Healthy Blog Reviews

This weekend, the eyes and ears of the world are focused on San Diego as a crowd of over 120,000 descend on the city for Comic-Con! What started out in the 70’s as a small gathering of scifi and comic fans has grown into the media event of the year. And despite the name, it’s not all about comics. Actually, it’s tough to even find a booth devoted to comics in the deluge of TV, movie, video game and toy brands that flood the convention floor. That’s because the convention has become the place to get the buzz going about nearly any media project and that’s marketing money well spent. So in honor of this yearly media-madhouse, I give you 5 Marketing Lessons You Can Learn from Comic-Con 5. Think Small Comic Con got its legs by appealing to a very specific niche audience and even though the con has grown to include other properties, the sci-fi / comic crowd still rules. By continuing to cater to the niche, instead of turning the con into a more mainstream convention, Comic-Con has developed the kind of brand loyalty most businesses only dream of. Look at the potential audience for your product or service? Is there an underrepresented group that you can cater to? That small focus could lead to big returns. 4. Learn the Art of the Tease As soon as you get within blocks of the San Diego Convention Center you’re bombarded with cryptic messages by way of handouts, posters and even banners pulled by airplanes. The messages are all part of a giant puzzle designed to get you interested in a brand you may not even know about yet. Like the teaser videos shown at the con, these bits and pieces pull in the audience and give them something to talk about. Done right, a teaser can generate ten times the buzz of a straight-forward advertising campaign and it’s not hard to do. Anyone can build a scavenger hunt into their website or leave weekly Facebook clues that add up to the location of a giveaway page. Which leads me to. . . 3. Make it an Event The World Cup. The Olympics. Comic-Con. You may thing that’s a ridiculous comparison but take a look around. Every major media outlet is covering Comic-Con from Entertainment Weekly to the Wall Street Journal to  CNN . Comic-Con and related topics will trend all weekend on Twitter and Google. And right now, Google news is showing over 1,000 articles on the subject posted in the last 24 hours. Now, you’re not going to launch an event of this size overnight, but you can create an event sale or a Twitter party or a Facebook virtual meet-up. Make it a special date and people will come. 2. People Love Free Stuff One of the things people love most about Comic-Con is the swag bag. A trip around the convention floor is like Halloween for fan boys and girls as studios hand out millions of dollars worth of free buttons, T-shirts, DVDs, comic books and clever tie-in items. Warner Brothers does a yearly bag giveaway that creates riot conditions on the convention floor whenever they hand them out. The bags are so popular and so anticipated, that it has become a kind of badge of honor to collect all of them in a weekend. Never underestimate the power of a giveaway. 1. Have Fun No one takes themselves too seriously at Comic-Con. Costumed fans mingle with big name celebs and everyone is having a good time. But when they pack up the tents on Sunday night, you can rest assured that people will go home wanting to see that new movie or try that new video game. I’m not saying you have to put a funny video on your website, but it wouldn’t hurt to add some humor to your weekly email, or develop a game application that goes along with your product. If people enjoy the experience, they’ll come back for more. Comic-Con is proof that any small idea can turn into a lucrative business if you have the drive to see it through. May the Marketing Force be with you.

Tags: cnn, facebook, flickr, halloween, location, marketing, media, product, street, vampire-diaries, video-game
Posted July 24, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

When Twitter finally got to the point where it realized that there needed to be a next step (whether they felt ready or not they were told they were ready by everyone and their brother) they turned to deals with the search engines. It’s a rite of passage for businesses t reach the level where they can even be thought of as a viable source of information that the engines would actually pay to have. It appears as if foursquare is about there already. The Telegraph has the scoop Speaking exclusively to The Telegraph, Dennis Crowley, Foursquare’s co-founder, said that his company was in talks with “everyone” in the search space – including all three major players: Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft about a data partnership. “Our data generates hugely interesting trends which would enrich search,” Crowley said. We can anonymise data and use it to show venues which are trending at that moment. Twitter helped the world and the search engines know what people are talking about. Foursquare would allow people to search for the types of place people are going to – and where is trending – not what.” Whether or not you are buying into the ‘check-in’ craze this is important to marketers since foursquare is showing signs of taking off. It recently reached the 2 million account plateau just three months after it had hit the 1 million mark. We have seen this kind of hockey stick adoption rate in the past so it is best for foursquare to strike while the iron is hot. Of course, any deals with the engines are gambles because of the fear that the location based game is still very wide open and plans by social giants like Facebook and Google themselves could put a dent in the idea that foursquare could dominate the space. Right now its biggest threat is Gowalla but this space is so new and is developing so rapidly that there could be an unknown lurking in the bushes that could come in and do something different. In fact, one of the concerns about the whole location based craze right now is just what can be done AFTER someone checks in and gets excited about being the mayor of a place that they are visiting. Foursquare is making strides in this area which will likely determine just how far they can go in the future. For now though it’s all good as Crowley says about his current competition “We are more social than Gowalla and ultimately have different visions moving forward. They are excited about different things.” So this will be worth keeping an eye on as more and more elements of search move away from the traditional blue text link. Real estate on the first page of SERP’s (search engine results pages) for anything with a location element are already crowded with maps and seven packs and more. It sure will keep the SEO community on its toes as it tries to keep pace with the change and figure out just what a search result is going to look like in certain circumstances in the very near future. Where are you on the geo-location craze? Are you active? Passive? Waiting to see what happens? Let us know where you are at .

