Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 257

The Secret Life Of Social Media

Shhhh, don't tell anybody anything (even though I just posted this secret online for anyone to see).

It has been brewing for some time, and it's a difficult trend for businesses not to understand and embrace. As much as our social lives are now made public in everything from 140-characters of text on Twitter to long-form videos that we post of ourselves on YouTube, there is a growing mass audience (and developers behind them) that are creating an entirely new (and private) layers to social media. And, if all goes according to their plan, it could very well be the proverbial needle to pop the balloon of how brands have attempted to market to consumers using modern technology.

What's the hottest thing happening right now?

It's Snapchat, of course. Isn't it? Lauded by the younger generation because they can send each other photographs/mini videos via smartphones and tablets that are incinerated once viewed (leaving no trace for parents, etc...). The app has become so formidable, that Facebook offered to buy them late last year for a reported $3 billion, which Snapchat turned down. Turning down $3 billion dollars buys a lot of attention and street cred. The private online social network continues to grow, as brands like McDonald's, Taco Bell, Acura and others have been jumping on board to figure out if Snapchat's community of 30 million-plus users (and growing) cares to get this type of micro-disposable content from brands. Maybe, it's not Snapchat that is the hottest thing anymore. One could argue that the hottest thing happening right now, is the fact that Facebook bounced back from this rejection and managed to acquire the cross-platform mobile messaging platform WhatsApp for an astonishing $19 billion two weeks ago. With close to 500 million users and growing, WhatsApp is, in its purest form, BlackBerry Messenger (which, of course, is now available for Android and Apple users as well) that works on any mobile device and any mobile carrier. In fact, the deal was so massive that it completely over-shadowed the fact that a similar messaging platform, Viber, was also recently acquired for $900 million by Rakuten (a Japanese online commerce platform).

Think about it: private pictures, videos, messages and more. That doesn't sound very social, does it?

While companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter monopolize the growing areas of online social networking, what we're beginning to see is continued growth and interest in private online social networking. The types of content, conversation and sharing that is done outside of the public limelight. Sometimes anonymously. Sometimes between two friends. It just doesn't feel like the place that brands can insert themselves to monetize a growing user base, does it?

I have a secret to tell.

While they have not been acquired for hundreds of millions of dollars (yet), the San Francisco based startup Secret (that was founded by two former Google and Square employees) is getting tons of attention, followers and fans. In short, you can write anything that's on your mind, add photos or colors to the background and customize this content while being able to share it - free of judgment - and without attaching any of your personal information or profile to it. It feels like a more modern, mobile and more social version of Post Secret (where individuals physically mail their anonymous secrets on the back of a postcard to a group that then scans and shares the most creative ones online). While Secret isn't the first or only app like this, it is currently getting the lion's share of media and consumer attention. Do you really want brands to share secrets with you? Does that even make sense? Secret follows in a long line of increasingly popular platforms that are moving towards more private, restricted and personal interactions. Path (which launched back in 2010) seemed like a more mobile version of Facebook with one major distinction:Path only allowed a maximum of 150 connections (which followed Dunbar's number theory that human beings can only maintain a total of 150 true relationships). Small stuff, right?

What matters most to you: Public life? Professional life? Social life? Personal life?

What we're now seeing is motion away from all of this publicness that we have been experiencing at the hands of social media for the past decade, or we're simply seeing the mass development of a completely different type of private online social networking. In fact, if you look at where the venture capital dollars and user growth is currently happening, we could well arrive at a juncture which finds consumers much less interested in the public chest beating of their semi-consequential day-to-day accomplishments on social media, and a much more focused desire to use technology as a communications platform to add more personal meaning. Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp could substantiate this (why wouldn't they want to own both the public and private online social networks of consumers?). So, while Ellen may have broken Twitter with her a-list selfie stunt from the Oscar's, we may be at the nascent stages of seeing a brand new type of social media play that is small, intimate and, seemingly, impermeable to brands, advertisers and media companies. A place where twerking could well find it's perfect home... behind closed doors and not out in public.

