MySQL - Nettus tips
Good nettuts tips for mySql, for additional reading, check the bottom links and topic 20 links.
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IKEA drives word of mouth using Facebook's most popular feature
via news.cnet.com
I have to agree with Chris Matyszczyk that this campaign by IKEA and its ad agency was "simple and inspired." Why spend a lot of money developing overly creative and flashy custom Facebook pages when you can zero in on the most popular way people use Facebook -- photo tagging?
Thanks to my friend, Ariel, for letting me know about this through -- how else? -- Facebook.
20 Email Design Best Practices and Resources for Beginners
via net.tutsplus.com
Even for experienced designers, building email newsletters isn't easy. You receive a lovely looking design, and you crack on with the development. Unfortunately, it just doesn't work as it should in every email clients. Styles don't display, images aren't visible, etc.
NetTuts - "20 Email Design Best Practices and Resources for Beginners"
Good starting point, if you are in the Newsletters making business.
As important as the whole article are the links at the bottom ;)
Check it out at NetTuts!
Questions for your Worship Leaders/Services
I wrote the following for our campus pastors as a list of best practices and questions for them in addressing their services and worship leaders. It by no means comprehensive, but it's a starting place for them to think like a worship pastor. Hope this helps.
Josh
Some questions for Campus Pastors to be asking about the worship services:
- Did the worship leader engage the people in helping point them to God?
- Did the worship music reflect a range of emotions?
- Did the music lyrics reflect a gospel-centered theology?
- Did the way we presented our worship reflect a gospel-centeredness, or a man-centeredness?
- Did the worship music support the text of the sermon? How are the teaching and worship working together to engage people’s hearts, minds and will?
- Did the worship leader bring more attention to himself than to Jesus?
- Was the music so bad it was hard for people to engage?
- Was the music in a difficult key or rhythm that made it hard for the average person to participate in worship?
- Were the lyric slides in order? Hard to read? Hard to understand?
- Did the worship songs contain lyrics that may need to be explained?
- Did the worship leader engage people relationally from the stage? Was he/she personable? Did they make eye contact?
- Did the worship leader actually lead people, or just get up and play music?
- Did the musicians around the leader look confused, or that the band was fused together? Did the worship leader lead the band too?
- Have we created an atmosphere that allows people to focus and meet with God?
- Are we trying to hard to create an atmosphere of “worship?” Are we counting too much on environment?
- Was the glory of God reflected in the face of Jesus Christ through your worship service?
Service Best Practices
Pre-Service:
- Pray with your team.
- Lead them to eagerly expect the work of the Spirit
- Lead them to surrender the service and their gifts to God.
- Make sure everyone knows the service flow. Read it aloud to everyone.
- Encourage your team to walk the aisles and introduce themselves to people in the seats. Being personable and welcoming is not just for greeters. It’s essential for people on the stage.
During Service:
- Letting worship leaders pray can many times allow for better transitions in and out of service elements. Praying is not just for campus pastors.
- If you are unsure of a worship leaders competency to pray aloud in front of others, ask them to pre-write their prayers and submit them ahead of time for your review. Prayers that are pre-written and read during the service are not inauthentic or devoid of the Spirit’s work. The Spirit works in our planning during the week—not just on the weekend or in the moment.
- Engage heavily in the first song. Get people interested in Word and song. Help them focus. More than likely they’re distracted.
- Use the song before the sermon to tease ideas that may be hit in the teaching. “Pre-wire” your audience.
- Use the song after the sermon to tie in themes from the sermon and invitations to response to God.
- Take a pulse of the room after the sermon. What is the mood? Would silence and meditation be better than a song? Would instrumental music work better than music with lyrics and singing?
- What will be your sending song? How will you send people out the door?
- Do you need to pray at the end of service? Would a benediction work? Or just a goodbye?
Post-service
- After things have wound down, don’t run off. Grab your team. Encourage and debrief. Give them an opportunity to say what they thought first. Follow up with critique if needed for a repeat service. Sometimes waiting till Monday or Tuesday is a better option for coaching than right after service.
