How many kinds of information are being fired at you today? This is from a book I’m reading on my iPad called, “Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation.” This quote really jumped out at me. It surprises you doesn’t it?
I enjoy a good podcast. They are a great way to keep to learning from others and stay informed. I usually listen to when I’m driving to 
work or doing something around the house (e.g. like folding laundry or cleaning). The problem with podcasts or radio shows? You have to remember to sync, download them, or stream them individually via the iTunes store app or go to a website to listen.
My friend Neal, shared with me an iPhone/Blackberry /Android/Palm app that I love, called Stitcher. This app lets you listen to podcasts on-demand (no syncing or downloading required). What’s really slick about this app is you can sequence the order in which you want the podcasts/radio shows to continuously play. Essentially, you can piece together a custom playlist. Then, at anytime, you can pause, fast-forward, rewind, and jump to any of the Podcasts you’d like. If you like NPR as much as I do, they have many of their programs broken-out by segments. For example, I have the business segment on my favorites- which I typically I miss in the morning, because it’s only on at 8:50AM.
You can see in the screenshot, my favorites playlist has a variety of topics on it. However, I was a frustrated to find that the catalog of podcasts is not the same as the iTunes store. I wish it was integrated (which might not be possible). In retrospect, there are great shows on Stitcher that you can’t find on iTunes. Here are other shows on my favorites you can’t see on the screenshot:
If you like podcasts, or listen to news segments frequently, check out this app. You can download “Stitcher” in the iPhone app store for free. It has a 4.5 start rating. Go to the Stitcher website to download it for Blackberry, Android, and Palm.
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Did you know you can take an elevator to the top of Liberty Memorial? The 360-degree view at the top is incredible!
The Liberty Memorial is easily the most recognizable landmark in Kansas City. It’s part of the National World War I museum, the only American museum solely dedicated to the war. It’s really cheap to go (around $10-$12) and it’s filled with lots of interesting stuff. Most people say you need about 2-3 hours to take it all in at a relaxed pace. If you just want to go up on the tower, it’s really cheap ($4) and only takes a couple minutes. They’re open Tuesday – Sunday, 10AM – 5PM (check the website for all the details).
NOTE: I actually shot this video blog last year, but I just discovered the footage on a camera recently! I didn’t like the clips when I first shot this last year. After stumbling upon it again- when I was clearing HD space, I decided to do a quick edit and post the video. I’m proud of KC and I love this town! So I figured I wanted to pass on the good word of another fun thing you can do here in KC.
Do you remember how good Kansas City Royals were at baseball in the 80′s? How about the amazing KC Chiefs in the 1970s?
I want more than anything to have a hometown winning team again.
People talk about what an exciting time it was to live in this city during those years. Yesterday, was a glimpse of what it would be like to have a winning home team …and a soccer team at that! 52,000+ people watched the KC Wizards beat Manchester United. Sure it may have been their “B” team players (but there were at least 3-4 of their top tier players in the lineup for ManU). Below are a couple of my favorite photos I took with my point-n-shoot Canon S90. You can view the whole slideshow on flickr.
The past few months have been exciting here at Digital Evolution Group. I led the team that launched a Facebook project for large Midwest retailer, Gordmans (over 68 stores in 16 different states in the US).
We developed the default tab that appears when you go to the Gordmans Facebook page. When customers fill out the form that appears, we send them a 20% off coupon via email with a barcode they can use at any store (the email has a dynamic expiration date that is generated and the system checks for duplicate records in the DB to deny multiple sign-ups). What is really slick about this automated process we developed, is the system stores the customer information into a segmented email list within Exact Target, the email platform the brand utilizes for their email communications.
The free 20% coupon is what we call a “give to get” tactic. Users must provide their email address to receive the 20% coupon and agree to receive email updates with other special offers and discounts. A recent study found that customers are most likely to provide their email address in exchange for a discount or promotion.
This feature we’ve developed is also aligned with the larger shift that is happening online, which is the convergence of 1-to-1 marketing. By creating strategies and tactics in which you combine email and social media, your digital efforts work together and complement each other rather than being disjointed.
We believe within social channels like Facebook, you must make clear calls to action, this specific one for Gordmans being focused on transitioning to commerce. After all, your time and efforts invested in these social channels is ultimately aimed to sell more product (or services).