Are private online social networks the future of social media? More interesting will be how brands will react and engage with this new reality. 

The above posting is my twice-monthly column for The Huffington Post . I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original version online here:

Huffington Post - Do You Know The Social Media Secret?

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CTRL ALT Delete - Weekly Technology And Digital Media Review - CHOM FM #21

Every morning at 7:10 am, I am a guest contributor on CHOM 97.7 FM radio broadcasting out of Montreal (home base). It's not a long segment - about 5 to 10 minutes every week - about everything that is happening in the world of technology and digital media. The good folks at CHOM 97.7 FM are posting these segments weekly to SoundCloud, if you're interested in hearing more of me blathering away. I'm really excited about this opportunity, because this is the radio station that I grew up on listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry and Heather B. morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.

This week we discussed:

Virtual money and Mt. Gox files for bankruptcy.

BitCoin ATM.

It's still early stages for digital currency.

Digital currency is not a failure... being bad at business is.

WhatsApp and what's happening now? Soon to get voice!

BlackBerry and WhatsApp - good news?

Ellen and the Oscar's selfie and product placement.

App of the week: 1Password.

Listen here...

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1password

bitcoin

bitcoin atm

chom 977 fm

chom fm

ctrl alt delete

ctrl alt delete with mitch joel

digital currency

digital media

facebook

guest contributor

heather backman

montreal radio

morning show

mornings rock with terry and heather b

mt gox bankruptcy

radio segment

radio station

selfie

social media

soundcloud

technology

terry dimonte

whatsapp

Killer Online Content With Brian Clark Of Copyblogger

Episode #399 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

It's hard to argue that we don't live in a world where there is simply too much good content, and it's everywhere. Brands are expected to not only be great advertisers and listeners to their customers, but to be excellent publishers as well. It's not an easy ask. It's something that most brands struggle with. It's something that Brian Clark has been helping companies tackle for a long time. Copyblogger started out as an incredible blog to help people (and brands) figure out what works when it comes to creating online content. The blog still acts as a treasure trove of information and insight on the topic, but Copyblogger is much more than a blog. In the past few years, Clark and his team, have built Copyblogger Media - a company that offers software and training with over 100,000 customers who are doing their best to create better content marketing online. I have known Brian for many years, and we finally managed to schedule a conversation about the changing landscape of blogging, social media and content marketing. Enjoy the conversation... 

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast #399.

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podcasting

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Who Do You Really Trust?

Trust. It's what it all comes down to.

You intuitively know this to be true, don't you? Trust is everything. Whenever I think about trust, I think about something that my dear friend, Jeffrey Gitomer, would often say in his public sales presentations: "All things being equal, people will do business with those that they know, like and trust. All things being unequal, people will do business with those that they know, like and trust." Trust is a topic that isn't approached or appreciated nearly enough in the business world, especially if you consider how important it is. But, what is trust and why is it such an important component of success? Thankfully, there are people like David DeSteno to help us understand and decode it. According to his bio, DeSteno is "a professor of psychology at Northeastern University, where he directs the Social Emotions Group. At the broadest level, his work examines the mechanisms of the mind that shape vice and virtue. Studying hypocrisy and compassion, pride and punishment, cheating and trust, his work continually reveals that human moral behavior is much more variable than most would predict." With that, he recently published a new book titled, The Truth About Trust - How It Determines Success In Life, Love, Learning And More. To celebrate the launch of the book, he stopped by to present his concepts at the Googleplex. It's a fascinating near-hour presentation that will reshape how you think about your emotions, your work and your life.

This is the truth about trust...

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david desteno

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trust

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #193

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, Solve For Interesting, the author of Complete Web Monitoring, Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks and Lean Analytics), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist's Manifesto) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".

Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:

Tupperware! - American Experience . "This is an hour-long documentary. It's also a time capsule. And to understand modern North American society, you need to grok the tug-of-war between this technical optimism and the post-Vietnam, post-9/11 mistrust that pervades much of media today. But for now, go back to a time when the future was bright and plastic, and a generation of women found themselves building a business empire one plastic tub at a time." (Alistair for Hugh).

How Cash Would Be Seen by the Media if Invented Today - CoinDesk . "I once spoke with a proponent of electric cars who pointed out that, if we were trying to get the internal combustion engine approved today, nobody would allow it -- it's essentially an explosive on wheels. Well, Bitcoin proponent Antonis Polemitis took a similar approach to Bitcoin, writing this satirical piece about cold, hard cash. He makes a few good points about just how antiquated modern currency really is." (Alistair for Mitch).

This Looks Like A Charming Little Cabin. And It Is... But It's So Much More Than That. Trust Me. - ViralNova . "Oh, to live in a tiny, wonderfully-designed cabin in the woods..." (Hugh for Alistair).

A Simple Strategy To Get More Replies To The Emails You Send - Buffer . "When you write: 'Let's schedule a call - how do things look for you next week?' what you are really saying is: 'a) I am too lazy to look at my calendar b) I want you to do the work of looking at your calendar c) I am going to make this a 4 x email exchange (1. how does your schedule look? 2. what about Tuesday? 3. no, Wednesday. 4. OK.)' Instead of a 2 email exchange (1. Tuesday 10am? 2. OK!). Learning to be efficient and clear in emails is so much kinder to your contacts, and to yourself." (Hugh for Mitch).

How to Get a Job at Google - The New York Times . "Do you think it takes an awesome GPA and Ivey league college diploma to score a great gig at Google these days? Remember the countless blog posts and articles about the highly intricate questions that they were asking in the hopes of scoring the world's best and brightest talent? Well, guess what? Grades (obviously) matter in some of the more technical jobs, but as Google grows and continues to employ more and more people, they're looking at other - more fascinating - attributes to decide on who, exactly, they consider to be the best of the best. What are those attributes? You will have to read the article to find out (I am such a tease). But, more importantly, start asking yourself this: if Google is looking for people with these kinds of dynamic skill sets and thinking capabilities, just how well are the schools of today prepping kids for the workplace of tomorrow?" (Mitch for Alistair).

How Much My Novel Cost Me - Emily Gould . "I read this post on Medium and I didn't know what to think. We live in such a strange world when it comes to book publishing. On one hand, because of social media, it has never been easier for great content to get noticed by people like literary agents and book publishers. On the other hand, it is so hard to get people to care about buying books (let alone reading them). If you look at the landscape, it doesn't feel like there is much hope. Then again, I know countless people who are doing well financially on their books, because they understand how to either play the game or do things on their own. This is a fascinating piece that will make you think deeply about the true nuances that exist in the book publishing world and how we define success." (Mitch for Hugh).

Now it's your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.

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alistair croll

american exprience

antonis polemitis

bitcoin

bitcurrent

book a futurists manifesto

buffer

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emily gould

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google

hugh mcguire

human 20

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solve for interesting

the new york times

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year one labs

The Best To-Do List

How do you handle your To-Do list?

I've been stressing over my to-do list. How about you? It's funny, I'm not stressed over the growth of it and the activities that I need to get done. I'm actually stressing over the actual/physical list. Let me explain. I used to carry around a hard cover Moleskine notebook that I loved dearly. It had everything in it from to-do lists to book ideas to client meeting notes to random thoughts gathered at a conference and so on. It got to a point, where I was carrying it around and hardly looking back to any of the older pages of notes that I had taken in the weeks and months that had past. Along with that, if I were asked for my notes on a client meeting, I found myself shuffling through the pages and my digital calendar to figure out where these thoughts might be. I was also an early adopter of Evernote. Once I got heavily vested in the digitization of my notes, I found myself having lists in multiple places. Along that journey, I started getting worried that Evernote could get hacked or my info could get lost (again, this is long before the company had become the juggernaut that they are today). A couple of times, Evernote froze/crashed on me and I started getting really worried about the stability of it as well. So, I wound up switching to the native notes application on the iPhone. At that point, I had notes in a physical notebook, stuff in Evernote and other stuff on the native application. At that point, I became interested in using my iPad for close to everything, and feel madly, deeply in love with writing notes on the iPad with a stylus and the Penultimate (now owned by Evernote) and NoteShelf applications. Yep... I was screwed. Now, I had stuff all over the place.

