Turned on by Mr. Switch

Designed by John Caswell (UK) is looking for a manufacturer for his playful switch plate called, Mr Switch!

@smashingmag says this is “so simple, yet so beautiful” and DesignSpotter says, “Mr Switch’ is designed to add a little character to an otherwise inanimate object.”

I say, “when can I order them!”

While Waiting for the Big Nor’easter…

Found two things that really inspired me.

Giovanni Sollima for reminding me of my past cello days…

John Keats for showing how beautiful words can be..

Don’t be discouraged by a failure.  It can be a positive experience.   Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, in as much as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterwards carefully avoid. — John Keats

Social Media Marketing: Getting with the Program

[As featured in Sigma Blog]

The shift towards social media today is huge. Numerous articles, case studies and statistics extol the myriad benefits of this powerful new marketing movement each day.  However, getting your feet wet in social media can be quite a challenge as social media is not just another medium or channel where traditional marketing messages can be pushed. Instead, it’s all about understanding the culture of participation. And then harnessing and incorporating that into all your marketing and business processes.

So, what is the best way for an organization to embrace social media?  Here’s some of our top-line suggestions:

Six Steps to Successful Online Analytics and Measurements

Despite all the advancements in technology and newer, smarter metrics tools available in the market, measuring the effectiveness of online marketing and advertising is still a tricky business. There are many complex issues to consider beyond impressions and click-throughs to decipher and understand the dynamics of gaining a true conversion.   Furthermore, the continuous addition of new digital jargons, methodologies and possibilities increases the complexity of analyzing and measuring results that translate into actionable next steps and improvement.

While some marketers can afford sophisticated software, tools, dedicated internal teams and outside partners to analyze their efforts, most are still trying to get the basics of measurement right—the fundamental steps and process. In many cases, the following six steps can create sound marketing and media plans that repeatedly deliver results.

Video Snacking: Did You Know?

Get ready for information overload! This is their latest and best version.

Seven Strategies for Surviving the Downturn

The power and versatility of today’s online capabilities provide numerous new ways for marketers to tackle the economic downturn, diminishing budgets and changes in consumer habits that are happening everywhere. Many companies/brands have already cut back on their marketing/advertising efforts, while others are taking this moment to reassess, reinvent and revitalize their brands/companies.

I’m a firm believer that challenges open doors to opportunities, and opportunities bring innovation with possibilities to further advance and emerge as a leader – as many brands did during the Great Depression.

As eMarketer CEO/co-founder Geoff Ramsey puts it, “Consumers are still consuming.” They are still out there, looking for deals and recommendations to make product choices. They are relying on all available resources to find what is right for them. For marketers, the good news is there are more options than ever to make a connection with customers.

Below is a compendium to a presentation Geoff Ramsey gave at the Fuel for Thought event in November. It is based on his recent whitepaper Digital Marketing Now: Seven Strategies for Surviving the Downturn that is available for free at eMarketer.

That’s it for today.

10 Things in 10 Minutes

For some strange reason the #10 was following me today.  Everywhere I turn, I’m ran into this number.  It started with a call from my son’s teacher saying the school closed 10 minutes ago (yikes!), later 1010 News not working on my radio while on Rt 10, and then stumbling on the below list while on Twitter.  Anyway, I’m wrapping up tonight at 10PM with this great suggestion from C.C. Chapman.

10 Things in 10 Minutes to get you started on social media.

1. Google yourself, your brand, your competitors. See what is being said and where you rank.
2. Set up multiple Google Alerts based around anything you want to be automatically notified about when a post appears online.
3. Begin using Twitter . Even if you use it more to read what others are saying then saying much yourself. Use Twitter Search to see what you might have missed on a topic such as your brand.  Addictomatic is another great tool.
4. Join a social network. The two I recommend getting started with are LinkedIn and Facebook .
5. Sign up for newsletters. The three I recommend are MarketingVox, WOMMA and MarketingProfs as great starters to keep you informed.
6. Get a Flickr account even if you don’t plan on sharing photos. Search for events that you know are going on to start getting to know the people and faces.
7. Read constantly. Shelfari and Goodreads can both help you see what other people are reading and get your new marketing bookshelf started.
8. Attend events because nothing beats face-to-face. I love using Upcoming to see what is going on and what my friends are attending.
9. Evernote , my laptop and iPhone are what I use to capture everything that gets my attention.
10. Yelp allows you to review and discover vendors of all sorts anywhere in the world.

New Addiction?

I stumbled-upon a news aggregation service called Addictomatic(addict-o-matic, which launched few months ago).  I played with the site for a while and though some of the results it returned weren’t always correct, I still found the site to be useful and… perhaps quite addicting.

SITE SUMMARY:  Enter any topic on Addictomatic’s  search box and it instantly populates up to 24 news feeds, blogs, micro-blogs, videos and pcitures into a neatly organized dashboards.  Addictomatic also allows you to personalize your results dashboards and offer a bookmark URL so that you can come back to your personalized result page later for more real-time reads.  Here’s an example I did on Hunter Douglas (one of Sigma’s client).

NET/NET:  A great way to get a quick real-time pulse on your topic/brand. 

TIPS:  Be as precise with your keywords as possible and also have series of alternative keywords.  As stated in the 2nd sentence, some of the results it returns are not always correct.

Thanks for visiting EXIT 163~~*

Fuel for Thought?

 

A little plug-in for an event hosted by Sigma (where I work), eMarketer and IncBizNet.  For those who would like to join us, please email me (jkim529@gmail.com) or request for an invite at http://tr.im/uvy

 

 

 

Presentation Stress?

Do you get stressed when you need to put together a presentation?  Do you surf the net from one site to another trying to get an idea or perhaps wishing you knew what others have covered on your topic (e.g., competitive intelligence)?  Well I found two sites that you might want to check out to help you get you started with that PowerPoint.  

• Slideshare (http://www.slideshare.net)
• DocStoc (http://www.docstoc.com). 

Both sites are good resources to research presentations and gain quick insights from subject experts and academics (please use your best judgement on this).  Personally, I’m not sure if I’ll ever post a presentation here, but it sure seems like a lot of other people like to share their powerpoints and many like to download them.  Below are couple of documents that I’m copy/pasting here as an example with a full credit to Alexei Kapterev, Richie Escovedo and Terry Morawski.