Archive for December, 2008
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, December 31st, 2008
This is the last of our new media reasons to be cheerful posts of 2008. We’ve been discovering all sorts of online tools and toys this year and thought that today, Hogmanay, would be a great time to share with you our favorites from 2008. All the best to you and yours for 2009.
BlogFuse – makes it really easy for you to create a Facebook app based around your companies blog. In about 5 minutes (or so!) we were able to launch Out-Smarts first Facebook app in January using this sweet technology.
Got vmail – this service has been helping us manage calls since February, provides toll free numbers (ours is 1888 317 3250) and an answering service.
Looking for any easy way to involve your visitors on line? PollDaddy is a great code generating tool that allows you to create a poll on your site (you define the question you want to ask and the answer criteria). Simply cut and paste the code to your web site and start polling your audience.
Flock – manage feeds from your favorites in a browser setting. We love this tool but it is a little slow – guess you can’t have everything.
CBC Podcasts – we loved Search Engine in 2008 and Spark is right up our alley.
Sphinn – is a great forum to find Internet marketing news and to participate on related forums, its a great source for whats new in the industry.
Jotform – the simplest, easiest way to create forms online.
GIMP an image manipulation system similar to Adobe.
WigglyWigglers - a fantastic example of how one company harnessed social media to the max.
In my constant search for tools that help me Twitter more effectively I found Twhirl,Tweetscan and Brightkit this year although none of them effectively manage Twitters from different times zones. Also TweetStats reveals your Twitter habits and Easy Tweets allows you to manage mutliple Twitter profiles in one central place. Very handy for social media marketers.
Can’t wait to see what new joys 2009 brings in the new media forum. Do you have some discoveries you made in 2008 that you’d like to share? Please do!
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, December 30th, 2008
In this podcast we talk about effective networking with Gina Best. Gina is the owner of Meridian Pacific Mortgages Inc. an independent mortgage brokerage company. Gina is a networking queen and has successfully built her business by focusing on developing relationships. In this podcast she shares some of her networking techniques.
[audio:http://www.out-smarts.com/podcast17.mp3]
Podcast: Download
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, December 27th, 2008
The good folks at WordPress released version 2.7 last month and its a big one, on first impressions, with a new look dashboard and more. I’ve been using WordPress for ages and its always my blog tool of choice so I was excited as a user to get the upgrade (thanks to Christine at BlueLime Media!).
From the new dashboard, you can reply to comments and delete them which saves a lot of time and you can also create a quick post with “Quickpress” or see recent posts.
When posting, I notice that the layout is more like older versions. I like the fact that you don’t have to scroll down to add categories and tags. The posting capabilities seem basically the same although I do like the fact that media and links files are more accessable.
I haven’t posted a podcast yet but Blubrry supports the latest WordPress version so we should be okay. We’ll see about that later in the week when we post the latest Out-Smarts podcast.
According to the PollDaddy vote on their blog, the automatic upgrade is by far the most popular feature of the upgrade followed by the new design and the revised dashboard.
The most striking first impression for me was the new dashboard which, on first glance, looked really different. On closer inspection though I found everything there that I would expect and more.
I love tools that are easy to use for the non tech community and WordPress always falls in that category. It would appear I am not the only one – the new version has been downloaded over 600,000 times and they are already soliciting feedback on what should be in V2.8. Way to go WordPress!
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, December 22nd, 2008
I just talked with my uncle in England who is celebrating his 80th birthday. With the wisdom of the years, he talked about how much things have changed in his lifetime.
When he was a lad they didn’t have a phone, far less a TV and computers hadn’t even been invented. His brothers and sisters shared one small room and were lucky when it was their turn for the bed. In contrast to the old days, the last time he was visiting his family he sat and watched as each one of them took turns to log on to the Internet. It was, to him, a wonderful thing. He commented on how lucky we are to have this channel that makes access to information (learning), friends (old and new) and the ability to communicate and share so easy.
This got me thinking about how we often take things for granted in the world we live in. We complain about this and that. We should stop and think how lucky we are.
Here at Out-Smarts we’ve been working on our own time to help spread the word about Hippo Roller in social media. Hippo Roller is a water barrel designed to help make it easier for people in the the world who have no access to fresh water in their homes to collect water.
We discovered Hippo Roller because of our work on the Internet. We were able to connect with the organization and get involved thanks to the Internet and the Internet makes it easy for the people on the team (who are in numerous different time zones) to work together to spread the word about this great cause.
At a time when so many of us have ubiquitous access to the Internet, its hard for us to imagine not having access to something as simple as clean water but millions of people out there face this predicament every day. I hope in my life time that access to clean water is ubiquitous for everyone, access to the Internet would simply be the icing on the cake.
The new Internet and social media in particular makes it easier for us to connect and to share and to collaborate. How are you using this new found capability to help make the world a better place?