Getting organized.

At the end of last year, I recognized the error in my ways and the trouble I was experiencing. In short, I was spending a lot of time trying to get more efficient at using the tools that were simply supposed to make me more efficient. It was very meta. I was downloading apps, trying them out. Some were better on iPhone and some weren't great at being integrated with the MacBook Air and my current email/calendar system, etc... I was reminded of this unholy mess of notes, ideas and content earlier in the day because Business Insider had a little news item titled, The Best To-Do List App For iOS Is Free For Today Only. Many people are very excited about the amazing to-do list app called, Clear. It's typically, $4.99 but it's free for the next little while (so go and grab it, if you want it). My initial reaction was, "awesome! Gotta grab me that!" And I did. It's gorgeous. It's easy to use. Tons of cool little usability tricks with swiping and pinching. It seems like a total cinch to use. Then, that sinking feeling came over me again. Am I starting over with another note, list, to-do app... again? Nope. Not me. I deleted it. Sorry Clear.

What has been working?

Perhaps you will view this as the most anti-technological way of getting organized. So be it. It has been working so well for me, that I'm almost a little embarrassed to admit it. Here is my system for staying organized. I hope it works as well for you as it has been for me:

Paper. I use a simple 8.5 x 11 piece of paper. I put my to-do list on it. Only the immediate/short-term things that need to get done. This sheet stays on top of all other notes. I also have one sheet dedicated to business development needs for Twist Image. That's it. I keep it all in a manila folder. If the sheet is more than half marked off, I start a new sheet and copy the items not done over to a clean sheet. If I'm not around the folder and need to add an item, I email it to myself and add the item later in the day. If it's a client meeting, it gets a new sheet of paper and once the notes are filled or no longer immediately pressing, those notes get put in a client-specific manila folder (historically, I have rarely had to go back and access these older notes). If I am doing an interview for a podcast, blog post, book, etc... I use another new sheet of paper and once the interview is done, I have an interview folder (again, I hardly ever need to go back once that content gets published). In short, I never have more than 3-5 sheets of paper to carry around.

Notebook. Moleskine. I. Can't. Quit. You. I carry around a soft-cover Moleskine for all of my more creative thinking (ideas for clients, posts, quotes, podcasts, conference notes, book ideas, presentation ideas, etc...). Quite frankly, I could use the same one-page technique as above for this, but I just love the feeling of writing creatively in the Moleskine. Plus, it does feel like a separation of client work/business-related stuff to the deep thinking stuff.

Technology. I use a password protected resident note application for more sensitive things. If it's something that really needs to be on a to-do list, I only use the technology to email myself a note about it. That's it. Kinda lame, right?

It seems to work.

From my vantage point, having that physical paper open on my desk - and within constant view - seems to be the best/most functional way to ensure that stuff gets done (plus, that folder is so easy and light to travel with - be it from meeting to meeting or country to country). This simplification of the process also keeps everything very clean and organized in my mind. That being said, I am left wondering if I'm missing something by removing all of the technology, bells and whistles that seem to get some many people so excited? I'm reminded of Michael Hyatt and how passionate he is about Evernote, and everything it has done to simplify his life in terms of organization (check out his post: A Handy Index to All My Evernote Posts).

What's your take? How do you stay on top of everything? Has technology helped or hindered you?

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Another Public Speaking Horror Story

This isn't one that happened to a specific individual.

