Coming in at #5 is “banner next to logo.” Ironically, SAI happens to run a “banner next to logo” ad in their masthead. Today, it was for Range Rover. At #8 is “hidden close button.” This makes it hard for users to close the expanding ad and get back to their task. Also ironically, the Range Rover ad was an expanding ad. To open it, you roll over (which often leads to unintentional expansions for the reader and gives false engagement numbers for the advertiser), and to close it, the instructions say just to roll out. Well, rolling out didn’t work (I was able to launch Skitch and upload a screen shot without it closing) plus as an added bonus, it left the ad open not just on that page, but on every subsequent page. Technically the close button is not really hidden, but it doesn’t work, so it has the same effect.
So all on one page, SAI provided a beautiful demonstration of not one, but TWO kinds of ads that people hate most. Probably not the best way to illustrate your point. But hey, at least they made some money off of it.
I seem to be blogging a lot of Mark McLeod’s stuff lately. You should subscribe to his blog, StartupCFO. Today, he’s got some good advice for how to get back into the groove. I’m going to try to find a few hours to go through all of my paper inputs, throw a bunch of stuff away, clear the cutter and sit down with a graph pad and my trusty Pentel Side FX 0.5 pencil and empty my head. Sometimes a pencil and paper and a few hours away from the computer is the best way to take stock of everything you’ve got going on around you.
Before you read this post, click here to make a donation to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I’ll explain why in a minute. Done? OK good. Read on.
In October, I’ll be running my fourth marathon with Team In Training. I’m raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. In past seasons, I’ve dedicated my races to our team’s honorees. I’ve been fortunate that none of my friends or family have had to fight cancer. That changed this morning.
Drew is a guy I know mostly from the fact that I spend way too much time on Twitter. We don’t hang out together, we’ve never had a beer, and he’s never met my wife or kids. We finally met at LaidOffCamp a few months back over a great conversation on how people can get together to collaborate on new ideas. Drew is creative, outgoing, friendly, and funny. He’s an all around good guy to know. And he was just diagnosed (click that link and read it, btw) with cancer.
Drew has stage 3 Hodgkins Lymphoma. He just started chemo yesterday. He’s got treatments every two weeks for the next six months. Chemo sucks. But the good news is that Drew’s got a great outlook on things. He’s raising money at BlameDrewsCancer.com. All you have to do is blame Drew’s cancer for whatever you want. Lost your keys? Blame Drew’s cancer. Barista screwed up your triple half-caff low fat skinny mochachino? Blame Drew’s cancer. Tweet it and tag it #blamedrewscancer. It’s a great idea and, as people who know him would expect, it’s pretty damn funny too.
So this season, I’m running for Drew. My job is easy. I’m going to run 26.2 miles. Your job is easy too. You just need to donate a few bucks. Thanks.
I was fortunate enough to see Steve Blankspeak at a recent Startup2Startup dinner. And let me tell you…the guy is smart. But I had no idea that he could temporarily suspend the laws of gravity. From steveblank.com:
Part of marketing is the ability to communicate a message to thousands of people and convince them to believe your version of reality. When I was 19 I accidentally had a test run of my ability to do so. I created havoc at an air force base by convincing thousands of airman that gravity would be turned off so that the Air Force could make repairs under their buildings.
Back? Good. There are two key lessons for marketing your startup here: Context and Authority.
Context
Where are your customers receiving your message? Is it where they expect to find it? The orders for the suspension of gravity were posted on the notice board where the airmen were accustomed to receiving notices of base activity. The message was coming from the right channel, so it made sense. For your startup, it’s imperative that your customers receive your message in a place that makes sense. This is one of the reasons that I’m not a huge fan of paid advertising. It’s also the reason that Google has been so wildly successful. You see ads when you’re looking for something. They have context. Ensure that your marketing channels have the appropriate context for your audience and your message.
Authority
Steve posted the orders on the base letterhead and from the base commander. The base commander was trusted and obeyed. Even though there was no way that the message could possibly be true, if it was coming from the base commander, the airmen had to at least allow for the possibility, didn’t they? How could they not? What if they were wrong? This is one of the reasons that social media has become such a buzz word. When you get messages from people you trust (your friends) those messages carry more authority than those received from strangers, or channels. Which has more authority? Emily’s best friend telling her “Hey, Emily, you should try the barbeque chicken burrito at Aqui. It’s awesome.” Or a sign on a bus stop that says, “Try the barbeque chicken burrito from Aqui. It’s awesome.” You need to provide the tools for the authorities to share your message for you.
Lesson learned: Make sure your marketing messages are received in the right context and from the right authority, and you may be able to temporarily suspend gravity.
Retweeting is a way for Twitter users to share fun, interesting or useful tweets with their networks. Typically they take the form of “RT @somename Some message and maybe a link” where @somename is the person who originally tweeted it. Many of the Twitter clients have built in simple retweet features that let you construct a message with a single click, but the only way to do it on the web interface at twitter.com was to copy and paste the message into the box at the top and add the RT.
But that maybe changing soon. Today, while searching for tweets about my neighborhood, I rolled over one of the recent tweets and a random bunch of RT links showed up:
It only happened on that one tweet. None of the others had it. I checked my main feed to see if any other tweets had it and only one did:
So I clicked the RT link to see what happened and sure enough, it popped a new window with a RT formatted message there for me.