I’m really proud of the team that put this project together and wanted to share this with you. You grab your own free coupon on the Gordmans Facebook page.
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A client recently told me they were concerned they didn’t want to “clutter” their Tweet stream. They were concerned they didn’t want to Tweet too much.
My thoughts? No one reads all your Tweets.
Twitter is a communication tool.
…not a publishing platform.
Twitter is for holding conversations.
…and to have real dialogue and interactions without physical time and space constraints.
In the early years of Twitter (2006-’08), people actually read ALL the Tweets from the people they followed. Twitter was new, fun and only the geeky early adopters were experimenting with it. Today, the average person follows 100+ or 1000+ of people. To physically read and consume the Tweets from that many people is impossible. And more importantly, it doesn’t happen.
Twitter is like gigantic gushing stream or river of many things…
It’s filled with link referrals, pictures, thoughts, opinions, and conversations (look at this- click this- read this- watch this video-). This tool has evolved to this incredibly fast moving “river” of content. People do not consume all of it. Instead, it’s people jump-in-and-out of “the river”.
If no one reads all your Tweets, what should you do?
The more you communicate and appear within Twitter river of content, the better. On a day-to-day basis, people log-in and log-out of Twitter using multiple types of tools and at different times. People will open Twitter when they’re at work, check the latest Tweets, then their @replies, and log-out. Some people will turn their phone on, launch an application, read their Tweets and @replies and then log-out.
My point is, Twitter is flooded with content, what people see come through on their stream is dependent upon the time of day. Your followers will not see everything you post. The more you Tweet, your chance of being “noticed” in the huge river of Tweets increases.
@replies are the “email” of Twitter
Recently, I blogged about a study that found the first thing people do when they sit down at a computer is check their email. In the same respect, the 1 thing everyone checks when they login to Twitter is their @replies. People do want to know if anyone is talking to them. If you or your company had unlimited time and resources, I would tell you to Tweet as many relevant @reply interactions or DMs with as many people as you possibly could. As a general rule of thumb, when you login to Twitter, spend as much time as you can to @reply and interact. Twitter is worthless if you aren’t able to augment existing relationships or create real interactions with people of like interests. While you can use Twitter as another publishing platform, its biggest value is having real interactions through @replies with real people.
Time of day DOES matter.
The chances of anyone consuming your Tweets after 5PM on a weekday or over the weekend are less likely to happen than if you send a Tweet between 9AM to 5PM on a weekday. In my client work experience with Twitter and my own personal usage, there are more interactions and greater chance for consumption that occur Monday through Friday, 9 to 5. As a general rule of thumb, if your Tweet isn’t dependent upon time, or in response to a specific Tweet- you should tweet between 9AM to 5PM on a weekday. If you’re too busy to Tweet 9AM to 5PM, use a tool like Hootsuite that allows you to schedule your Tweets.
Twitter sucks if your friends suck.
Twitter is only as valuable as the people you choose to follow. If the people you follow provide value, then Twitter is a valuable resource you’ll keep using. You’ll keep coming back to it for more. Tweets also need to be timely, relevant, and/or provide some kind of value.
The next time you’re sitting in front of the open-ended prompt that reads, “What’s happening?” you should dismiss the notion that everyone is actually reading everything you’re Tweeting. They’re not.
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I’ve been working at Digital Evolution Group for 5+ years now. This is the card my boss handed to me today, how cool is this!?! So …where should I go? 
Do you spend too much time on Facebook? Wish there was a way to avoid the 
addictive time-suck of endlessly looking at photos, status updates, and funny cat videos people are posting? (yikes, I sound like an infomercial don’t I?)
I believe 15-minutes is all you need to catch-up on everything that’s going on with your friends on Facebook. What is the secret? Two words…
Friend Lists.
If you take the time to setup and configure personalized Friend Lists, your daily dose of Facebook will be forever easier (and you can thank me later ). You’ll find yourself spending less time sorting through the mess of friends, fan pages and co-workers that junk up your FB homepage Newsfeed. Friend Lists make it greatly easier to consume Facebook.
What is a Friend List? It’s simple. It is a customized list in which you choose how to sort and customize. You can have up to 100 Friend Lists with a maximum of 1,000 people per lists. As an example, I’ve taken a screenshot of my lists setup for my account (see image below on the right).