This is a horror story that happened to all of us... and continues to happen to people each and every day. This is not what happened to Michael Bay. It's much worse. It's a pervasive horror story that is a part of our educational system, and sticks with us to the boardrooms and convention centers of every city, in every country where meetings are held. Let me explain by telling you a story: the other week, I was at a family dinner. We were discussing my nephew's pending public speech, and I was being asked for any tips or tricks that might help him be successful. I asked him where was in the process of being ready, and this is what he told me: "I've written out the full speech and I'm almost done memorizing it."

My knees buckled.

I had these sudden and terrible flashbacks to being in both elementary and high school. Being forced to write out a four minute speech on index cards, and then being forced to memorize it. The index cards weren't there for support. Those index cards were the bain of my existence. They had every word - as they should be spoken - on them. They were not be used. They were there as moral support, in case I had forgotten what was supposed to be memorized. Every peek at those cards while speaking, was a physical sign to the class - and to the teacher - that I was not prepared. In a "break the glass here in case of emergency" scenario, I would see my fellow classmates cower in panic and wind up head down, nervously reading/mumbling their way through the reading of the cards, in a effort to simply finish the speech and make it (however pathetically) across the finish line. What was learned? From the speaker's perspective, it was all about writing an essay, attempting to memorize it and then, ultimately, reading it aloud (nervously) to the class. From the audiences perspective, it's hard to remember any of the content, because we were all too busy trying to figure out if our friend before us was about to have a public meltdown. Overall, it's hard to focus on why we're there (hint: it's to learn) when everybody is focused on the performance instead.

Brutal. We still consider this public speaking.

If you look at what constitutes a good public presentation, the core of what we're teaching young people is fundamentally wrong from the first instance. Here is a breakdown of what is happening when we teach public speaking contrasted with what we should be teaching...

Step one. We are teaching people to write out the full speech. We should be teaching people to choose the three most important aspects of what they need to explain about their chosen topic. Let's say you are asked to give a speech on the electric bass. We are asking people to study the instrument, and then write three minutes worth of something to say. Instead, I would recommend breaking it into three (or four) chunks. Like this:


Where did the electric bass come from?

What is the electric bass (from a hardware perspective)?

How is it played (techniques and styles)?

Which bass players are inspiring?



Step two. We are asking people to memorize the full speech. We should be teaching people to look at each component of these three/four parts and simply write out - in easy to remember bullet points - a couple of lines about each section so you can better understand both the content you should be covering and the flow. As an example, for the first main section (Where did the electric bass come from?):


In the 1930s, musician and inventor Paul Tutmarc from Seattle, Washington, developed the first electric string bass in its modern form.

In the 1950s, Leo Fender developed the first mass-produced electric bass. His Fender Precision Bass is still an industry standard.

In the 1960's many music instrument manufacturers began mass producing these instruments because of the popularity of rock music.



Step three. We are asking people once they have memorized the speech to then learn some basic physical and vocal moves to improve the performance of memorizing a written story. We should be teaching people to add color (a funny story or anecdote) to support their three key points. If you do a quick search online about bass players or funny stories about the history of the electric bass, there are many interesting and hilarious anecdotes. Takes some of these stories, think about how you can best tell them, and then insert those stories into the framework above. Knowing the stories will also be a great way to remember the key bullet-points of your story.

Step four. Practice. Start by trying to remember each of the main three/four concepts you are going to speak about (this is also your agenda). Then take each main point and remember the two or three pieces you will talk about within each one of them. Then repeat the last step, but include the stories/anecdotes that you will be adding in to add color and depth to them. Lastly, set-up a bunch of times in your agenda and start practicing it as if you were speaking in front of an audience (don't wait until the night before!). Practice it a lot (or as much as you can). If you can pull together a small group of friends (even if it's via Skype or Google Hangout) to watch you do it, all the better.

No more horror stories.