Is Twitter going to be launching a RT link soon? Looks like it’s a high probability. This is a good thing. Twitter has traditionally lagged behind the clients in introducing new features. They just added search to the main page earlier this week. But if they start incorporating some of the best ideas that developers are coming up with, they’ll probably increase usage of their own web interface, keeping more people on the site, and, if the theory is right, helping them make even more money when (or if) the finally decide to do so.
Feel free to RT this
UPDATE: 5 minutes later and it looks like every tweet has the links now. So much for a top secret discovery.
In October, I’m running the Royal Victoria Marathon to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and I need your help. Not with the running, I’ll cover that part, but with your money. If you’ve got an itchy trigger finger and want to donate now, click here to throw a punch.
I started running with Team in Training a few years back. I’ve run a half marathon and three full marathons and together with my wife, Mandy, we’ve raised nearly $10k for cancer research and support. But it’s not enough. We still have a long way to go.
Along the way, I’ve been privileged to meet some of the toughest people I’ve ever met. Our team’s honorees have given cancer the beat down and come back to run and fight for others. Unfortunately, we’ve lost some friends along the way. Joining our honorees in their fight has been the most meaningful thing I’ve ever done, and I want to do more.
My goal for this season is to raise $5,000. And that’s where you come in. Please donate what you can to help us out. Even the small donations help, but we really love the big ones. Before you donate, please check with your employer if they can match your contribution at: http://www.matchinggifts.com/lls/
I’ll be blogging about my training runs and the stories of our honorees throughout the season over at http://ryankuder.posterous.com. You can subscribe to my blog there to get my latest updates via email or RSS to follow my progress (I also post other fun stuff there).
Thanks for your help, your support, and your money. Together, we can really give cancer a solid beat down.
On Friday, my friend Scott sent me a tweet suggesting we head out for a bite after our kids’ soccer practice. I figured we could get a few families together and head to our local pizza place, Jake’s. Jake’s is a great spot, just a few minutes from our house, with good pizza, cold beer, and games for the kids. It’s also crowded and getting a table for 12 at 6:45 was sure to be a hassle.
But when I tweeted back to Scott, something happened that changed our plans. Here’s how it went down…
@schnaars: @ryankuder speaking of which, are there any plans post practice? @ryankuder: @schnaars We’re in. Should we round up the posse and head to Jake’s for pizza? @tonyalba_pizza: @ryankuder or Tony & Alba’s maybe?
Whoa! Where’d that come from? Tony & Alba’s? We hadn’t even considered it. Who is @tonyalba_pizza? Turns out, it’s about 15 minutes away and we’d never been there before. Jake’s would be so much closer to home. What would get us to drive out to Tony & Alba’s? Since my biggest concern with Jake’s was going to be the wait, I figured some negotiating might be useful here.
@ryankuder: @TonyAlba_Pizza Could you save us a table for 12 at Stephen’s Creek so we don’t have to wait? @tonyalba_pizza: @ryankuder You got it what time? Do you want to pre order? I’ll throw in fountain drinks.
Hold the phone! Jake’s is closer, but Tony & Alba’s will hold a table and throw in the soft drinks? Deal.
@tonyalba_pizza: @ryankuder Just say that you are Ryan I’ll have the table set in the TV room and I will send them a note. Just tweet like a bird-Just kidding.
And I tweeted like a bird. I tweeted to Scott that we’d be going to Tony & Alba’s instead. He’d never been either. We both twittered about how awesome @tonyalba_pizza was. We even got a few random tweets from people who thought that Tony & Alba’s pizza sounded like a great idea for a Friday night.
After practice, we packed up the kids and headed to Tony & Alba’s. When we got there, the staff had been alerted that we were coming, we had a big table set up in the TV room, they picked up the soft drinks for us, and they even through in some garlic knots (nom). The kids had a great time, the grown ups had a great time. And Tony & Alba’s got our business. By then end of the night, they had three families signed up for their VIP program and I can almost guarantee that we’ll be back to Tony & Alba’s for pizza after practice again this season.
All because of a tweet.
Lesson learned:The @tonyalba_pizza account is run by Al, manager of three Tony & Alba’s pizza restaurants in Silicon Valley. Al did a few things right that small businesses can learn from. If you’re a small business owner, follow your neighbors. Monitor the online conversation for mentions of you, your competitors, or your industry. And when you hear something, jump in. But most important, when you’re given the opportunity for a new sale, deliver on what you promise. Al nailed all of these and now, he’s got a customer who will keep coming back.
Matt McGee over at HyperlocalBlogger tipped us off to this video. Lisa Williams, founder of h20town and Placeblogger drops four minutes of insight on what makes placeblogging different and what makes placebloggers tick. She also does a great job dissecting the difference between the content that you find in placeblogs and what you’d find in local newspapers. It’s not necessarily more local, or less newsy, it’s just…different.
I spent a few years working at eBay a while back. Pierre Omidyar founded the company on the premise that, “People are basically good.” In case you’re a doubter, prepare yourself for an excruciating dose of cute as random strangers help a smiley little robot find his way across the park.