Once you setup these lists, you’re able to quickly digest a TON of information in a few minutes about specific types of friends just by clicking the filters on the left. Here are some of my favorite lists I use:
“Bloggers/Influencers”
I created this list to segment people who have influence online (in my opinion). These friends are typically content creators and publish frequently. They have a huge following and community online. For me, it’s nice to have them in 1 bucket for consumption to see what they’re publishing.
“Favorite Fan Pages”
This is a great way to pull-out and segment Fan Pages so you just get updates from all the Fan Pages you really care about (since we’re all guilty of clicking “like” to more companies and businesses than we actually want to follow).
“Kansas City Fan Pages”
I find this useful and relevant based on when I’m in the mode of “looking for something to do in my city”. Particularly, I find myself looking at this on Thursday and Fridays when making weekend plans.
“Circle of Trust”
This is where I start first everyday. It is a small group of about 30′ish people who I really care to read their status updates and posts. If I only have 5-minutes to check Facebook because I’m busy, this is the only Friend List I look at.
I also have these lists which I use:
“Family”
“Work”
“People I Don’t Know”
“High School Friends”
“Phi Delta Theta”
“Online/Internet Friends”
“Clients”
Friend Lists will appear on your iPhone as well! (comes in handy when you only have a few minutes to catch-up via mobile). Just tap the button in the top right. The FB app will pull-in and display all your Friend Lists. How cool is that!?
You can send messages to all the people you’ve put in a Friend List. This is extremely helpful, because essentially it’s a way to create “groups” for Facebook messaging. Note: the maximum number of recipients you can send is 20, so you will not be able to send a message to any Friend List that contains over 20 people. When you send a message to a Friend List, the message will show all the recipients’ names, but the title of your Friend List will never be visible to other members of Facebook (incase you’ve got them categorized as “people that annoy me” ) .
On any Group or Event page, you can type in any Friend List name and they all will be invited. Another great “group” feature to send to multiple people easily.
Now go get started! I promise, once you take the time to setup Friend Lists, your life on Facebook will be changed for the better (dramatic yes, but I speak the truth …promise!)
Click “Friends” on the left menu. Then click the “Create New List” button (top right).
1. Type the name of your list and press enter.
2. Add friends to the list by typing their names into the “Add to List” field or by clicking them from the list.
3. Select “Create List” to save your changes (*this is important, it’s easy to forget to click save*)
Still confused? Facebook has an entire FAQ help section you can reference.
BONUS TIP: I’ve really been digging a website called www.itstrending.com which tells you the videos, images, and news that’s being shared the most on Facebook. Check it out.
Hopefully this walk-through helps you! If you’ve got other Facebook time-saver times, share them with me in the comments. Do you use Friend Lists already? What categories are you using for your friends?
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Do you have as much passion for anything in life as this guy?
Or share as much excitement for anything like this guy?
A great blog post dropped-in my Tweet stream from Trent, who shared, “If you want to succeed in life, stop relying on your future self to take care of things. Now.”
Well said Trent.
Videos like this, while funny and hilarious at their face value- they are a reminder that passion counts. It makes all the difference. If you do anything in life with this much passion, you’re destined for success.
I’m determined to make my mark. How about you?
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While I was at work, I had an idea for a ringtone. Perhaps it was because I was working late, or that I was running on little sleep, or I drank too much coffee (or all of the above) …but I think IT’S AWESOME!!!! Watch the video blog to find out what it is, and tell me what you think Thanks to Google, I was able to find I wasn’t alone with this great idea. You can download the ringtone for free here [.m4r file] for your iPhone (credit: Lightsource Media).
There isn’t a success formula or a step-by-step program on how to use social media. And so called “experts” don’t exist, in my opinion (I think those people are full of it).
However, most businesses know they need to learn how to social media effectively. Many try it, jump-in, and learn the tools without a game plan. In fact, a recent study found 52% of social marketers are operating “without a game plan.”
All that said, there are 3 things I believe businesses and people need to keep in mind, in order to put them in a position for success: passion, consistency and hard work.