Misc Best Practices
- Who is your worship leader raising up (either intern or lay leader)?
- Are you recruiting more musicians?
- Is the worship leader delegating responsibilities to others?
- What is he/she working towards? Do they have ambitions of being a pastor?
- Inspect how your worship leader spends his/her time.
- Are your worship leaders taking advantage of opportunities within/outside the church for development, community and/or networking?
- Where do you need to spend money? On equipment? People? Training?
Anheuser-Busch InBev Reports $1.5B Profit While Taking a Stand for the Value of New Product Development, Investing in Marketing, and Retaining Effective Management
The Orlando Business Journal (OBJ) recently reported: Anheuser-Busch InBev Reports $1.5B Profit.
I found at least two points in the article compelling from a business analysis perspective...
First, with all of the economy doom-and-gloom buzz still resonating in the media and water-cooler conversations throughout the U.S., a beverage company (InBev) turned $1.5B in profit up from $690 million reported a year ago before their merger with Anheuser-Busch. I find it fascinating and encouraging that two corporations, leaders in their industry, merged and doubled profits for one of the companies. There's something to be learned from A-B InBev wouldn't you say? Though revenues are down 10 percent from the $10.9 billion the combined companies reported a year ago before the merger, InBev's profits still doubled. I don't think that the OBJ article presents enough salient details to fully identify all of even the most critical causes for the profitability, however the OBJ article does mention significant cuts in expenses while yet rolling-out two new products.
I was also struck by the quotes at the end of the article that assess A-B InBev's business growth strategies:
"The third-quarter results confirm that the company's cost-cutting efforts, while risky, will lead to margin expansion..."
And:
"We continue to believe that if InBev cuts marketing expenses too much or if its personnel cost cuts drive off key managers at Anheuser-Busch, the top line could suffer, and, given the firm's leverage, profits would probably suffer as well."
Anheuser-Busch InBev is taking a stand for the value of new product development, maintaining a healthy marketing budget, and retaining effective management and leadership. Given the report of profits, especially during the economically gloomy fervor of 2009, I think Anheuser-Busch InBev is worth listening to now and probably worth further study of their business growth strategies and operational tactics.
Make the Most of YouTube
Edelman distributes a weekly list of digital tips and tricks to all of its worldwide employees called the Friday5. Today I had the honor of authoring a Friday5 about YouTube best practices.
Make the Most of YouTube
Why It Matters
YouTube recently reached one billion views per day. They’ve also gone live, increased advertising opportunities and updated their channel and video editing capabilities.
Embrace Clip Culture.
Keep your video short and deliver your message quickly. Effective short-form YouTube videos should be under two minutes. Incorporate unique visuals, flashy graphics and known personalities to keep eyeballs glued to your video.
Quality over quantity.
You don’t have to put out a video every week to keep your channel interesting. Determine the most compelling way to connect your message with your audience – humor, anger, fear, breaking news, etc. – and weave this tone into your video’s message. One compelling video is always more effective than five boring videos.
Some popular YouTube channels evolve into “vlogs” where they post short videos on a hyper-regular basis. This is only effective once you have developed a solid subscriber base, and the most successful vlogs manage to be attention-grabbing every time.
Tag, tag, tag.
YouTube uses the same Google search algorithm to crawl and index videos for search. However, the bots aren’t watching your video – they are looking at your title, description and tags.
Tag liberally and include tags for any topics, people, organizations, locations and ideas that are mentioned in the video or are related to the content of the video. Also, you can add tags to your YouTube channel in the “Edit Channel” form. These tags should be more general terms that describe your organization and channel as a whole.
Promote it.
YouTube advertising is no longer just for the Brand Channels that spend thousands of dollars to partner with YouTube. YouTube’s new Promoted Videos program works just like Google AdWords – you design your ad, choose your keywords and bid on a cost-per-click basis. YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world – take advantage of the traffic and promote your video.
