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Amazing Viral Marketing Campaign
Thanks @phil_daniels
What do you think? Good? Bad? Like the beard? Suit me?
Want to make your own?
Have you seen anything that compares or competes?
Seen anything you feel is as innovative?
Do share……….
Are you just putting it on?
So here goes…. the answer you’ve all been waiting for, that’s been keeping you awake at night. Bugging you like the Stazi.
Remember the Trivial Pursuit Question?
‘What is 500 hundred times sweeter than cane sugar?’
Hold on tight ……
The answer is….. according to Little Luke and Anna.
You ready for this?
Their answer was……. 0
That’s right. Zero.
The result of the almost endless deliberation, deconstruction, disambiguation, and almost Cliff Richard like enlightenment. Zero. All that squeeking, squinting and squirming led exactly to nowhere. To absolutely nothing. Literally.
What is 500 multiplied by sweeter than cane sugar?
The question, the words, the logic, the syntax, the semiotic, the semantic had been reduced to a mathematical equation. How utterly brilliant. The phrase ‘Sweeter than cane sugar’ somehow, somewhere, somewhy in their minds had been calculated to equal zero and that even by multiplying it 500 times would never amount to anything more or indeed anything less than zero. Genius. Perfect.
How?
And for that Luke and Anna…… I will be forever grateful. Thank you.
Here’s another example of logic and language misaligning.
A while back I was talking with a friend. A guy from one of the former Russian Republics. Let’s call him……. James.
We were in China, Zhuhai to be exact.
I was only the second Englishman that James had met at any length.
He told me about the first, a suave, well dressed chap in a bar in Guangzhou.The stranger had plied him with expensive booze and spent an entire evening schmoozing him and playing the gent. Chatting him up. According to James, trying to recruit him…. trying to persuade him to do a little business. He was being head hunted. No, not as an exporter of MP3 players, garden furniture or even as an ear to ground ….. he was being tapped up by a rival school to jump ship and join as a TEFL teacher.
“The guy told me I was exactly the sort of person he could do business with,”James told me very proudly in his James Hetfield come Dukles of Hazard MTV drawl, “that I had all the right sort of natural skills and abilities.
Thought he was really smart. He even complimented me on my English,” James crowed. “Told me I had perfect English.”
“Haaaaa! You know what I told him? I said to the guy – hey???? ….. how do you know I’m not just putting it on?”
Ouch.
The next time you write/think/perform/work/love brilliantly – make sure you’re not just putting it on 
Have you got any examples of out of sync language and logic you’d like to share? I’d love to hear them.
Thanks to DJOtaku for the image via Flickr
How to source great images for your blog
Are you a copywriter or blogger looking for some fresh and creative design inspiration, some new marketing textures for your site?
Are you as turned off by all those dull, done, stock images as I am? You know the score.
In his Copywriting Tips Nick Usbourne writes about the perils of using cliched images on blogs and websites. As 'integrated business solutions,' 'passion' for this that or the other, 'leverage' and 'thinking outside the box' now reflect errrrmmm....... thinking inside the box, so do images.
I'll offer a brief description – you do the mental image stuff. Honk when you've had enough.
- Someone shouting into a megaphone.
- Thick wristed business chaps shaking hands.
- Any group of tanned, toned, terribly smart business people grinning.
- A globe, a mouse and a graph.
- Unnaturally white teeth.
- Designer eyewear, lab coats and clipboards.
It's like some sort of business porn.
If you're a copywriter, blogger, SEOist or just want to say something a bit different with your images, then why not follow the Flickr Creative Commons route. There are millions of images to choose from and many are available to use under Creative Commons.
Here's how - I don't know about you but I need these things spelt out step by step.
- Go to flickr.com
- Enter a search term in the Search box and press enter
- Now click on Advanced Search – it's below 'Full text and tags only' to the right of the 'Search' box.
- This will take you through to the Advanced Search page. You'll notice your term in the search box still.
- Scroll down and check the options you want.
- Be sure to check the Creative Commons box.