Passion
The internet is such a rapidly evolving space. Things shift in weeks and months not years. You must have a passion for this stuff to keep up. Sure you can fake it, but having an inherent desire helps.Consistency
There is a rule in branding that can be applied when using social media: “Consistency facilitates recognition”. While social media allows you to experiment and try things, your business and personal brand needs to be mindful of all communication. Everything you do communicates a message. The collective set of topics you write about or publish communicates an holistic message. Make sure your efforts are strategic, aligned, and consistent- this will ensure your desire of how you want to be perceived is a reality (this applies to both businesses and individuals).Hard Work
Showing up is step #1. Working hard at this stuff is step #2. Being actively aware and practicing in the social space takes time. This means just dedicating hours to be a practitioner and understand the space. Malcolm Gladwell tells us it takes 10,000 hours of performing a specific task to be successful.Social media is green field, moving and changing daily. There are great analysts, who are great resources to keep up with it all. You should follow people like Jeremiah Owyang from the Altimeter Group (formerly Forrester), who are aggregating emerging models and presenting best practices.
There is no single right answer, strategy or tactic for any substantive length of time.
It takes passion, consistency, and hard work to keep doing it right.
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You don’t need a fancy camera to take panoramic photos. I shot this one at the St. Louis Cardinals game this past weekend (below), with my point-n-shoot Canon S90 and used a free app to stitch 3 photos together (it comes with Canon cameras). So the next time you see a pano photo, think twice about it being shot with a super-expensive DSLR camera or crazy expensive lens. You can do this yourself in less than 5 minutes, it’s easy
Everyday I find myself with at least 1 message in my inbox asking “What tool do you use?” or “What website do you use for X or Y”. This blog post outlines what websites, apps, and equipment I like to use. This is a “living” blog post that I update as things shift
. I started this blog post in July of 2009 and updated it in January 2010. This is the most recent update.
Websites:
YouTube – main channel in which I post all my video blogs
Vimeo – secondary place in which I redundantly post some of my video blogs, HD quality here is much better than it is on YouTube
WordPress.org – blog software I use
gMail – my primary personal email
TweetDeck – the app I use at home for Twitter, I use the crap out of the filters functions
Tweetie – the app I use on my iPhone for Twitter
HootSuite – the app I use at home for Twitter, I love the filters and the ability to schedule tweets
GelaSkins – I’ve got one of these on all my stuff. I’m really into the art community
Netvibes – this is my preferred RSS reader when I’m at a computer
Google Reader (mobile) – this is what I use on iPhone to read RSS
Delicious – I bookmark everything I find interesting here
VerticalResponse – my email marketing software
Photography:
Adobe Elements – my photo imaging editor
Adobe Photoshop CS5 – my photo imaging editor
Flickr – I upload and post all my public photos here
Video Software:
Adobe Premier – my preferred video editing software (this may change very soon)
Final Cut Express – my video editing software I use for my video blogs
Music Websites:
Grooveshark – the ‘google’ of music searching. I use this to quickly preview songs.
The Hype Machine – a great music website that aggregates popular remixes and songs people are blogging about or posting to Twitter.
Video/Digital Cameras:
Canon SD750 – this is the point and shoot I use
FlipMinoHD – this is the camera I use to shoot my video blogs
Canon HF21 – this is the camera I use to shoot my video blogs
Canon 40D – this is the DSLR camera I use to take my photos
Canon S90 – this is the point and shoot I use when my 40D is to big to carry around
Computers:
Mac Pro (desktop) – this is my computer I use at home
Macbook Air (laptop) – this is what i use on the road
iPad (tablet) – i use this everyday as a my “in-between device”
iPhone Apps:
HootSuite – the app I use on my iPhone for Twitter
Sleep Cycle – a “smart” alarm clock that charts your sleep and awakes you in your
lightest sleep cycle. i blogged a review about this app.
Weather Channel – weather reports
Hipstamatic – a stylized camera app that applies different effects to photos
CameraBag – great ‘quick-touch-up-effects’ photos application
TwitPic – my favorite app to share photos on Twitter
TiltShift – great photo app for simulating a tiltshift lens for your photos
Photoshop Mobile – great photo app for cropping and applying different effects
Comic Touch – add fun captions, balloons or effects to your photos
SlingPlayer – this lets me watch LIVE TV via my SlingBox
Foursquare – my favorite location based social network of choice
Facebook – FB for iPhone
Mobile Fotos – my fav app for browsing my flickr photos because it’s faster than the official flickr app.
AOL Radio – while Pandora for the iPhone is awesome, sometimes I prefer simple categorized radio stations that AOL has.
