throughout their lives, it is an intrinsic understanding that the pursuit of their passion is primary and that without it they will not only never be completely content, but they will also fall short of giving the world their very best.
At this juncture you are probably wondering what any of this has to do with the title of this post. Don’t worry. I didn’t use the title to lure you here to listen to me rant about musical integrity and passion, or how proud I am of my children. The point is this: whether it’s your own personal endeavors, or your business pursuits, or your new social media strategy, I believe you can only get so far on just doing it well. Without real, personal, passionate human interaction, your end result will always be limited.
- How to Best Promote Your Brand Using Social Media: 10 Top Tips and Ideas!
Whether we like it or not, people – customers- are and will always be the main focal point of any marketing, promotional and research and development efforts. They are, as the quote above clearly indicates, the real assets of any business with which it can’t operate or function without. Therefore, when considering the best practices for promoting any brand or product, through social media or offline, the first thing the company has to consider is its target audience, in terms of demographics, education, backgrounds, likes, dislikes and so on and so forth.
Yet, since the simple marketing mix theory consists of 4 main elements: product, place, promotion and price, the tricky part is figuring out the right mix that suits a liquid medium such as social media.
Therefore, this article will discuss, in details, the best 10 top tips and ideas that can help steer a brand towards success and away from mistakes that might lead to utter failure and losses!
- 43 Twitter Backgrounds You’ve Never Seen On A List Before
Two days ago I asked people to submit their Twitter backgrounds that have never been included on those lists design blogs put out. It is a little pet peeve of mine that the various lists tend to feature the same 100-200 Twitter background designs and claim that they are the best out of the millions of possibilities. I find it hard to believe that those lists could be so exhaustive as to have gone through every single Twitter background to determine the best. Besides, isn’t beauty in the eye of the beholder and judgment of design subjective?
So I thought it would be a good idea to offer an opportunity for those who have designed backgrounds but are maybe less known or new to Twitter so they have not yet occupied one of those lists.
- Submit Your Twitter Backgrounds That Have Never Been On A List
Here is your chance to show off your Twitter background design. Simply leave your information in the comments below and within the next week or so I will compile them together to create a gallery of Twitter backgrounds that have never been on a list.
- MacDaddy Links of the Week: Sep. 6-11
It’s been a busy week on the interwebs, full of all kinds of useful new articles and information. This week’s compilation of links is loaded with wonderful tidbits of advice, information, tutorials, downloads, applications and more! I have loosely organized them in topical sections to aid in your browsing.
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