Marketing « Talk, Inc - Find Your Voice

Power Breakfast Series Draws 500+ Biz Leaders to Learn about Internet Marketing

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009

Greater Wilmington Business hit another homerun this morning with its Power Breakfast Series on Leveraging the Power of the Internet. More than 500 business leaders gathered to learn from six local business owners, myself included. Brett Martin, owner of Castle Branch; Fred Meyers, owner of Queensboro Shirt Company and Chip Mahan, owner of Live Oak Bank had compelling insights on how they have effectively used the Internet to grow their businesses.

Justin Queen of Blu Zeus and Mike Duncan of Sage Island brought the web developers’ perspective into the discussion. I spoke on the impact of Social Media on today’s business arena and how it is changing the balance of power in marketing communications and putting it into the hands of consumers and business people online.

If you weren’t able to attend, check Greater Wilmington Business’ website at www.wilmingtonbiz.net for an article detailing the discussion.

Some points on social media to remember:

Social media has changed the balance of power — people are using online technologies like Facebook, blogs, etc. to get the things they need from each other rather than from traditional institutions like corporations
Social media involves two primary elements — people and technology. Concentrate on the relationships first; technology second
If you’re thinking about adopting social media into your marketing mix, use the POST method (courtesy of Forrester Research): People, Objectives, Strategies and Technology.

PEOPLE — Understand where and if your customers are engaging in social media
OBJECTIVES - What are your goals?
STRATEGIES - Determine what methodologies to use to achieve your objectives
TECHNOLOGY - What applications should you use? Blog, Social Network? Wiki?

Social media is all about conversations with people. So keep people first and foremost in your planning. Who are your customers? Where are they online? What information is important to them? How do they like to access this information?

Thanks again to Greater Wilmington Business for hosting the series. Publisher Rob Kaiser and his entire staff have done a wonderful job with this quarterly series and I look forward to the next one. Every local business owner should try to attend. But sign up early. He’s sold out each breakfast!

Tags: Internet Marketing, Marketing, Social media, Social Media in Wilmington N.C.
Posted in Marketing, Public Relations, Talk | Comments

Register for Social Media Webinar on April 23

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009

There’s a low hum moving quickly around the world that’s about to erupt into a loud roar.

It’s the online conversation.

If you’d like to learn more about how to harness the power of internet marketing and social media to grow your business, register for our free, 1-hour webinar.

TALK THERAPY - How The Online Conversation Can Grow Your Business.

DATE: Thursday, April 23, 2009

TIME: 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM EDT

Space is limited. REGISTER HERE.

Upon registering you will receive a confirmation email with details on how to join the webinar on April 23.

Millions of people are talking to each other online about everything from their favorite rock star to the type of car they like to drive. With the advent of Facebook, Twitter, blogs, wikis and RSS, the balance of power has shifted away from business and into the hands and keyboards of consumers. Is this a threat or an opportunity? I think it’s an opportunity. But only if managed appropriately.

Online technologies are changing at lightning speed. Every day, we discover new, better and cheaper ways to market businesses online. A burgeoning industry of SEO, SEM and social media experts are scrambling to help you optimize your website, launch a blog, and build your social media campaign.

Business as usual no longer exists. Consumers have taken communications into their own hands and they are talking about your business, products and services online. You can either join the conversation or get left behind. Get started now, and you’ll have a jump on your competitors. Wait too long and you’ll be playing catch-up.

Tags: Add new tag, Marketing, Social media, Social Media in Wilmington N.C., Webinar
Posted in Professional Development | Comments

PR pros have leadership role to play in social media

Monday, March 16th, 2009

Traditional PR and marketing agencies are going the way of the dinosaur. And when I say traditional, I mean ones that are not incorporating social media and internet marketing into their core services. Why is the traditional agency threatened? Because traditional media (TV, radio, print) is no longer the most relevant voice in the marketplace. Today’s conversation is online - and consumers are the ones doing all the talking.

