Content marketing is contextual advertising with a real strategy

You have a business and your business has a website. It’s probably something like mycompany.com. You have the usual “About Us” page, the usual “Our Mission” page and all that boring stuff no one is reading. Even you got to believe those are “dead pages” and no one cares about them. You don’t have a budget to relaunch your website, though you’d like to make it look fascinating. And you don’t have the money to spend on display advertising, not to speak about TV ads. What should you do?, you’ll ask. Well, content marketing is the solution.

You started to believe pages like “About Us” or “Our mission” are dead, right? Well, that’s true, those are dead pages and no one cares about them. Unless you believe in them. Content marketing is all about working with words and having a small budget to attract people that read those words and will let themselves convinced to buy your products.

Big companies have big budgets to spend. What marketing people in big companies don’t understand is that a Flash website is not enough to build a presence on the internet. I said that before and I’ll say it again. But this time, I’ll add this:

The most efficient advertising is word-of-mouth. The second most trusted type of advertising is what’s written on the company’s website.

What does that mean? That means you only have to say good things about yourself. Write the story of your company, people love stories. Keep “Our Mission” page, but rewrite it and make it sound like a story, tell the world the story where you and your products will change the world. That’s it. That’s all the content you need.

Here comes the marketing

Now, you know your website needs visitors. And here comes the part about marketing. Run a contextual advertising campaign. It’s cheap and you only pay for each visitor that arrives on your website. That’s why it’s called pay per click. Create short ads for each of those “dead pages” written as stories. For info about how to write an ad, check out copyblogger.com and copysnips.com. It’s that simple: writing a great ad and getting visitors. Those visitors are your potential clients and they’re really cheap. You can pay a penny for each of them.

If you want a full content marketing experience, launch a blog and post articles about your industry and about your products, write stories on how your products are made, write articles about your employees and show the world what a cool boss you are. Choose your best articles and promote them through contextual advertising. People like cool stuff. If you’re not yet convinced to launch a blog, check these four reasons why you really should do it.

You can’t find any other cheaper form of advertising. Your dead pages will reborn. Anyone can do it!

Post from: Tonify.net

Taking social media too seriously can really damage your image

Amanda Bobben rented an apartment from Horizon Realty. The apartment is… “moldy”. Or that’s what Amanda Bobben said in a tweet read by 20 followers. A tweet that Horizon Realty says it has damaged the company’s image and the tenant should pay $50.000. No one knows how Horizon Realty got to read the tweet, and it probably doesn’t really matter anyway. What matters is that they sued Amanda and that’s the best example of how online communication can damage your image worse than any opinion. How? I’ll explain.

No wonder social media is a great medium to invest in. Actually, social media is one of the best ways to promote yourself, your company or your products. But what happens when you take too seriously any small thing that you might think it’s able to damage your image? Well, Horizon Realty Group from Chicago did that. The results? Well, they sure looked lame and scared.

For a company like Horizon Realty, the financial crisis is indeed a problem. The prices for apartments and houses dropped seriously, so commissions aren’t as big as they used to. That means lower incomes and, eventually, lower profits. Social media seems to be the cheapest and the best way to promote yourself. We all know, when it comes to companies and reducing costs, the first cuts are always applied to the marketing budget. Well, now they’re going to spend more on marketing.

Exaggerating is bad for the business

Amanda Bobben just droped a line on Twitter. Probably, her tweet might have had the chance to be retweeted by one of her 20 followers. But in the end, probably no more than 100 people were to really read that line she wrote:

Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment is bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it’s okay.

The tweet isn’t actually a damage to Horizon Realty’s image. It’s more like a damage to Amanda’s capabilities of choosing the flat she wants to live in. From my point of view, it’s her only fault that she didn’t check the apartment before moving in. In any normal circumstances, before paying the rent, you check the place you’re going to live in. It’s not like she payed the rent and while she was out, some guy from Horizon Realty came and planted the mold.

The mystery: How did they find her?

Leaving the “who’s fault is it” subject behind, I’m trying to imagine how did they manage to find that tweet. Are the “online communication experts” from Horizon Realty searching for the company name on Twitter and keep pressing the refresh button? Because it’s actually stupid to do that.

And that’s why I say exaggerating is bad for business. Taking too seriously the social media and everyone’s opinions is called exaggerating. That’s not an online communication strategy, that’s not a done job, it’s just stupidity.

The solution

If Horizon Realty managers are really scared of what people say, they shouldn’t have done such a big mistake and under no circumstance sue the tenant. What they could have done was to contact Amanda Bobben and offer to pay her bills for one month. Or to call her and offer her a new apartment. Would you like to know how the result would have looked like?

Wow, the guys from Horizon Realty found me a better place to stay! They’re cool!

But that would have been just as exaggerated. What I would have done? Ignore her tweet. Because it’s not my fault or my company’s fault because she didn’t check the place in the first instance. Anyway, here’s a merely different opinion.

Post from: Tonify.net

#iranelection, the topic that pumped traffic in Twitter, got back in the charts

Advertising Age breaks the news: According to news-monitoring service VMS, the media coverage Twitter got in the last 30 days worths 48 million dollars. That’s half Microsoft’s Bing.com launch advertising budget. AdAge asks just below the title: Can Twitter maintain its sizzle? I think the right question is: How did that happen? It’s not “the chatter” that worths the money, it’s the Iran topic that ruled the media. And guess what was the main source of information? Twitter

After almost two weeks of Michael Jackson in the top ten most discussed topics on Twitter, #iranelection is back in the chart. This is the main reason Twitter got such a big media coverage. Take a look back and try to remember what was the main source of information regarding this topic in the – more or less – traditional media. Twitter on TV, Twitter in the newspapers, Twitter everywhere.

