November 26th, 2007, No Comments »
Over the weekend Keith McArthur from Veritas (that’s a ballsy name for a PR agency, eh?) pitched me on the results of their new social media survey. Given that we’re finishing up a book on the subject (it’s back from the editor on Wednesday), it piqued my interest. The results will be available on Tuesday here, but he’s giving some bloggers a sneak peak.
Here are a couple of interesting results. They asked 2,265 Canadians the following question:
Which of the following best describes your current use of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace?
For the 1,295 who have used social media, the results look like:
18% - I added my profile to one of these sites but I haven’t been back since.
9% - I used to be active on these sites, but not anymore.
30% - I added my profile to one of these sites, and I occasionally check it.
26% - I often visit sites like Facebook or MySpace.
17% - I am constantly visiting sites such as Facebook or MySpace.
I’d say that’s pretty reflective of my non-geeky friends.
The other result that popped out at me was a question they asked “444 people who identified themselves as senior managers or marketing executives” (is that a sufficiently large sample group?). After a series of other questions, they asked:
Which, if any, of the following will you cut back on in order to increase your social media budget?
The top three answers were direct mail marketing, print advertising and radio advertising. That can’t be great news for the newspapers and radio stations of the world.
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November 1st, 2007, 30 Comments »
Last year, while attempting to get a handle on the increasing number of social media, uh, mediums, I created this diagram. I’ve used it fairly often in talks to try to explain the different ways people are interacting on the web.
Robert Scoble recently blogged about what amounts to a 2007 version of that diagram. It now has twice as many spokes, and he calls it a social media starfish. You can watch a very enthusiastic Robert run through the diagram in this video:
It’s a great articulation of the evolving social media landscape, and it’s something we’ll have to update every six months or so. I don’t think Robert’s got a pretty version of this diagram anywhere, so I made him one:
Can I Use It in Our eBook?
I have an ulterior motive in making the diagram. Julie and I are writing an eBook which, gods willing, will be available at the end of the month. It’s called “Getting to First Base: Social Media Marketing Strategies and Tactics”. We’re trying to write a primer and guidebook–based on our own experiences and all the best stuff we can rip off from other people–on social media marketing. Robert’s diagram would make a nice addition, so hopefully he’ll let me use it.
I’ll be blogging about the eBook more when we’re closer to launching it, but I figured I might as well mention it. It’s more motivation to get the thing finished, after all. If you’re a blogger and you want to review it, we’ll be giving away plenty of free copies.
We also have an, uh, introductory offer of sorts where you can get the thing for a mere $29 (currency to be determined) instead of the usual $49. You just need to give us your name and email address so that we can let you know when we launch.
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October 9th, 2007, 10 Comments »
I’ve been doing some reading about ebooks recently, and enjoyed a Copyblogger post about creating ebooks that sell. Brian references an ebook site featuring a book on, uh, writing ebooks.
When I visited the site, I was reminded of a phenomenon I’ve observed in recent years around ebooks and similar digital offerings. You can also see it on GoogleAdSecrets.com and the prolix URL SearchEngineOptimizationStrategies.com.
It’s a particular (and peculiar) kind of website. Really just one very long page, it features a single, centered column, few images, and many bold offers, claims and testimonials. It pretty much defies every major web design trend of this millennium. To the sophisticated web surfer, it looks profoundly tacky.
Clearly it must sell ebooks, though, or people wouldn’t use it. Did one person prove this was the optimal selling strategy, and everybody emulated them? I’d imagine so. The pages certainly don’t inspire confidence in me, but I guess they’re not selling to me.
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May 18th, 2007, 2 Comments »
A couple of months ago, Drew invited me to contribute to an eBook of advice for the post-secondary graduate. I wrote a post about doing an internship as a well to get your foot in the door. Several readers chimed in with sage advice as well.
Drew’s finished compiling the eBook, and it contains advice from nearly 50 professionals about how to take those first steps into the working world after graduating. Paging through the book, my contribution looks embarrassingly longwinded. Ah well, that’s nothing new.
I’m pasting the list o’ contributors after the jump, should you wish to visit them.
Read more…
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