I ran across this excellent article on social media tools on SocialMediaExaminer.com by Cindy King. For those of you who do not know about Social Media Examiner, they put on the best social media conference in the marketplace. If you want to rub elbows with the best in the business, I highly suggest that you go to their next conference in San Diego -http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/smmworld/

This article lists the top social media tools currently at your disposal. It is comprehensive and detailed. I highly suggest you give it a read. Here is the link - http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/24-must-have-social-media-marketing-tools/

I myself have only used a couple of the apps but I am going to jump in and review each one. In a world where efficiency and accuracy are essential, finding the right tools to assist you can mean the difference between success and failure.

Cheers,

Troy

Extreme Sports.

Pushing the individual to new lengths in their physical and mental capabilities. Or more aptly, blasting /flipping/boosting all while going mach 3 with your hair on fire. This is now the norm. Whether it is the American Express commercials featuring Laird Hamilton being towed into a giant wave - http://youtu.be/IKYMckP1POU - or the Degree Deodorant commercial - http://youtu.be/xokI3Ju93Og , advertisers are using extreme sports to grab minds of the focus-impaired and the wanna-be adventurers.

Now, Red Bull has brought it to a new level. Merely sponsoring or badging an event or person is now passe’. They are creating the events that produce brand altering effects. For example, Felix Baumgartner’s jump from space. Here is an excellent article by Nicole Kemp at Brand Republic that totally nails the shift that is occuring - http://www.brandrepublic.com/news/1155718/Six-marketing-lessons-Red-Bull-Stratos.

With social media generating a more intimate conversation with brands, and GoPro cameras recording personal views of extreme sports (here is one of me kiteboarding on Hilton Head Island, SC - it is very apparent what kite and kiteboard I use. I am a walking endorsement for Slingshot kites - http://youtu.be/UITfWkfIctQ) - where is it going next?

I believe that the use of extreme sports will continue to change the advertising landscape with greater and greater integration. Big global brands will continue to push the limits and embrace extreme sports because they are the epitome of what adventure is today. Adventure, even if it is vicarious, SELLS.

That’s what I think.

Cheers,

Troy

We live a life of to-do’s, daily and weekly goals, business needs, personal desires and immediate concerns.

How do you prioritize and get everything done? If you are like me, you are constantly working off of to-d0 lists.

Lists for daily tasks. Lists for personal regiments. Lists for needs such as grocery shopping.

Then throw into the mix the personal stuff, like meeting friends for dinner, working out, calling family on the other coast, fixing broken stuff in the house and so on.

Life gets in the way of living.

This is the same in business. There are a few things that you need to watch and do on a daily basis. You ask yourself what are the things I absolutely need to get done today. Then you take that list and prioritize it by importance to your business.  Then you put your head down and go.

For me, I do the hard things first. This makes the rest of the day go so much better. If you wait to do the hard things ( for some people that is prospecting phone calls) for the end of the day, they probably won’t get done.

I have my priorities and I have my demands on my time. I get in trouble when I mix these two up.

It is a constant battle.

My priorities: eat well, work out everyday, experience joy every day, talk to friends and family daily, get work done.

My demands: focus on work when you are working, work the priorities list, make daily progress, work on the business more than I work in the business

Bottom line: cross off a bunch of things on the lists everyday, make progress, make money, be proud of my day’s activities.

There are only so many days in your life, make them all worthwhile.

Is your LinkedIn profile and company profile running on full tank of gas or are they in need of a fill up?
Over the last 12 months, most businesses have found how important LinkedIn is as a research tool, marketing vehicle, personnel recruiter, business-specific forum and social network.
This post from Business Insider uses excellent graphic instruction provided by Lewis Howes to give you all the guidance you need to get your LinkedIn profiles up to speed. So simple. So on the money.
Excellent information.

LinkedIn Bootcamp

- Actual question from client

Trying to stay up with the What, How, When and Where of SEO can be exhausting. For years it was all meta-tags, brand appropriate url’s and keyword-rich content (uggh). Over the last few years with the rise of  “Local”, video and social media, it is ten times more challenging for a non-SEO professional (those that spend less than a few hours per week on SEO tasks) to get an understanding of how to get seen.

Here is a great list of articles to read to understand the current landscape and tips to implement so your business is seen.

• Erin Everhart give her take on SEO best practices

http://mashable.com/2011/11/08/seo-best-practices/?WT.mc_id=obnetwork

• Steve Wiideman talks about video distribution tool SENukeX and how video helps SEO

http://www.seosteve.com/senukex-review-video-syndication-tool

• Mike Dobbs relates ways to use Twitter for search visibility (this is a couple years old but still relevant)

http://mashable.com/2009/06/25/twitter-seo-tips/

• Kevin Gibbons gives 10 tips for ranking in your local area

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2096689/Local-SEO-10-Tips-for-Ranking-in-Your-Area

Cheers,

Troy

My father passed away at 10:05am on Sept 6th. He went peacefully with my mother, myself and my brothers and sister there. At his wishes, we scheduled a Celebration of Life Party for him 3 weeks later at the local golf course he regularly played at. (To read more about my father - click here)

My parents live on a small residential street in Sunnyvale, CA. They have lived there for about 40 years. My father did landscaping, concrete work, plumbing ,electrical and just about any sort of renovation work. Over the decades he  worked on 80% of the house on our street is some fashion. So of course, most of my neighbors had the opportunity to become friends with my father. Two of our neighbors, Sam and Kren, had my father do a great deal of work on their house. Their house is beautiful inside and out. Beautiful in a magazine-type way with impeccable design. Sam and Kren were the men with the idea.

