Small Business Affinity

I have been advising  local PDX food bloggers, http://burgersdogspizza.com, since they started the site about a year ago.   My work with them has included content and layout suggestions for the blog, an online marketing calendar, assistance in setting up accounts, including their Twitter effort:  http://twitter.com/burgerdogboy.

I was a pretty firm believer in the adage that “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” until I started working with these guys – they were about as skeptical as someone can be about the effectiveness of social media.

And although this was started purely as a hobby, it has turned into a revenue producing enterprise, and according to wefollow.com, Burgerdogboy is the #1 most influential Twitter user in two categories, hot dogs, and cheeseburgers…and Urbanspoon.com has them as the 1oth most popular food blog in Portland.

SmallBizAffinity can breathe new life into your marketing efforts, too.    Just email us or call for your free one hour consultation.

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Could this be the shape of our media industry in the future?

We’ve been recommending radio to clients lately, and getting great results.  Because of the economy, people are tuning in to “free media” more, and lower rates make buys ultra-efficient.   We’re going to post some slides with some radio facts this week.

Radio reaches retail consumers.

We’re participating in the “Walk for Austism” on April 18.  We could sure use your support and pledge for sponsorship!   To learn more, or to pledge, go to this site: www.firstgiving.com/ICWS.  Many, many thanks for anything you can do to support this great cause!

Belated Happy New Year!    It’s been a while since I have posted, the bad news is shame on me for that!  The good news is it’s been because we have been so busy working with YOU!   As I rapidly approach the first anniversary of Small Business Affinity’s start-up, we have a lot to be thankful for.  We’ve had the pleasure of working with some really great clients, and obtaining some great results for them.  We’ve constructed campaigns for clients, done direct mail, a boatload of printing, some radio, events, and much more. Built a lot of websites this year, ramped up SEO and click-thru campaigns.

In each case, my client experience has afforded me with the opportunity to LEARN, and that’s one thing that really jazzes me in my work.

As many of you know, I’ve just returned from a busman’s holiday, of sorts, to Amsterdam.   While the trip was mostly to get recharged for the New Year, I did have the pleasure of meeting and chatting to one of Europe’s leading social media experts, and learned a lot from that visit.   In so many ways, Europe is leading us in this segment, and we can hurdle forward by emulating some of their social media implementations!

I was also amazed at how wired Amsterdam is, with wifi everywhere, and it being implemented for the smallest tasks – like wireless order taking and bills in restaurants, and shops.  So cool!

This is going to be a great year for all of us, the recovery is in full swing, and by laying the groundwork and investing in your marketing NOW, you’ll emerge at the top of your game in the coming months.

I look forward to catching up with all of you I ‘ve worked with in the past year, and if you haven’t heard from me, give me a shout!

Here’s to 2010 being the best year ever for your business!

All the best,

Melody

My husband, who spent a lot of years in the traditional news business, has shared an insight with me that I want to pass along to you.

In the “traditional” news and PR business, if you have to put out something publicly, but DON’T want it noticed, you launch the story (or press release) on a Friday afternoon. This assures that the least amount of people will notice it.

You could encounter this situation in responding to a negative story, or putting out a press release with bad news, for example.

He said he has noticed the same trend with Twitter. About noon on Fridays, people generally quit responding to Twitter links or replying to messages.

Lesson learned. If you have something important to Tweet about, generally don’t do it on Friday, unless you re-tweet yourself on Monday morning. Good advice.

Chrome OS from Google is coming next year. Among other things, it takes all those onerous, clunky processes, so vulnerable to gaffs, malware, and bugs, and runs them online, not locally, providing you with faster, more efficient, updated web access. Check out this short video.

Here’s a one pager that list the most important terms and shortcuts for Twitter.

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Huh?  What’s that you say?  Well, it’s basically a video technology that is going to make a leap to print, at least for some.     The strict definition of AR is “a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery – creating a mixed reality.”  Augmented Reality (AR) is the technology you see on television to “paint” the yellow first down lines you see on your television screen.

But Esquire mag is taking it to the next level this month.  On the cover, in stories, and ads, you will see a square sticker with a black and white abstract design.  Holding these squares up to a webcam that is connected to the net triggers topical videos to play.   Turn the magazine at a different bias, and the video will change or be augmented.

Expect to see a lot of this in the near term, as advertisers grow more and more frustrated with the results of “static” advertising and content.   And you’ll see it used to supplement content on phones, nav systems, and other devices.

Pictured below is an example of AR used in a digital camera viewfinder..

A part of being active in the social media realm is monitoring what others are saying about your business.  A new tool for this is monitter.com, which allows you to insert key words relevant to your business or business segment and track tweets that are relevant to those key words.  This is an excellent way to prospect for followers, to head of bad information being disbursed about your company, to learn about what the competition is doing, or to analyze industry trends that might help you target your marketing more precisely.

Go to monitter.com to start your tracking.