There is no need to write up a story and then figure out how to read it or memorize it and say it to an audience. That is not giving a presentation. That is reading something in public or reciting something from memory that was written. Writing is not the same thing as speaking and/or presenting. What this all boils down to is learning about a topic, figuring out what makes it interesting to you, supporting those thoughts with stories and anecdotes, and then practicing it enough so that you are comfortable to present those ideas in public. We need to do a better job of holding our educational system accountable to produce people who are good at speaking in front of audiences and sharing ideas. Death to writing out speeches. Death to being forced to memorize these written words. Death to index cards. Death to feeling nervous or anxious about memorization.

Let's put an end to this, shall we?

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paul tutmarc

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public speaking

public speech

skype

speaking

speech writing

Crazy, Sexy, Cool: Attributes Of The Most Clickable Ads

How entertaining is your brand?

On the surface, this may seen like a simple question to answer. If you produce movies, energy drinks or running shoes, you probably have something that is highly entertaining. Most of us don't work for brands like that. We sell valves, insurance policies, accounting services and the like. Not the kind of stuff that evokes deep emotions like laughter and tears. Still, we live in a day and age when most brands are forced to be out there. Not just with television commercials, flyers and ads on the radio, but actively engaged online. We need to get people to like our brand on Facebook, pin our images on Pinterest, subscribe to our YouTube channels, retweet our 140-characters of goodness on Twitter and more for attention. In fact, when it comes to the modern marketing mix, you will often find many companies struggle so desperately, that they are willing to buy media to promote their content posts or spend money on fan acquisition (there's an oxymoron in there, if you think about it). There are countless strategies that marketing pundits will put forward in order to help brands understand where and how to create value in a world that has never been so cluttered with advertising.

Screaming louder than everyone else.

If you go back a mere fifteen years, marketing experienced a new dawn. Social media brought with it the ability for brands to have real interactions with real human beings. As powerful and profound as that was (and still is), the waters have become quite murky. The current arms race for likes, friends, followers, subscribers, retweets, pins and more has brought with it an over-simplification of what a brand should be pursuing. Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and the like are no longer encouraging brands to figure out a way to create a depth of meaning and connection with their consumers. If you scratch slightly beneath the surface, everything that they offer is sold much in the same way that traditional media outlets have sold their traditional advertising. It has become just another type of marketplace, where the brand who screams the loudest gets the most attention. So, is the promise of social media dead? Do we really need to care about depth of interactions, building true relationships, nurturing people towards engagement, or are we looking for just another quick fix in a long history of advertising's version of the one night stand?  

Tell me what you want... what you really, really want.

You would think that as your business adds digital marketing into a more prominent position within a marketing mix, that the true value will come from time spent digging deep into what adds value to the consumers life. How can your brand - in a world where anyone can publish anything in text, images, audio and video - create something so compelling that it becomes an integral part of a consumer's digital experience. Well, it turns out that the pace with which consumers are ignoring advertising messages has not dissipated in a world where we have an incredible ability to target, customize, personalize and build a true relationship. According to a Research Brief news item published earlier this week titled, Four of Five American Consumers Ignore Online Ads Most Frequently, the digital world is having just as much trouble capturing a consumer's attention. "82% of Americans ignore online ads, ahead of television ads at 37%. 92% of Americans ignore at least one type of ad seen every day across six different types of media," according to the article about the first annual Goo Online Advertising Survey. "The online ads Americans are most likely to ignore included: online banner ads (73%), followed by social media ads (62%), and search engine ads (59%). The highest wage earners, those with a household income of $100k+ per year, were statistically more likely than those households making less than $50k per year (86% vs. 78%, respectively) to say they ignore online ads. Overall, the 65+ age group ignored the most, while the 35-44 age group ignored the least."

Advertising revenue would beg to differ.

If that one study is reflective of the industry at large, the fire alarms should be clanging from Madison Avenue to Silicon Valley. We continue to see a sharp increase of ad spend shift from traditional channels to digital ones in hopes that customization, analytics and targeting will create a more effective form of advertising. So, what do consumers really want? The Goo Technologies went on to report that consumers would like advertising to:

Look more interesting.