YouTube provides a Call-to-Action Overlay that is unique to Promoted Videos. This semi-transparent bar displays a title and URL over the bottom of your video and allows you to link your video to any website you choose.
Measurement beyond views.
The most common YouTube statistic is views, but this does not tell the whole story of your video’s success. Use YouTube Insight to drill down to daily view counts, as well as demographic and geographic view distribution, and look at “community engagement” statistics to see when viewers are rating and commenting on your video.
When you upload a video, use TubeMogul to examine viewer when viewers stop watching your video, where your video is embedded, detailed geographic breakdowns and more.
How do you make the most of YouTube?
Be Alert! Bogus Holiday eCards May Bring Bad Tidings
Cyber criminals take advantage of the increased number of legitimate e-cards sent during the holiday season to send out their own fraudulent, and potentially damaging, e-cards. These spammed messages may try to lure you into clicking on malicious links in order to compromise your PC with a Trojan horse or virus.
Be extra vigilant in the weeks ahead when you get an e-mail claiming, "You've received an e-card," unless you're certain it's from a trusted friend or family member. It only takes a moment to check out an e-card, and it could save you hours of headaches:- Examine the e-card notification closely before clicking on any links contained within it. Are there typos in the message? Does it lack a personalized greeting that identifies you by name? Those are warning signs.
- Look at the link you're asked to click on in order to receive the e-card. If it ends in ".exe," it's an executable file—a file that automatically executes code to install and run programs and routines. A legitimate e-card will not have an executable file, so seeing one is evidence of a scam. Do not click on the link.
- Check the headers of the e-mail to see if the Web address is different from the one displayed in your Inbox. If it is, this is another warning sign.
Should you receive an e-card notification containing one or more of these "red flags," do not click on the link. Simply delete the e-mail from your Inbox. In addition, continue to follow these basic security precautions:
- Use a firewall.
- Use antivirus and antispyware software and keep it up to date.
- Never download or click on anything from any unknown source.
- Don't accept an end-user agreement without reading the fine print first; you might inadvertently agree to install spyware or something else you don't want.
Exchanging holiday e-cards can be a wonderful part of the season. Just make sure you keep your eyes open before you open those e-card links.
[Source: Cornerstone Publishing Group Inc., SkyBest Communications, eNewsletter of Skyline Telephone Membership Corporation]
Ten Social Media Don'ts
We're pretty familiar with the perks of adding social media to a marketing campaign. But what are some social media "Don'ts" that should be considered?
5 Tips For Social Media Marketing Success
Here are five tips you might find useful for you social media marketing efforts:
1. Thoroughly explore your options.When selecting the sites to target in your social media marketing efforts, it’s easy to fall into the trap of just going after big fish like Facebook and Twitter, simply because they’re more popular. Think of smaller, lesser-known social media sites. They can be huge winners, especially if they cater to a very specific topic or niche audience.
2. Vary your message and approach.
Tailor your efforts to each site. If the goal is to get people’s attention, the solution is to interact with users in a manner they can really relate to.
3. Track your efforts with custom URLs.
Don’t forget to include tracking into your campaign! You don’t need sophisticated web analytics or expensive social monitoring tools. One of the easiest ways to track your efforts is to incorporate custom, shortened URLs into your campaign. Some of the most popular ones are Bit.ly, Ow.ly, and the longstanding TinyURL. Many of these free services provide in-depth stats, such as how many times each link was clicked, and from where.
4. Seize the moment.
Take advantage of the additional opportunities you encounter from day to day, even if it’s not a part of your initial marketing plan. Don’t be afraid to veer off the path a little if something interesting comes up. What’s the hot topic today? Have you heard about something related in the news? It’s important for your strategy to remain flexible enough to seize these types of opportunities and benefit from them.
5. Remember to “keep it real.”
Be genuine with all social media campaigns. Nobody likes shameless self-promotion. Avoid sounding like a “trained parrot.” If you’re outsourcing your social media marketing, be sure to set expectations and behavioral ground rules up front. Be honest, but don’t insult people’s intelligence.
(Via WebAdvantage)