Here are the stats to prove it (courtesy of Adam Singer, author of The Future Buzz):

• 1 trillion - the unique # of URLs in Google’s index

• 2 billion - number of searches Google does each day

• 684 million - the number of visitors to Wikipedia last year

• 70 million - the number of videos on YouTube

• 133 million - number of blogs indexed by Technorati since 2002

• 77% - percentage of active Internet users who read blogs

• 3 million - the number of tweets per day on Twitter

• 150 million - number of active Facebook users

• 236 million - number of visitors attracted annually to Digg

Lots of impressive numbers, but what do they mean? These stats illustrate that millions of people around the world are online, talking to each other about everything from their favorite rock star to the type of car they like to drive. People have taken the conversation online and away from traditional media and businesses. Forrester researchers Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff call it the Groundswell in a book of the same name. The groundswell is “a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations.” In other words, people are looking to each other for information and are no longer relying solely on the marketing information provided to them by businesses.

Because of this, businesses have lost control over how their companies and brands are perceived by consumers. The balance of power has shifted, away from business and into the hands - and keyboards - of consumers. Is this a threat or an opportunity? Depends on your perspective. Businesses thrive on control, so this lack of control is discomfiting. But if you take the time to understand the groundswell and how you can participate, it presents an overwhelming opportunity to directly interact with your customers.

This phenonemon has many names: groundswell, social media, online conversation, etc. Call it what you will. But it all boils down to two primary components: technology and people. A mistake made by many business people is to focus on the technology. They jump into blogging and Facebook with great enthusiasm but with little strategic thinking. As Li and Bernoff point out, the successful way to engage your audiences online is to “concentrate on the relationships, not the technologies.”

So if the social media is about relationship-building first, technology second, shouldn’t you entrust your online marketing to your communications professional, not your IT department or website designer? The savvy PR practitioner is already engaged online and has both the technical and communication skills to help businesses master this new frontier. More and more PR agencies are incorporating internet marketing capabilities in-house so they can present their clients with an integrated approach to communications. One that marries traditional “offline” marketing with new online opportunities.

It’s a new world, and I’m thrilled to be in it.

Tags: Marketing, Public Relations, Public Relations Agency in N.C., Social Media in Wilmington N.C.
Posted in Public Relations | Comments

Things We Love

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009

Debbie loves The Alternative Board or TAB – The Alternative Board® brings together owners of privately-held businesses for peer advice and business coaching. Board members meet monthly to learn from one another’s successes and mistakes to grow their businesses. Dallas Romanowski at dallas@cap-corp.com coordinated TAB in the Cape Fear region. There is a charge for membership. Worth every penny.

Holly loves the new Facebook fan pages – This week Facebook made the change from their standard fan pages, which left a lot to be desired, to the new design, which is strikingly similar to a normal profile. Businesses and organizations with a fan page now have the ability to share a status, appear on news feeds and provide a layout that Facebook users understand. Check out the Talk fan page to see how we have taken advantage of these awesome changes.

Kelly loves “Win Without Pitching”, a sales guide to success for marketing communications agencies – This training manual is the ultimate guide book for any business owner looking to learn how to position their business for profit. Win Without Pitching offers tips and tools that help bring dignity, competitive advantage and financial reward to owner-operated firms that have grown tired of traditional cold calling practices. Reading this manual has given me a brand new understanding of the business world and how to gain that competitive advantage.

Kirsty loves Watchmen. I saw the movie last week, unaware of the story and fell in love. Reading the graphic novel this week, I’m enamored of the story and can see why it is the only “comic” on Time’s list of 100 best novels since 1923. While critics have given the film mixed reviews, everyone agrees that its opening credits are the best part of the film. yU+Co., creator of countless title designs from 300 to Enchanted, designed this montage of vintage superheroes from their hay days to their demise throughout American history, set to the tune of Bob Dylan’s “Times they are a-changing.” And while I love this incredible piece of film, I don’t love Warner Bros. requesting yU+Co. remove the popular clip from its website. Here’s the story of the bad publicity move along with the visually stunning six-minute clip.