- Now click the blue search button at the bottom of the page in the middle.
- This will return some images. Click on one you like and open its page.
- Scroll down to see the Creative Commons info in Additional Information – on the right hand side, just below the list of tags. Above the little green box.
- Click on where it says 'Some rights reserved.' This will spell out the particular Creative Commons license that applies to that image.
- Save it to your computer if you like it.
- Stick it in a blog– but remember to comply with the Creative Commons, for example the 'right to make derivative works' and attribute the source.
There's no shortage of great imagary there. I LOVE D Sharon Pruitt's work as Pink Sherbert and Mikee Showbiz's amazing coloured micro smoking pigs (that's curly tailed SEO for those of you in the know ;-)
For a longer more detailed explanations of the processs and information on the types of Creative Commons licences check out articles at Skellieweg and Sethsimonds. Sonia Simone (always good) has her own take on things with her - Lazy Bloggers Guide to Finding Great Post Images
To add a little more flavour I take my images, including my own photos to Rollip.com and marmalise polarise them. I like the retro, lo-fi feel. The romance of polaroid images, inspired by pages such as Audrey Hepburn Complex and Sabino at Tumblr. Inappropriate probably, but here's the most wonderful image I've stumbled across over there. There's something Staple Hill, circa 1973 about it .....................anyway............
My advice?
Get creative, get lateral, get original. Give your post/site/whatever some character, a little personality. Make it different. Differentialise it (see.... you can do it with words too).
Have a play. Try bending and breaking some of your own digital photos as well. It's amazing how things can turn out.
Art innit!
Do you know of any other good sources of images or ways to treat images that are interesting?
Please.... do let me know.
Thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/dullhunk/" target="_blank">dullhunk for the Blog Image
The First Cut is the Deepest
“Thank you for your interest but we have received overwhelming responses and after careful review we extended an offer that has been accepted…”
It was March 2008, and I was 2 months away from graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and political science from the University of Michigan, but I still had not landed a job to feed my poor post grad butt. Those with their engineering degrees and holier-than-thou business majors were already planning their big city debuts and had seemingly shiny futures ahead of them. I had made it past a couple of first and second round interviews but was never able to cinch the deal. I even gave up Valentine’s Day that year to fly to California for an interview with a social networking website but returned to bloody Ann Arbor, Michigan with no avail. I felt lost, and perhaps 99.9% of my fellow political science majors who were just as disoriented as I was have already decided to take a hike to law school. As adrift and desperate to anchor my life on something, I knew that I was not join the ranks of the other lost boys in law school.
How did I get into this miserable predicament? Let’s retrace my footsteps.
- I had defied my Asian parents’ wishes of studying biology (becoming a doctor), engineering (to become just like them J), computer science or finance and instead opted to study what I thought I loved.
- I hadn’t landed any relevant summer internships throughout my college career. “Well, why didn’t you?!?!” You ask. See #3.
- By the time I realized what I loved wasn’t really what I loved, my parents had already poured approximately $108,000 into my tuition (did I forget to mention that UM is a money grubbing @#$*&#$ that will suck you dry if you’re an international student). I had only a year of college left and it was too late to break up with the political science/psychology department or add another lover (marketing) to the mix, although I did manage to squeeze in a few marketing classes.
Some of the things that I did do right in college and proved to be immensely useful later on:
- WORK! Be a lab assistant, be a research assistant! Get your hands on a job that you can later showcase in your cover letters and resume when you start looking for a job after college. It’s important that you work somewhere that will help you develop your analytical and writing skills. Brown nose a professor or bed oops I meant beg your TA! Scour the work study website! Do whatever you can to get that job. It’s ok if the pay is low or there’s no pay at all, remember all this time spent in a lab or a cubicle will pay you back tenfold down the road. Keep your cafeteria or waiting job on the side for some cash if you must, but remember, at this point, gaining experience is above all.
- VOLUNTEER and PARTICIPATE! Show that you are a leader and that you are capable of working in teams. Get on that executive board for whatever student club/group that you find yourself most invested in and take charge. This is also a great opportunity to network with other student leaders who will most likely become useful connections post-college.
