Marketing — Connected World Media

Face Value

November 30, 2009 By David Jacobs

I have been fortunate enough to attend a few really great social media conferences in the past few months and while there I noticed something very interesting. It’s something I had experienced in years past as well. Several people that I came into contact with were familiar with me because of Facebook or Twitter and my profile picture specifically helped to jog that recognition. One person even commented how much he enjoyed my picture on Facebook as it includes my new baby Capella on my shoulders. He said it makes him smile every time he sees it pop up in his Facebook stream.

That’s a kind of brand awareness that you can’t purchase for anything. Traditionally we think of brand awareness as it is associated to a logo like the Nike swoosh or Apple’s Apple with a bite out of it. Logo branding is still a powerful tool and I help many customers crate or revitalize their logos but in this increasingly social world there is also a power in your own face. I guess they don’t call it Facebook for nothing.

Don’t underestimate the value of your face. Think carefully about all those profile photos on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and everywhere else. If you’re into this for building business and brand value, here are some tips to remember:

Make sure your picture is a good one. A clear close up view of your face. Make sure the exposure is good and the pose is comfortable and positive. Something that captures a little of your personality is always great.
Don’t use cartoon characters or other logos. If it is an account that represents the entire company, a company logo would be appropriate for that.
The background should be as clean and clear as possible. You don’t want anything to obscure or take focus away from what’s most important, your face.
Don’t change your picture often. You can change it now and again, especially if you get a better picture to use, but try to remain as consistent as possible.

I would not appear with anyone else in your photo with the exception of your kids. This could even be a debated point, but I chose personally to have Capella in my Facebook profile for a few reasons. My personal Facebook account is a little less business and more personal. My Connected World Media Facebook page uses the company logo. My kids are also a big part of my life and so much of who I am, I don’t mind showing that. That being said, I have recently changed my LinkedIn photo to a photo of just me and my Twitter profile pic is the same one although my Twitter custom background has the Capella and me photo on it. I try to use the same photo across all networks as much as possible, again for consistency sake.

As with most things there are no hard and fast answers. You have to discover what works for you and your company, but I hope I have given you some things to think about. As always if you want help in this or any other social media regard, don’t hesitate to contact me. I would love to work with you on your brand image online.

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing, Social Networks Tagged With: facebook, Marketing, social media, twitter

Carnival Dream to Feature Onboard Social Networking

September 21, 2009 By David Jacobs

When it comes to cruise ships it seams as if bigger is better. Cruise ships keep getting larger and as the population on these floating cities continues to grow so do the services. On-board Internet is nothing new as many ships provide connections and even terminals at cafes shipboard and in room as well. The disadvantage is these connections are often very expensive. But what about the thousands of people who are already onboard with you?

Carnival is the first company to address this with a first of it’s kind on-board social network. From the various terminal points or from your very room on the new Carnival Dream you can connect to an exclusive online social network. There are typical features such as your own profile and the ability to invite friends to activities both on and off ship. I actually think this makes sense because of the enormous number of people on any given ship these days. As a marketing move it’s very smart as younger customers, very familiar with social networks, will appreciate the high tech touch as well as the easier ability to connect with others that share similar interests.

The one thing I see missing is the ability to take your connections with you when the cruise ends. Why not allow this network to continue to function with customers get home? There is no reason customers would not want to continue to communicate with their new friends, especially of they are nearby. There is also an increased chance they may want to take another Carnival cruise together, even allow them to plan the trip right on the network. It’s a community that Carnival is creating with this network and that’s one of the most powerful things a company can do. It’s very much in Carnival’s interest to keep the community going and even extend it to others who have taken Carnival cruises. Your profile could list all the Carnival cruses you have been on with your comments and reviews on each one. At first blush this feature might looks like a gimmick but it has the potential to be much more than that.

Filed Under: Blog, Social Networks Tagged With: Carnival Cruise, Carnival Dream, Community, Marketing, social networking

Social Media is not a Broadcast Medium

August 6, 2009 By David Jacobs

Martha Stewart recently announced she is giving up on Facebook in favor of Twitter. More bang for the tweet she says. Bill Gates also has stopped using Facebook citing difficulty keeping up with friend requests. I hear this from clients as well. Facebook takes more work than Twitter. There is also more nonsense going on with Facebook apps like Pirate games and thrown snowballs. There is nothing quite like the raw simplicity of Twitter. Also with Twitter, you can gain followers without having to do anything. They follow you by choice and you do not have to follow them back. No management required. I understand all this, but don’t underestimate Facebook.

For one thing, I find that more of my non-geeky so called “normal” friends use Facebook much more and sometimes exclusively over Twitter. If your goal is to reach a less bleeding edge audience, Facebook is really the way to go. Also, it’s a fairly easy to thing to get your Tweets to automatically populate Facebook, so there is really no need to completely abandon it.