Susan loves Magpie – Like Google Ad Words, Magpie uses keywords to match your company’s product or service to potential customers. This pay-per-tweet service starts an online conversation about your company. It identifies Twitterers who are already talking about topics related to your company or product and spreads the word like a web-based form of six degrees of separation.

Tags: Advertising, Marketing, Public Relations, Social media
Posted in Marketing, Public Relations | Comments

Be heard among all the online chatter

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009

Everywhere you look online these days, someone is asking you to join a conversation. Whether it’s on a blog, Twitter, Facebook or Digg, the internet has become one big social gathering. And it’s not just Generation Y-ers anymore.

A recent Neilsen study found that the largest number of Facebook newbies were between 39 and 45 years old. And from the looks of it, most of these are online for business as much as pleasure. As such, they play a crucial role in your online marketing campaign – they are a captive audience.

Smart marketers are taking advantage of this opportunity to reach their target audience through advertising programs built into some of the most used social sites. Here are a few that are worth checking out:

Google Adwords – These sponsored ad links use key words to match Googlers to companies and products. When a person does a search, ads that fit the criteria populate the right-hand side of the browser leading searchers to targeted sites. The pay-per-click initiative allows the business running the ad has a set budget per day (or per campaign) and then is charged when someone clicks on their ad.

Magpie – This Twitter-based ad service uses keywords to match your company’s product or service to potential customers. This pay-per-tweet campaign identifies Twitterers who are already talking about topics related to your company or product and spreads the word from follower to follower.

Facebook ads – This ultra-targeted option for social media allows Facebook advertisers to market by age, gender, location and more. And the really cool thing about them is that it highlights people who have used or supported a product or cause in ads on their friends’ pages. So instead of seeing a generic ad, you will see your friend’s picture and are therefore you will be much more likely to pay attention.

Tags: Advertising, Marketing, Social media
Posted in Marketing | Comments

4 File types you should know

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

designmatters Have you been given the seemingly simple task of getting a file from one person and giving it to another? Sometimes it can turnout to be anything but simple. Here are a few options right off the bat.

Take your self out of the equation
Put the two parties in direct contact. This is usually the best and most efficient way to keep all parties happy with the least amount of hassle.
Ask the specific questions
What type of file do you need? dot what? .eps, .jpg, .pdf?
What size do you need? What is this for? A brochure? A website? Both?
Educate yourself
The following is a brief overview of the common file types you may be tracking down and what you need to know about them.

There are 4 main factors that combine to determine the file type.

Purpose
What is the reason for the file? Is it for a brochure? Is it going to be on a website? Does it need to have a transparent background? Can it be a flattened file or should it be in layers?
Resolution
This refers to the number of lines or dots in every inch. LPI and DPI. High end printers recommend 300 - 600 dpi. Newspapers need significantly less at around 200 dpi. Anything to do with websites only require 72 dpi. A good rule of thumb is to always have more than you need. You can always decrease the resolution but you can never increase it.
Color
Every file has a color mode. CMYK is for traditional printing also known as 4 color printing. Spot or PMS colors are specific ink colors that are encoded into a file. Very similar to paint chips. Web colors are a predetermined set of colors or color palette that are traditionally accepted for use on the web.
Vector vs. Raster
There are 2 basic types of computer graphics:
Vector, which are composed of paths. These graphics use mathematical relationships between points and the paths connecting them to describe/create an image. Therefore a vector file can be scaled as large as you want without loosing any quality.
Raster, which are composed of pixels. Raster files use a grid of individual pixels where each pixel is assigned a different color or shade. These types of files are best used for photographs and images that require subtle shading.

Now on to the 4 common file types.