- Take an EXPERIENTIAL/HANDS-ON COURSE! I took a one semester course on peer advising, and they put me to work right away after 2 weeks of training. It was great to be able to consult other students, listen to their problems and provide options, as well as reflect on my own academic and career aspirations. This experience also allowed me to gain invaluable communication skills while working with a diverse student body. Find out if your college offers courses on mentoring, peer advising, or peer editing (editing other students’ essays and papers).
Conclusion: Even if you’re not entirely sure what kind of career you want to pursue upon graduation, you can still beef up on skills that are important for jobs in any field.
Anyways, fast-forward to November, 2009 (after numerous rejections/offers): I’ve been a marketing assistant at a real estate agency in California for a year. Not exactly my dream job, but a job in marketing nonetheless. The following blog entries will review the process I went through that led up to this job as well as what I’m doing right now to prepare myself for a job in social media and web marketing.
dialect - web tools
Investigate, if you want to know more :)
A Small Web Marketing company, that shares some knowledge
http://dialect.ca/code/
Raynor Homes - Bron Eryri Terrace
Raynor Village Living - www.raynorhomes.co.uk
High quality, AA energy rated village homes and properties across North Wales, Designed for modern living, new families and first-time buyers.
STUDY: 80% of Twitter Users Are All About Me
Over 300 twittes, 80 percent personal me updates. Let us show you how you the right way you can use twitter to gain
market recognition at http://www.a2zecom.com
Social Media is not the Virus
In the buzz surrounding social media today many people mistake it for the miracle marketing tool. You've probably heard someone tell you that all you have to do is to create a facebook page, twitter profile, or blog and you'll inherently launch your brand to instant stardom. Overnight you'll have followers, fans, and fame. Sales will soar, 'cause you, you're different - you market with social media.
In order for a virus to spread it has to be shared. That means people have to find it interesting enough to share. Obviously, the social web from facebook to the rampant sharing tools out there makes it tremendously easy for your message to go across the world in seconds and be seen by hundreds or hundreds of thousands of people. )Think Susan Boyle)
But the medium is not the message. It won't get shared if it offers no relevant value. You can't create word of mouth by simply being on facebook. Seth Godin would call it being "remark-able". Yes, social media is a great place to communicate a message and engage brand evangelists but don't get blindsighted by the medium to realize that you still need to tell them why you're cool.
Work at Home with Project Payday?
Today I want to bring to your attention a program called Project Payday. Maybe you’ve heard of it before, maybe you haven’t. Basically, it’s a unique program designed for average Joe’s to work from home.
So, what exactly is Project Payday? I must admit when I was first introduced to Project Payday I was very skeptical. Every testimony I read, members boasted making money withing their first two hours working the program. That’s a pretty big statement, and one not to take lightly.
Supposedly, this program is unique from any other way to work at home making money online. That’s the main thing that caught my attention and convinced me to see what this program was TRULY about. I wanted to know more… I wanted to know what made this program tick.
I spent the $30 to give this program a try and see if it was able to back up its claims. Heck, they even have a free option to gain access to the program as well. Not a bad deal, eh?
Here’s what Project Payday is:
I know what you’re thinking. People are willing to pay me to complete free offers for them? I know, I was surprised too! But people actually work from home and do this for a living. Getting paid to complete free offers seems almost too easy if you ask me.
I had to put this to the test for myself. Here’s my results with Project Payday:
Not bad at all. I made my money back plus an extra $60 working only about three hours total.
It’s not your conventional work from home business by any means. But, it’s definitely a winner in my book because it actually delivers! That doesn’t happen too often, so I just had to share this with you.
If you could use some extra cash, and who doesn’t, then check out Project Payday and start making money within the next two to three hours.
Look the program over by clicking the banner to your right. If you decide to give it a try shoot me an e-mail and I'll personally pay you to complete some offer's. You've got nothing to those and cash to gain.
To Your Success,
William B. Iverson III
