Blogs

Blockbuster recently initiated an interesting Twitter campaign aimed at its competitor Netflix. The idea: to get Netflix users (or former users) to express negative opinions on the service and why they are unhappy with it—and then make it appear that thousands were tweeting all about it. Cleverly, or perhaps deceptively, Blockbuster invites users to vent […]

Two weeks ago, Google fully released Google Call Metrics, a highly anticipated new service available to AdWords advertisers that gives users the functionality to track call rates associated with online text ads. The service provides yet another tool in Google’s advertising arsenal. WebMetro/Godwin has been test driving this new service for several months after being selected

The internet has certainly moved the world, and for the business world, the road has sometimes proven rocky. But by learning from others’ mistakes, business continues rolling along. Take, for instance, the lessons that have perhaps been learned from some bad turns made by the music industry. Before streaming video came online, came streaming music

Customer Insight, Customer Relations. Building customer engagement by starting a conversation can yield some unforeseen insights. Such as when customers are just plain wrong and you have to adjust! In a recent blog post, I shared how my grandfather had sought out customer engagement to grow his small town country store. It was all face

There I was, sipping my morning coffee and skimming the local newspaper. Two news stories in the June 23, 2011, Clarion-Ledger seemed immediately significant when I turned the page and saw the headlines of the stories, one above the other. So what was it that made me feel something important was there just waiting for

Let me tell you a story about social media and my late grandfather. James McKie died in 1990 at the age of 94. His closest brush with a computer was a Commodore 64 demonstrated by a grandchild at a family reunion. He couldn’t even type, though claiming to kept him out of combat in World

Google has announced that the 2.2 Panda update is now running free in the wilderness, so watch your SEO results to see if you or your clients have been affected. I’d mentioned in an earlier post that Google was getting ready to drop the hammer on content farms and other tactics used to inflate search

Digital devotees aside, the world first took notice of Groupon during Super Bowl 2011. A series of expensive, 30-second ads for Groupon went down the wrong way with audiences. And the Tibet ad featuring Timothy Hutton quickly drew ire from the social mediasphere. The ads were also poorly timed since Groupon is on the brink

Growing up in a small Southern town in Alabama, one of our important community or neighborhood events was the church “social.” It might be a cookout for the Sunday School class, or perhaps an “ice cream social” for the entire congregation. What I remember most about these happy times was that the kids were playing

If media strategies are the queen bee, then messaging strategies must be king. Your advertising or marketing campaign probably has many components, from television spots and print ads to search engine optimization and online display ads. Maybe direct mail? Trade or consumer shows? Mobile marketing? Take ones? Tried and true bill inserts? Regardless of your