Tags: cloud-computing, cloud-hosting, dennis crowley, engines, facebook, Local/Mobile, location, mayor, Microsoft, Search, search-engine, seo, Social
Posted July 19, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

Susan is having coffee at Starbucks in Santa Monica. Mike is seeing a movie at Edwards Fashion Island. Cynthia is at Home feeling Left Out! Geolocation applications are taking hold of the social media world thanks to the proliferation of smart phones and wifi hot spots. Now it’s not enough to Twitter what you had for lunch, you have to have an application that announces the exact restaurant for all to see. It’s a strange trend, given the number of people that are constantly taking aim at Facebook’s privacy issues. What’s even stranger is that, according to a survey by cyber-security firm Webroot, 55% of people who use geolocation applications are actually concerned about the lack of privacy. Yes, you read that right. In an article published by SFGate, it was noted that 45% of social media users said they were afraid that burglars might use location information to rob their homes while they’re away. 49% of women, said they feared that the information could be used by stalkers. These are real fears, and yet these same people continue to tweet their locations and strive to become the mayor of the Fifth Street Playground on Foursquare. 29% of the people surveyed admitted to sharing their locations with people other than friends and one in nine used a location-based tool to meet a stranger (digitally or in person). Jeff Horne, Director of Threat Research at Webroot says, “People often get excited about the new features available on social networks and forget about the power of the Internet and the amount of valuable information they give away through the simple act of updating their status and ‘checking-in’ at their current location.” Most of the people who use geolocation applications say they share that information only with friends. Unfortunately, companies with better security than Foursquare have had major data leaks, so any information shared via social media is at risk of falling into unintended hands. Now that Twitter has added an option to show your location when you tweet, there are even more ways to tell your friends, and your enemies, where you are at any given moment. And you’ll do it, even though more than half of you worry that a simple tweet might steer you right into trouble. Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community

Tags: director, facebook, flickr, friends, internet, location, locations, proliferation, Research, Social, Social Media, starbucks
Posted July 16, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

While the headline may not entirely tell the story it does tell most of it. In a world that wants everything right now it sure is interesting how some people like to slap the hands of those that provide that kind of service and do it better than anyone else. The French competition authority is claiming that Google is being discriminatory in how they allow or disallow Adwords customers to use the syatem. The Wall Street Journal reports France’s competition authority Wednesday said that Google Inc.’s online ad service discriminated against a client, a decision that comes amid the country’s growing concern over Google’s dominance of the lucrative French search market. In a preliminary ruling, the Authorité de la Concurrence said that Google’s Adwords system, which prompts ads to appear alongside search results, lacked transparency and “resulted in discriminatory treatment.” The ruling followed a complaint by Navx, a French company that provides data on the location of road traffic speed cameras and petrol prices, as well as other services and content for GPS devices. Navx said its ads were removed without warning from AdWords in 2009, and accused Google of anti-competitive practices. Google’s take is that they had put a policy in place in 2009 to disallow ads that identify the location of speed cameras and thus avoid fines. That does sound awful sporting of them, I suppose, but the French government doesn’t see it that way. The gist of this entire situation can be summed up by a quote from Navx’s lawyer “The competition authority is saying that Google has a dominant position,” said Ron Soffer, Navx’s lawyer. “When you have that position you can’t just do what you want.” This kind of ‘reasoning’ is just mind boggling to me. Just because Google is better at search and the vast majority of people in France have CHOSEN to use the service (it’s not the only game in town) then it can’t do business as it sees fit. That’s rich. Google and France are developing a rather acrimonious relationship with the French authorities going after Google on their book scanning efforts and their street view screw-ups. Those seem to have some merit as compared to this case that primarily is saying that when you become too successful you are then going to be a ‘ward of the state’ and behave as the government dictates. That’s ridiculous. No doubt, it’s important to keep tabs on powerful companies so they don’t abuse their earned privilege. This duty, however, has to be carried out with considerable tact so as not to restrict how business is done. It’s a fine line, tight-rope like balancing act for sure. However, to pander to the whim of every company who has been convinced by an Internet ambulance chasing lawyer that there is a case against Google is just plain stupid. Of course, lawyers are going to bring more and more of these cases to the courts because they are looking to hit the lottery. These types of rulings will only encourage this kind of practice. So here’s the lesson for business if you are working in France. Don’t do what you do too well so that many of the French people use your service to their benefit. If you are too good and too successful the French competition authority will have to reign in your success because, well, you are too good and successful! Sounds like the French World Cup team isn’t the only thing that has lost its mind these days. What’s your take here? Is this something that should be expected and accepted or is this truly a sign of government getting too much in the way of the free market? I know what Google would say but they are too big for me to listen . What’s on your mind?

Tags: authorit, book, country, France, french, government, internet, kind, legal, location, mind, Search, street, street-journal
Posted July 1, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

Twitter is officially in the geo-location game. Yesterday it announced the roll out of its Twitter tweet tagging service which will give the location of where you are tweeting from to those interested in knowing those things about you. The Twitter blog describes it in the context of the World Cup horn blowing soccer matches. If you’re like everyone at the Twitter office, you’re going crazy about the World Cup. When turning to Twitter to keep up with the current game, it helps to know where a Tweet is coming from—is that person watching the game on TV or is he actually in the stadium? To help answer that question, we’re excited to announce Twitter Places on twitter.com and mobile.twitter.com. Starting today, you can tag Tweets with specific places, including all World Cup stadiums in South Africa, and create new Twitter Places. You can also click a Twitter Place within a Tweet to see recent Tweets from a particular location. Try it out during the next match—you will be able to see Tweets coming from the stadium. Here is a picture of what these location updates will look like. Other features include Foursquare and Gowalla integration, API functionality for the service and browser capabilities that include Safari, IE, Firefox and Chrome. The service will be available in 65 countries over the next week or so and is being developed for Twitter apps for the iPhone, Android devices and the Blackberry. If only the Twitter service could stay up long enough for this to be truly useful ……. Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!

Tags: api, blackberry, firefox, game, iphone, location, Tweets, twitter-place, twitter-places, world
Posted June 15, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media