Flixster – a must have app for reading user reviews from RottenTomatoes.com for DVDs and new release movies. I launch this app before I rent or go to the movies.
RedLaser – i love this app because it keeps me from impulse buying anything. This will scan the internet for better prices, for almost any product online.
Paper Toss – Warning! This game is addicting. Object of the game? You just throw paper wads into a trashcan.
Fling – great puzzle game that’s addicting
FlightControl – great ‘traffic control’ airplane game. Sorta like a puzzle challenge with different levels.
iTextSpeed – clock your typing speed on your phone! I can type 47 words-per-minute. Can you beat me?
WordsWithFriends – turned based Scrabble that lets you play a on-going game.
Ragdoll Lite – the point of this game is to throw a ragdoll. It’s simple, yet addicting.
EliminatePro – this game is awesome, it’s like Halo for the iPhone.
iPad Apps:
SlingPlayer – this lets me watch LIVE TV and control my DVR via my SlingBox
Paper Toss HD – Warning! This game is addicting. Object of the game? You just throw
paper wads into a trashcan.
Eyewitness – a gorgeous photography app that showcases high-res newsworthy photos from the Guardian.
Netflix – AWESOME app to stream ‘watch now’ movies and update your movie queue on-the-fly.
ABC Player – I pretty much use this app exclusively to watch Modern Family
Echofon – My favorite Twitter app for the iPad. It’s light, simple, and fast. One of my favorite apps to use.
Reeder – A gorgeous RSS reader that integrates with your Google Reader account. I love this app.
Scrabble – i LOVE Scrabble, and this version for the iPad is great to play with friends.
FlickrStackr – my favorite app for browsing my flickr photos on the iPad.
Angry Birds – a fun, physics puzzle game
Pinball HD – great pinball game that’s visually impressive
WordPress – if you’ve got a WordPress blog, this is great for on-the-fly blog posts. It’s awesome because it supports multiple accounts.
What’s on my screen during any given work day:
I open and close many websites and a few applications in the given day. Here are typically what you would find open if you were to walk up to my computer during the day. You might be surprised to find that I don’t keep either a Twitter, Facebook, or Gmail open at all times it’s true, I prefer to “dive-in and out” during the day when appropriate.
Firefox – my preferred web browser software
Google Chrome – my preferred web browser software
Outlook – work email
iTunes – music player
Textpad – I work in this religiously, it’s like my workspace to stub out anything (e.g. short-term lists, copy-paste storage, virtual post-it)
Some of you will find this blog post interesting- some of you will not. I’m hoping for some it will turn your head to maybe something you’re not familiar with to check out.
(photo credit = beautyinmetal)
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You’re never too old to enjoy fireworks! Right?
I had an absolute blast this evening hanging out with my friends and enjoying some pre-July 4th fireworks. I also took my Canon 40D with me. Capturing fireworks with a camera is hard. It was a fun challenge finding that ‘just right’ setting in manual mode, with a slightly longer shutter setting (which i rarely shoot in). You can see the full high-res set on my flickr account.
A study found that 58% of people start their day by checking their email.
Think about that.
More than half of people who sit down at their computer- the first thing they do is check their email. What’s my point? While social media is all the rage in the news, business magazines and conferences, e-mail still is relevant.
If 58% of people start their day by checking their email, as a business, you should be there …in front of their face …consistently.
I’ll be the first to admit, I drink the Kool-Aid. I’m a social media evangelist. I’m in love with this stuff. With a strategy, +good execution and lots of hard work, social media can do powerful things for people and businesses. However, from a digital marketing perspective, this statistic reminds us there is more to this online ecosystem than the all-mighty shiny objects like Facebook and Twitter.
The bottom-line?
Make sure you have effective e-mail strategies and tactics in place. E-mail is easy to measure. There is no questionable ROI when you talk about email. You can measure it. Your customers either opened the email or they didn’t. They clicked-through or they didn’t. The purchased something or they didn’t. And the best part about all this? The tools to measure and track this are not hard to put in place. Many advanced techniques and testing strategies exist like A/B testing, multivariate, and segmentation.
So before you invest in a social strategy, make sure you reflect on all your digital strategies. The pie chart tells you the sequence to follow on what to consider:
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twitter
Facebook
Google+
flickr
YouTube
LinkedIn
del.icio.us