Not feel like an ad (whatever that means).

Be funny.

Be entertaining.

Have stunning graphics.

Have a sexy man or woman in the ad (I can't make this stuff up).

Be more interactive.

Nothing new in new media.

If you're wondering why all of that technology, analytics, retargeting and more is not moving the needle in your advertising, or why that last YouTube video didn't find the viral success that you were hoping for, it turns out that consumers - no matter how evolved they are in their technological prowess around media channels, content creation and devices - are overwhelmed. There is a sheer brunt force of advertising everywhere. They are either completely ignoring advertising or simply want it to give them a chuckle or raise an eyebrow and move on. As simple as that sounds, not many brands are in the business of entertainment, and that's the true rub. Consumers are online, connected, creating, curating, sharing and more. As intellectual and powerful as that is, nothing will get them to act on your message unless you can really entertain them. Smart advertising is good entertainment. Surprise! Nothing much has really changed in the game of advertising no matter how sophisticated and evolved the platforms and opportunities have become.

So, how entertaining is your brand?

The above posting is my twice-monthly column for Inc. Magazine called Reboot: Marketing . I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original version online here:

Inc. Magazine - Crazy, Sexy, Cool: Attributes of the Most Clickable Ads .

Tags:

advertising

advertising revenue

advertising technology

brand

business column

content curation

content marketing

digital marketing

entertainment

facebook

fan acquisition

goo online advertising survey

google

inc magazine

madison avenue

marketing

marketing mix

marketing strategy

media channel

new media

online advertising

paid media

pinterest

radio advertising

reboot marketing

research brief

retargeting

silicon valley

social media

television commercials

traditional media

twitter

viral video

web analytics

youtube

What's Up With WhatsApp?

Every morning at 7:10 am, I am a guest contributor on CHOM 97.7 FM radio broadcasting out of Montreal (home base). It's not a long segment - about 5 to 10 minutes every week - about everything that is happening in the world of technology and digital media. The good folks at CHOM 97.7 FM are posting these segments weekly to SoundCloud, if you're interested in hearing more of me blathering away. I'm really excited about this opportunity, because this is the radio station that I grew up on listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry and Heather B. morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.

This week we discussed:

The Sting And Paul Simon show does look good.

What's up with WhatsApp and Facebook?

The race for audience.

The new type of private social network.

Being a savvy media company.

WhatsApp outage and taking shots at technology.

Facebook's market cap is close to $180 billion.

Is Facebook still innovative?

App of the week: PicCollage (h/t La Chatch).

Listen here...

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chom 977 fm

chom fm

ctrl alt delete

ctrl alt delete with mitch joel

digital media

facebook

guest contributor

heather backman

montreal radio

morning show

mornings rock with terry and heather b

paul simon

piccollage

radio segment

radio station

social media

soundcloud

sting

technology

terry dimonte

whatsapp

Building A Decoded Company

Episode #398 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

How much data is big data? How well can a company leverage that data and technology that they have to make the actual company a better place to work? These are just some of the questions that co-authors Rahaf Harfoush and Leerom Segal attempt to decode in the book, The Decoded Company. Segal is the president and CEO of Klick Health (a well-known healthcare marketing agency) that is both well-recognized for their client work as well as being an "e-mail free" work environment. Harfoush is a technology and media author, speaker and thinker who is best known for her book, Yes We Did: An Insider's Look at How Social Media Built the Obama. Along with two other Klick team members (Jay Goldman and Aaron Goldstein), they are hoping to encourage other businesses to rethink what the workplace of today can look like in order to create a place where companies know their own people better than they know their consumers. It's big, it's bold and it's thrilling. Enjoy the conversation... 

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast #398.

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aaron goldstein

advertising podcast

blog

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david usher

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jay goldman

klick health

leerom segal

marketing blogger

marketing podcast

podcast

podcasting

rahaf harfoush

social media

the decoded company

twitter

video podcast

yes we did