As far as the reciprocity of Facebook friends go, that brings me to my second point. I wish I had the problem of having to manage more friend requests than I could handle. But it brings up the larger point that many of these stars aren’t interested in reciprocity. They don’t want to listen or converse, they want to talk. Look at Martha’s Twitter and you will find over a million followers but she only follows 35 people. Her tweets rarely if ever include conversations to other people and when they do it’s mostly to other stars. This is common for most big stars on Twitter. They are using Twitter like another broadcast medium. This, of course, is inherently wrong and against the very spirit of social media. They don’t call it social for nothing. It’s disappointing to see this because these stars have an unbelievable access to their greatest fans. With a million people following you, I’m sure it’s hard to talk to everyone but I see no reason why they cannot at least make an effort and do what they can.

Facebook takes more work than Twiter because it does more, but Twitter takes work to if you’re doing it right. It’s something my clients often don’t want to hear, this stuff takes work. But marketing your business takes work too and this kind of marketing can pay off in a much more powerful and long lasting way for all that effort.

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing, Social Networks Tagged With: facebook, Marketing, Martha Stewart, social media, twitter

Twitter Marketing with Twibbon

July 27, 2009 By David Jacobs

There many interesting and innovative ways to market on Twitter, but here is one of the more interesting ones I have come across lately. Twibbon is a program that overlays a graphic of your design onto Twitter profile pictures. Your profile picture shows up to the left of your every Tweet. It was originally started as a cause marketing system for people wanting to promote things like Cancer research or the current Iran political situation. You can still see this today in profiles that have the green tinting to them. Green is the color of the opposition leader in Iran. Twitter users must opt in and choose to display the overlays on their profile picture. Users can just as easily remove or change the overlay.

More recently, I am seeing marketers pick up on this trend and design overlays for their products and services. Even fans of certain products are creating Twibbons like this fan created overlay for the HBO show True Blood. Now that’s real user generated marketing. If you can convince enough people to use your overlay, there is the potential to get your brand image in front of tens of thousands of people. Plus it’s free and easy to do.

One problem I see for users is how much will this obscure your own profile brand and how many of these things are you willing to layer on top of your profile? I’ve already seen people with multiple overlays. If you are a brand and you are using Twitter for marketing I would not use any other Twibbon other than your own. I don’t think it hurts to have one but make sure your design is tasteful and doesn’t block too much of the original profile photo. Anything that looks bad or that takes over too much of the photo will probably not be used much. Also, as always, monitor the conversation and if you find people mentioning how annoyed they are by your overlay, get rid of it.

Filed Under: Blog, Social Networks Tagged With: Marketing, Twibbon, twitter

Connected World Radio: You Can't Buy Influence

May 23, 2009 By David Jacobs

Very disappointing as I find a company that is selling Twitter followers. They also have some other very questionable online marketing tactics. Two quick rules for you. 1. Don’t spam. 2. Don’t be a scumbag.

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Filed Under: Audio, Podcast Tagged With: influence, Marketing, twitter

Google Logo By Kids

April 21, 2009 By David Jacobs

We talk a lot in social media about how companies are no longer in control of their brand, and in many cases their own logo. Google has always had a tradition of changing their logo for special occasions and holidays. But how would you like to put your logo into the hands of gradeschoolers? That’s what Google did for it’s Draw 4 Google contest where kids K-12 were encouraged to draw their own version of the Google logo based around the concept of “What if…”. The winner’s logo was the Google logo for a day. Sometimes not being in control of your brand can be a beautiful thing.

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing Tagged With: google, logo, Marketing

Offline Marketing Mistakes Amplified Online

April 17, 2009 By David Jacobs

One of the many effects of social media is to amplify things. Your successes can become bigger and your failures can become disasters. Pepsi ran a promotion with the New York Yankees that involved giving away baseball tickets along with Pepsi gear. They promoted 200 tickets were to be given away. Hundreds of people lined up and waited for hours upon hours. When only 100 tickets were actually available, the crowd went crazy, chanting Pepsi sucks and throughing Pepsi cans in the gutter.

This campaign was completely offline but has been dramatically effected by online as this video is now on the net and making the rounds. You couldn’t ask for a more damaging spectacle. Pepsi, for their part has admitted they completely blew it and are trying to make amends, but the damage is done and thanks to the Long Tail of the Internet, this video will live on for a long time.

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing, New Media, Video Tagged With: Baseball, Marketing, New York Yankees, Pepsi, Video

Ty Blows It

January 24, 2009 By David Jacobs

artsashamaliadollsty Ty, the toy company responsible for the Beanie Baby madness maybe showing is desperation in the shameless marketing of its two new dolls. Two African American dolls named Sasha and Malia. It just so happens that those are the names of the Obama daughters. The media, the American public and Michelle Obama herself have caught on to this right away and there has been a public outcry. Using the presidential children to market your product without their or their parents consent is pretty pathetic.

But here is what’s worse. Ty says they did not name the dolls after the Obama daughters and that they will not reveal the source of their inspiration for the names because all product development including name choices are “proprietary”. Notice to corporate america or any company for that matter; when you get your hand caught in the cookie jar, far better to come clean than try to stonewall. This one is pretty easy to see through and Ty only looks idiotic with their straight out of corporate marketing statement. I would rather Ty said something like, America is excited by the Obama presidency and we wanted to honer the Obama kids with their own Ty dolls. At least that would make some kind of sense. This is the New Media age Ty. It’s time for transparency and honesty not hiding behind meaningless corporate statements. I am very dissapointed and I won’t be buying any Ty products anytime soon.