I’ve actually driven through Minnesota on my way to Grand Forks, ND for a wedding and I’m sorry to report, the truth hurts. Well played Wisconsin, well played.
Archive for March, 2009
Twitterpacks
Friday, March 27th, 2009Here’s a Wiki that might catch on and prove quite popular with the Twitter evangelists. It’s called Twitter Packs and it allows anyone to group Twitter feeds by category.
Google Alerts: Still Around
Friday, March 27th, 2009They’ve been around for awhile, but it’s worth taking a second look at the very simple but extremely powerful Google Alerts.
From Google News you can choose Google Alerts from a left hand menu. Enter a keyword and Google will email you everytime it finds something new with that keyword. By default, it only watches news stories, but you can choose “Comprehensive” from the dropdown list and it will also watch blogs and such—and email each time something is found with your keyword. You can also choose to get one email a day with all the links that contain your keyword, or get an email each time the keyword is found.
Now, if you watched a phrase like Revolution Strategy, you’d get an email every time a story or blog posting that contained Revolution and Strategy anywhere in the story was found—whether the two words were next to each other or not. If you put the words in quotation marks “Revolution Strategy” then you will only get alerts on the entire phrase.
Every company should be watching their own brand and product names. Follow up with bloggers and journalists that write the narrative that shapes your brand.
Another hit to Canadian media
Friday, March 27th, 2009CBC recently annouced that it will be laying off nearly 800 employees in an effort to stay financially afloat during these hard times.
Read the full story at the Globe and Mail
Every day we’re hearing of another large company laying off employees, but it was still very sad for me to hear of this loss.
How this change will affect the services offered by CBC is hard to tell, but outraged listeners across the country are busily weighing in with their opinions, on air and online.
Where the Wild Things Are
Thursday, March 26th, 2009Check out this trailer for the upcoming Spike Jonze film Where the While Things Are, based on the enduring childrens’ book. Jonze has made some pretty kick-ass movies and music videos - my personal faves are Being John Malkovich and Adaptation and the Fatboy Slim video. He’s also the co-creator of Jackass, a show that inspired millions of young idiots to hurt themselves on camera. Ahh, natural selection, you’re a heartless bitch.
Anyway, Jonze’s take on this story has been controversial from the beginning. But based on the trailer, it’s going to be another brilliant piece of movie magic. I’m going to read the story to my kids again tonight.
The new domain
Thursday, March 26th, 2009A new top level domain launched this week. I’m still learning about it myself but the premise is very cool. With the .tel domain you can store all your contact information and hand it out as an electronic business card - but with even more information. As long as you keep the domain up to date your business card is always relevant. For an overview of the .tel domain visit webnames.ca
The best way to understand how the .tel domain works is to see it in action. Check out this one: www.henri.tel
~Kay
Sometimes Placement is Everything
Thursday, March 26th, 2009
The Real Mad Men
Tuesday, March 24th, 2009Check out this trailer for a new documentary on some of the best minds in Creative. More here at Fast Company.
ART & COPY trailer from Baldwin& on Vimeo.
Beep Beep!
Tuesday, March 24th, 2009When the media latches on to something, they don’t let go, and such has been the case with Twitter. The 140 character micro-blogging site is now home to every marketing guru, SEO geek, and faux celebrity in the world, and many of them are all a twitter about those things they consume–brands, products, and services.
And how do you keep track of what the twits are saying about you and your company? Enter Tweetbeep. Tweetbeep will alert you, via email, whenever your brand, product, or keyword is Twittered.
In the Aftermath
Monday, March 23rd, 2009Mark Healy weighs in today on the importance of a post-recession marketing plan.
Because so many entrepreneurs and SMBs will be focused on manoeuvring through 2009, this is an excellent time to craft a 12-to 24-month get-out-front-of-competitors marketing strategy.
And a good time to contact a communications expert to assist in that process, I might add somewhat self-servingly.