The party was set for Saturday October 1. The Thursday afternoon before the party, I needed to get something at store, so I went outside and got in the car. As I drove down the street I noticed at the end of the street there were flags in a couple yards. As I got closer, I saw that they were Hawaiian flags being put in the ground on each house on the street by two men.

The Idea
The idea was to show my family how much the people on the street cared for my dad and mourned his passing. The idea was to do something that would demonstrate to us that they shared our grief.

Click on the image to see it full size.

The idea was to buy full size Hawaiian flags and install them in the front yards on my parents street (my father was born in Hawaii and had one quarter Hawaiian blood in him). The visual was emotionally overwhelming and heart warming. Words cannot convey what the image does. My family was so grateful. In a world where things sometimes are bleak, a simple idea or gesture can change everything.

How does this apply to marketing ? To me it is the simplicity and boldness of the gesture that is so phenomenal.  As a marketer, the idea and it’s execution challenges me to be creative, sincere and bold. Sometimes we need to be shown an amazing idea just to prove to us what is possible.

Thank you Sam and Kren for showing us what is possible and how an idea can mean so much.

Informational Versus Conversational

When a post, a topic or a piece of information is added to a website (e.g. A picture of the client working with a celebrity) it is put there for informational purposes. In the case of a celebrity client, it shows that your have credibility and work with important people. Usually the photo with a celebrity has a description under it saying something like “Picture of me with Lebron James at my office. I am assisting him with one of his charities”.

This exact same picture (the client working with a celebrity) is presented in a completely different light in the social media environment. For example - the celebrity, Lebron James - the Facebook post for the picture should read something like “Boy do I feel short when working with Lebron”. This is much more conversational. Or may add some humor by posting, “Lebron told me that I was okay for a short guy.”

Have a great day,

Troy

- Acts as if they know it all and they only want you around to follow their orders

- Always trying to trap you into saying something so they can latch upon a word or a phrase that you said and use it against you

- Consistently looking at all the things that you have done wrong, regardless of how successful the end results have been

- Manipulative and petty

- They use the contract you signed with them as a check list not a guideline. They also read the contract as not a limiting Levitra Professional force but one that can be extrapolated into an endless level of work for you (e.g. “the contract says you will manage our website, we would like 37 employee emails set up and the it moved over to our hosting facility. Then once that is done, we can discuss the implementation of a few Flash elements that are badly 0nline pharmacy needed.”)

- They tend to consider your expertise, that you developed over years, as their property to be used at their discretion( e.g. “I have no idea how to post to facebook, do you think we can sit down and go over it for a few hours on Saturday?”).

- They ask their friends, who have no background in marketing or the online world, viagra Buy Viagra for women online for advice then try to represent that as legitimate criticism of your work (e.g. “My friend Lisa said she has no idea why you made that button that shade of red and thinks it is too big. Can we change that?”).

The list can go on and on. My advice to you - is to take a serious look at the relationship with the “bad client”. If the relationship can be modified so that it produces a positive outcome for yourself and the client, then move forward. But, if after careful consideration and multiple attempts to get the relationship back on track fail, you may simply have to part ways.

A very smart and successful friend of mine once gave western union georgia hinesville me great advice - “Your success will be based more on who you say online amoxil “no” to than who you say “yes” to.”  Excellent advice indeed.

Have a great day,

Troy

I have been using Jing for a month now and I cannot say enough good things about it. It is simple, effective and hands down the best way to communicate with clients.
So what is Jing?
Jing is a free downloadable software that allows you to do screen capture videos and pictures, then send them to clients, family or whoever. For those of us in the web world it is a godsend. Need to show a client how to navigate thru a new web page? Record a Jing video and send the link to them. Need share how you look up specific content with your Mom? Make a Jing video. There are so many uses that I have quickly become a Jing-a-holic and my clients totally appreciate it.

To get your Jing account go to http://www.techsmith.com/jing/

Tell them Troy sent you.

Now Facebook announced a very similar design change for business pages.

The business page design change is currently available on a voluntary basis, but it will be implemented across the board sometime in March.

What are your thoughts?

For me, it was easy making the transition to the new personal page, but I do expect some bugs that will need to be worked out on the new business page design. Just like all changes Facebook has instituted, you can expect a bit of screaming and yelling, and then acceptance.