Why this gardening infographic works for content strategy

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Are daily deals sites right for you?

By Barry A. Martin on April 23^rd, 2012

Seth Godin (the world’s most prolific/down to earth marketing guru) has a line:

“Share of wallet is easier, more profitable and ultimately more effective a measure than share of market”.

Which to me means that doing more with people who already appreciate you is better for you business long term. Makes sense. Most of us are familiar with the basic cost savings in selling, teaching, moving forward and maintaining projects with people we have an existing relationship with.

He also says:

“Your best customers are worth far more than your average customers”.

This makes me consider the ancillary benefits in a relationship with someone who values your offering. Beyond making it easier for you to serve them, they can be the ultimate source of better qualified leads. The people they send your way:

will be coming via someone they trust, and should be therefore easier to start a relationship with
will be coming for the right reasons, increasing the chances they’re a good fit for you

The article I’ll link you to in a second makes perhaps the most critical case for considering whether so-called daily deals site like Groupon are right for you. It, and the 100+ comments offer a solid education in thinking holistically about sales.

I found the article while searching for a quote I love about paying for things worth paying for:

When you buy something cheap and bad, the best you’re going to feel about it is when you buy it. When you buy something expensive and good, the worst you’re going to feel about it is when you buy it

Personally, I’ve leaned towards the sentiment shared by the author when he says:

The customers you attract only with a discount will disregard what you love about your own business, and won’t treat you with respect; both sides usually regret the transaction.

But the very first comment makes the point that, carefully considered, one could craft a deal that:

brings in the right prospective customers/partners
introduces them to new items
sells things you can still make a margin on

I still have a lingering distaste in my gut for the practice, but either way, you can certainly get insight to better inform your decision from the following post.

Groupon’s Success Disaster | Redfin Corporate Blog.

Keep Calm and Meme On

By Angelica Ramos on March 2^nd, 2012

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You can love them or hate them but one thing is for sure, memes travel at the speed of light invading our Facebook walls and Twitter timelines until the point of exhaustion. What is it about them that makes people keep posting them and sharing them?

The definition of Meme according to Webster dictionary is “an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture.”

Taking on Jodi’s blog post this week about how movies can help us articulate thoughts, I think Internet memes have a similar function. They are an ultra condensed statement about our opinions with a touch of irony and satire. But their real strength also comes with repetition; we have seen so many of them that they have become a common language in online culture.

Here are my top 4 examples of memes that have recently brought us together (or torn us apart?)

1. “What society thinks I do” …
According to buzzfeed before these meme flooded our Facebook walls with examples of every career imaginable, it appeared on the Wellesley College yearbook in 1909 and it showed how the world viewed women scholars.

My favorite example: Stormtrooper!

2. Sh*t People Say

Starting with the video Shit Girls Say (15 million views on YouTube), posted only two months ago, we’ve heard what almost everyone has to say!
My favourite so far: Sh*t nobody says:

3. Y U No Guy

He’s the all time #1 most popular character in memegenerator.net with 776,097 different combinations of the formula: “(subject noun), [WH]Y [YO]U NO (verb)?”.
Apparently the original face comes from a Japanese sci-fi manga / anime series called Gantz.

4. Keep Calm and Carry On

This was originally a poster produced by the British government in 1939 to raise the morale of the British people during Second World War. It was not very well known until the year 2000 when it was reissued and used as a decorative theme for products.
Check out Keep Calm O- Matic, a website where you can make your own customizable poster and then share it and have people vote for them. Although for guaranteed results once you’re done with your meme just post it on pinterest.

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So tell us, what’s your favorite meme and what does it say about you?

Is Pinterest the next big thing?

By Angelica Ramos on February 23^rd, 2012

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If you are already a Pinterest user I bet your email has been recently flooded by notifications of pins, repinns and follows. I have been a user for about a year and I had never seen such action until now. It seems like this social media site has finally gone mainstream.

I mentioned Pinterest in a blogpost some months ago, as one place you could go to find inspiration online. Back then I was using it to collect material that could serve as reference for my album cover project, I had basically two boards: one about album covers and the other one about rock stars. I was also following the boards of some designer friends (all women) who would post cool designs and cute pictures, that was all.

Yesterday my coworker Lionel asked me how could he follow me on Pinterest and then it hit me… I realized that I had an audience, that I should start pinning more and that I should upload my own content.

To get a better understanding on the whole phenomenon I decided to ask google: Is pinterest the next big thing?