.jpg or .jpeg
These are always raster files. They can be viewed in most applications. Digital cameras create RGB .jpg files in a variety of resolutions. The default color setting on most .jpg files is RGB, but this can be changed to CMYK with the right software. These files are usually for web or digital use. The larger the file the better the quality. A .jpg file offers compression which allows an image to be optimized for faster download without losing much quality.

.pdf
A .pdf is a Portable Document Format. This is a common file type and is often requested because it can support vectors and runs a low reisk of altering any of the graphic information within the file. A .pdf is also very user friendly and is supported by many applications such as Adobe Acrobat Reader. All color modes can be used and the resolution is usually independant and can be resized as needed. These files are sometimes used for print but are most often used as online documents.

.eps
This type of file can be created from just about anywhere. Photoshop, Illustrator, QuarkXpress, etc. An eps has become the standard for graphic designers, printers and everyone in between. Most often these are best for transfering vector files. All color modes are supported and the resolution is the same as a .pdf file.

.gif
This file, much like the .jpg is always a raster file, though it may begun as a vector file. The colors that are used are very limited, resulting in very small file sizes. Using a .gif allows for a transparent background and animation. Transparent backgrounds allow the file to be placed on pages without seeing the bounding box. And animation uses a series of frames that resemble flipbook. You can select the palette of colors ranging from 2 all the way to 256. The fewer the colors the smaller the file size. These files are almost always used for web/digital use.

So there you have it. Four file types and what you need to know about them.

Tags: Graphic Design in Wilmington N.C., Marketing
Posted in Graphic Design, Talk | Comments

An Online Marketer’s Reading List

Sunday, March 1st, 2009

The older I get, the more I realize I don’t know. Particularly these days, when online marketing is evolving at lightening speed. So I’ve been reading a lot lately. Not just a little. A LOT. Usually I’m good for one book at a time. But these past few weeks, the pile on my bedside table and on my desk has been growing steadily. Here’s a summary of the titles I’m enjoying right now. I hope you enjoy them too.
The Cluetrain Manifesto, The End of Business as Usual by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke (@clockerb), Doc Searls (@dsearls) and David Weinberger (@dweinberger) - The Cluetrain Manifesto began as a Web site (www.cluetrain.com) in 1999 when the authors, who have worked variously at IBM, Sun Microsystems, the Linux Journal, and NPR, posted 95 theses that pronounced what they felt was the new reality of the networked marketplace. According to Locke, “the fundamental principle of The Cluetrain Manifesto is that companies have been blind to the sea change that the Internet represents, and are desperately clinging to methods that workded wonders in the broadcast era but that are radically counterproductive online.”

The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott (@dmscott) — Scott argues that marketing’s old rules are becoming more and more irrelevant. With the decline of traditional mass media marketing (TV, radio, print), there are new opportunities online. Scott provides a guide to RSS, vodcasts and viral marketing, without neglecting the fact that technological wizardry can’t substitute for a well-thought out marketing program.

Groundswell by Charlene Li (@charleneli) and Josh Bernoff (@jbernoff) — These two Forrester Research analysts have created an excellent primer on social media (You Tube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and how your company can participate — and benefit. The book will help you evaluate new social technologies and guide you on how to build these technologies into your business.

Search Engine Optimization Plain & Simple by Andrew S. Hazen, founder and CEO of Prime Visibility — An outstanding book on website optimization and search engine marketing. A step-by-step guide to making your website the number one result in customer searches on every search engine.

Web Design for ROI by Lance Loveday and Sandra Niehaus (@sandraniehaus) - A how-to book on how to design your website to maximize your ROI and how to get your website to increase your sales and leads by 10% to 50% or more.

Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug (@skrug) — An easy-to-read book on how to create a website that allows users to surf merrily through a well-designed site without having to think too hard about how the site works. Krug uses a mix of color screen shots, cute cartoons and diagrams to make his points. Much of the content is devoted to proper use of conventions and content layout, and the “before and after” examples are superb.