If you are interested, please join Hippo Roller on Twitter @Hipporoller or join the Facebook Hippo Roller Page and help us to spread the word, deliver water to those in need and to make a difference.
Happy Birthday Uncle Sandy!
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, December 19th, 2008
Its been a while since we posted a Friday Funny which is a real pity since we could all use something to smile about in these bleak economic times. Must add that to the resolutions for 2009 – more humour in the blog!
Here are some 10 Crazy Old Christmas Ads from times gone by when Santa was a gun totting, fag smoking philanderer. Makes you think things aren’t so bad right now after all.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, December 17th, 2008
In this Out-Smarts podcast we are working on getting and keeping organised with the help of Rowena List. Rowena is a Professional Organizer, founder of Getting It Together and a prolific speaker. In this podcast we discuss strategies that will help you to stay on top of the tsunami of information coming at us in the form of email, voice mail and all those social networking updates.
[audio:http://www.out-smarts.com/podcast16.mp3]
Podcast: Download
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, December 15th, 2008
The full “How To Blog” series of podcasts with Merlin Mann and the CBC Spark radio show is online in all its glory. I encourage anyone considering blogging for corporate or personal reasons to take a listen before they do so. Topics include:
- How to Blog
- What makes a good blog
- Manage Expectations
- Get Better
- Attract an Audience
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, December 10th, 2008
This post is for all you budding video producers out there mass posting clips on social media sites. Please learn from Dion’s video mess before its too late!
Last week Stephan Dion was forced to resign ahead of schedule and step down as leader of the Liberal party and opposition in Canada. The final nail in his proverbial political coffin? A poorly produced clip of his response to Stephen Harper’s address to the nation. The recording has been variously described as poorly produced, out of focus, over saturated and cheap.
If you are using social media actively then no doubt you’ve noticed that these days everyone and their brother is posting video clips to Facebook or to their website. Some of these videos are great – they are quirky, well done, interesting and add value, others however leave a lot to be desired – and I mean a lot. Many are out of focus, blurry and even worse is the shoulder hunched look people get from holding their Flip video recorder at shoulder level in an attempt to record themselves in action.
Whilst its okay to post poorly produced clip on your personal page, I strongly encourage corporate users and entrepreneurs to stop and ask themselves a few questions before posting content representing your company in the public forum:
- What does this clip say about my company?
- Does it reflect our corporate brand and image?
- Is it professional looking?
- If the video is poor quality – what does this say about your product or service to prospective buyers?
- Is the content interesting and does it add value or tell the audience something they don’t already know about your company, offering or industry?
- Are you just doing this because you heard that posting video on Facebook is the in thing to do right now?
- Is this relevant to our corporate goals?
- Can we do better – perhaps by having someone else hold the camera?
- Is quantity more important that quality?
- Why are we doing this and how does this fit with our social media/marketing strategy?
Whilst its true that Internet viewers are much more forgiving when it comes to content than traditional media and that there is a movement against over produced or overly “slick” or manipulated content online, its still important to convey a professional image, to make sure that your video content is produced to the best of your ability given the resources available and that it is an appropriate representation of your brand. Dion’s video wasn’t and as a result, he was publicly ridiculed and taken to task. He lost his job and tarnished both his personnal brand and that of the party he represents.
So next time you are considering posting a clip, take a step back, consider it from an objective viewpoint and ask yourself how you can learn from Dion’s video mess before its too late.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, December 08th, 2008
Do you know how many visitors your site gets as a result of your Facebook or Twitter presence? Which blog posts drive the most traffic to your site? These are vital statistics used to track social media marketing efforts and in monitoring the effectiveness of your campaigns in these forums.
Fortunately our friends over at Google have just the solution. Google analytics is a free web site traffic analysis tool that tracks traffic to your website. It works by having you enter some code on your website so that its engine knows to track your site.
Using Google is a great way to understand your on-line community: how they find you; how they navigate your site and where they come from. Website owners can monitor and improve web site results by honing in on their specific community. The service includes a dashboard containing vital visitors stats and the ability to drill down on these to find out more; score cards to assess traffic; conversion rate tracking analysis for keywords targeted; targeting by region (for example); the ability to create and share (send and schedule personalised e-mail reports) and export data.
Analytics is a free service that is used to attract customers to Google’s fee paid Ad Words and Ad Sense offering but those are optional – the benefits of this free data at our marketing fingertips are unquestionable.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, December 06th, 2008
Its official, social media has gone mainstream. How do I know this? Well because Santa is on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Given the connectivity issues from the North Pole, Santa’s social Media presence says it all.
Check out Wired Santa – hard at work at his house in the North Pole, watch videos, sing along with Mrs Claus or connect with him on your favorite social network. How does he get the time?