Here are some of the things google told me and that you should probably take into consideration if you are not a Pinterest user yet:

Pinterest is a virtual pinborard that lets you organize and share things you find on the web in an online community.
Last month, Pinterest suddenly jumped from 1 million unique monthly visitors to 11 million.
Marketing companies have discovered that Pinterest redirects more traffic back to their websites than Google + and other social networks.
Pinterest is not meant for self-promotion directly, however you can use it creatively to showcase the lifestyle or culture your brand promotes and share it with likeminded people.
Pinterest has the option to connect to Twitter and Facebook so you can post new pins ubiquitously in all your accounts.
To join Pinterest you need to request an invitation. The easiest way to do it is to ask a friend who already has an account to invite you. (If else fails, let me know and I can invite you.)
The majority of the users, up to now, are women and for this reason, there are lots of images about fashion, decoration, cooking and such. However, you are the one curating your boards so just like in twitter, you are the only one responsible for Justin Beaver pictures appearing in your board/timeline.
To prove that not everything in Pinterest are pictures of wedding invitations and kittens, there’s the “The Board of Man” With 195,733 followers, this board is dedicated to “bring balance to the force” with images of Star Wars, whiskey, Chuck Norris and lots of bacon.

If you want to read more about how to use Pinterest for business, HubSpot has an awesome manual that explains why should you join, if not now, at least very soon.

What an economist can teach you about Social Media

By Barry A. Martin on December 10^th, 2011

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Last October in Turin, Italy, I was one of about 100 people captivated by economist Manfred Max Neef’s ability to communicate critical and complex concepts through simple, sometimes passionate, sometimes funny anecdotes. Because they were conveyed so compellingly, several have stuck with me. One in particular might explain why so many people (still) don’t get Social Media.

Max Neef told a story about his interest in defining the single attribute that distinguishes humans from all other animals. He asked a teacher, who suggested it was the ‘soul’, but he wasn’t convinced.

The next teacher he asked explained that humans have intelligence, but animals only have their instincts. But his experience with his own cat wouldn’t let him accept this answer either.

Max Neef forgot abut the question after that until an ‘a-ha’ moment years later, when he realized that it must be ‘humour’. Two weeks later, he came across a paper by a Japanese expert in animal behaviour citing a species of birds who tell each other jokes.

In University, over breakfast with his father–a brilliant scientist, it occurred to Max Neef that he’d never put the question to him. So he did. His father said, “try stupidity”.

Defining himself as a ‘stupidologist’ (having studied the affliction for some time) he explained that stupidity describes not the lack of faculties, but having all the information you need and still making bad decisions.

He went on to explain that we have created more information in the last 100 years than in all of history prior, and that decision-makers were still making the wrong decisions.

But there’s a big difference between having information and understanding it.

He used love as an example to make the point, explaining that no matter how much empirical data we collect on the subject–social, chemical, etc–without ever being in love, you just won’t “get it”.

This is the challenge facing organizations trying to leverage social networking platforms in their communications strategies today: You have to get bitten by the bug to use it effectively. But of course the irony is that when you do, your priorities change.

Next week I’ll list some tips for easing into it, even with your hectic schedule. In spite of your preconceived ideas about it.

PS: In case you don’t know, today is Slow Food’s Terra Madre Day. Slow Food Toronto has put together an amazing list of producers, artisans and chefs for you and the family to meet and eat with (free) between 2 and 6 pm at Harbourfront.

What are you thankful for today? The gratitude app

By Angelica Ramos on November 30^th, 2011

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My friend Ayla has been keeping a journal for more than 2 years to keep a record of things that she’s grateful for each day. She’s noticed that this exercise has helped her maintain more positive attitude even in times of trouble.

One day she was talking about her daily exercise with Andrés, a friend of hers who works at a development shop here in Toronto. He thought this was a great idea and that it would be great as a portable app, so they decided to explore the possibility of taking the journal into the digital world.

First it was a question of whether people would actually be committed to write things they’re thankful for every day. They made a test group in which I participated; and started with a simple email reminder and a form in which we were asked to write six things each day for 21 days. At the end of each week they would send us statistics about the top things we were thankful for.

For me it felt like collecting stamps, I would not want to miss a day without filling that page with 6 things. At the end of the 21 days it definitely made me more conscious of the things I value the most in my life. Most of the people in the test group felt the same and decided to continue doing it. That’s when Ayla and Andrés decided to take it seriously and move forward developing 1 Thing.

After being a witness to the whole process that it took to develop the app, I am happy to announce that 1 Thing launched last Thursday, strategically on American Thanksgiving Day, and is now available online at 1THINGapp.com. There is nothing to download, and you can use it on a desktop or mobile phone with one account.

When you sign up you get a private “gratitude notebook” where you can start posting the things you’re thankful for. The app also features a public feed where users can share or look at other peoples’ postings. And it gives you the option of looking at your old postings by date so it becomes like a real online diary.

We have gotten used to being constantly bombarded with bad news. What I find the most appealing about the 1 Thing app is that it takes our focus back to the positive things happening in our lives every day. I’m thankful for that.

Social media Category