Tags: Marketing, Social media, Social Media in Wilmington N.C.
Posted in Marketing, Public Relations, Talk | Comments

Things We Love

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

Debbie loves South’nFrance bon bons – Not only are they absolutely delicious hand-dipped chocolate bon bons made right here in Wilmington, but they are an excellent example of smart marketers. I’ve been delighted to see this company written up in many local media outlets and I’m constantly impressed with the attention to detail they give every aspect of their business. Bravo!

Holly loves Costa Rica – After vacationing there for one fabulous week in January, I absolutely fell in love with this breath-taking country. I learned a lot and saw a lot during vacation, but there was still so much more I wanted to know. Luckily, Costa Rica is started a blog just for their English speaking visitors. The blog details unique trips, awesome adventures and first-hand accounts of all the cool things you can experience there. For my next trip I’ll be sure to check the blog before making any plans!

Kelly loves the book, “The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding” by Al Ries – I so enjoyed Mr. Ries’ previous book, “The Fall of Advertising, the Rise of PR” that I had to check out his latest branding bible. Ries does an amazing job demonstrating the only way to stand out in today’s marketplace is to build your product or service into an internet brand, and provides step-by-step instructions you need to do so. Very good read for those interested in taking your business where the rest of the world is….the Internet.

Kirsty loves Slumdog Millionaire – This underdog film that almost went straight to DVD, dominated the Oscars and helped to shine a light on life in that part of the world. The result? Great publicity for Brand India. People are going gaga for the dancing, the music and the clothes in Slumdog. And everyone is looking for ways to position themselves with the movie to get a piece of the spotlight. Just consider the more than 6,000 Google News hits after the Government of Mumbai announced it was giving free homes to the child stars in the film.

Susan loves Facebook causes – The social media giant has an application that allows users to create and support causes they care about. And then recruit more supporters by inviting friends to join the cause as well. A few causes Talkers support on Facebook are Cape Fear Habitat for Humanity, Carolina Canines for Service and Community Financial Education Foundation (CFEF). Stay tuned for Talk’s Project Pet Project cause to hit Facebook later this week.

Tags: Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media in Wilmington N.C.
Posted in Branding, Marketing, Public Relations | Comments

Amazon’s Bezos Unveils Kindle 2

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

In a press conference that resembled Steve Jobs’ introduction of new Apple products (minus the black turtleneck), Jeff Bezos, CEO and founder of Amazon, introduced the new Kindle 2.0 today in New York. The cost is $359 for the device. It comes with built-in wireless service that works on a cell phone technology platform so no need to seek out wifi hot spots. Also no monthly fees or long-term contracts. The new Kindle will even read to you if you like with its new text-to-speech feature, so it works like an audio library as well. I’m particularly enthusiastic about its built-in dictionary function since I rarely have a dictionary handy when reading and miss way too many opportunities to broaden my vocabulary.

I’ve been watching the publicity surrounding the Kindle with great interest. Bezos is keeping mum on actual sales figures, but analysts report that Amazon sold 500,000 of the first generation Kindles — more than the number of I-pods sold during its debut. In addition to books, you can download newspapers, magazines and blogs as well. Books retail for $9.99 each. Don’t know about costs of periodicals.

I predict we’re going to be seeing a lot of people toting around the Kindle 2.0 this year. I will be one of them.

Tags: e-book, Kindle, Marketing
Posted in Talk | Comments

Apple is smart to increase marketing spending

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009

apple600

History shows us that many companies have capitalized on downturns in the economy to grow their brands. When everyone else is quiet, their brand stands out thanks to smart marketing. Apple increased its marketing spending during 4th quarter 2008 over that same period in 2007. And when it comes to creative, Apple certainly outshines its competitors. I’m a Mac fanatic, so perhaps I’m biased, but Apple has to be commended for its smart marketing.

Tags: Advertising agency, Marketing
Posted in Talk | Comments

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