The advantage of using Twitter as a medium to spread the information is that the microblogging became probably the fastest communication medium in the world. Yes, there’s the phone, which is definetly faster, but it’s pretty expensive and in times of political crisis, not only that it’s not actually the safest way to communicate, but you might actually not be able to use it.

Basically, after the Iran matter, Twitter became a real medium, just like newspapers, but more likely similar to the internet. An internet inside the internet. It’s actually interesting to analyze how Twitter changed the perception people have over news. It’s 140 characters easy to get the news and it’s millions of 140 characters news to be read.

Of course, Twitter will not replace the true media forms, like newspapers, television or websites. But it can be translated into a reasonable source for whatever information you might want to expand. It’s brilliant, actually. Too bad it’s too hard for the company to actually get payed.

Now let’s see some figures:

1. Twitter had 2,7 billion impressions in the last 30 days
2. PR value generated by TV – 57%
3. PR value generated by newspapers – 37%
4. PR value generated by magazines – 5%
5. $48 million dollars worth media exposure

Post from: Tonify.net

Billions of Internet users means billions potential customers. And you say the Internet is dead as an investment? Is it?

As you probably know, Wall Street Journal’s columnist James Altucher wrote an article about his perception of the Internet as a business medium and, most important, as an investment option. According to Altucher, the Internet is dead. And he gives examples like AOL, Microsoft, MySpace and even Google. His advice? Don’t throw your money out in the internet. Well, I disagree. If you want to win, you have to risk. But most of all, you have to be smart. And the main question remains: Are you smart enough to invest in the Internet? You decide.

As a managing partner of Formula Capital, “an alternative asset management firm“, and an author on investment strategies, James Altucher probably knows better than me where to spend his money. I know how I’d spend his money. But enough with the jokes, we’re being serious.

Altucher’s examples are poor

Formula Capital’s manager has really poor examples, and that’s not because the brands he named aren’t popular enough, but because he’s talking about companies that acquired online services or invested without having a real online strategy. Why? Well, here’s why.

“Time Warner would rather keep their legacy old-media businesses like People magazine than hold onto one of the biggest Internet companies out there, AOL“, says Altucher. But he forgets that once AOL was acquired by Time Warner, and once you become part of a big corporation, you have to answer to new chiefs, managers, whatever.

So, suddenly, you’re not your own boss anymore and you have to addopt new strategies, according to the corporate criteria. The point is, after being acquired, new people got involved, some probably without the slightest idea about the online industry. I guess we can all see the results, can’t we?

What about MySpace?

Here’s another one of Altucher’s example: MySpace getting under the News Corp. umbrella. After being acquired, MySpace didn’t use a good strategy for development. I’m not a big fan or some great user of their services, but I can see one thing: instead of keeping it as a social network, News Corp. should have invested in additional paid services. Don’t forget that the company is involved in the music industry. Why not use MySpace to promote its artists on a brand new level? Why not sell music cheaper using MySpace?

And that’s not everything. It’s true, they launched a video service. But News Corp. is involved in cinema just as well. Why not include a movie service? I wrote much more about this idea a few weeks ago. There are plenty of opportunities. But where’s the strategy?

Microsoft is the worst example ever!

James Altucher points the finger at Microsoft: “Look, the suckers that invested millions in the Internet and got nothing!“. That’s only half true. The problem with Microsoft though is that they have a very lousy image in the online medium. And that’s mostly because they’re that big corporation that created Internet Explorer 6, the browser we still use at the office and we all love to hate. OK, maybe it’s an exaggerated, but Microsoft didn’t really show any real interest in gaining something from online.

Microsoft’s core business is still Windows and Office, that’s what they sell and that’s their main revenue source. Despite they’re involvement during the ages, Microsoft is a newbie in online. And that’s because their PR policy was to sit tight and shut up. No communication, no cool stuff to launch, same old websites using a crappy nineties’ design. Microsoft just isn’t a good example.

No, the Internet is not a dead end for investors

Internet is actually a good market to bet on. The only thing investors should keep in mind is to double-check the business plan and to be creative. Any idea might become an innovation if there’s enough creativity and desire. And it’s not the big guys like News Corp. that you should have in mind as examples, but the little ones who grew to become big shots. That’s where investors should look for opportunities.

Post from: Tonify.net

One successful road for the online advertising: a microsite inside and overlayer. It's called innovation

Once in a while, in each industry, innovation has to come once again. The traditional methods get loose, the usual ways get boring or less effective. So there has to be someone to bring something new to the world. This is what I want to write about: innovation. For now, I’m going to stick to innovation in online advertising. And here’s a great example of innovation, where a classic banner meets a microsite and emerges into a great idea: a microsite inside an overlayer.

What I’m talking about is this great example of non-intrusive overlayer one click away. I found the banner on TwitPic.com and I was curious what’s the selling price for the new Chevrolet Cruze. I don’t intend to buy a car in the near future, but I find it interesting to check the prices once in a while. The recession is a good moment to buy and that’s especially because of the sales and the great rebates. Anyway, here’s how the ad looks like (if you think the video is too small, feel free to watch it on youtube.com):

What can you see? Let me give you a few hints:

1. a traditional 300x250px ad size
2. a normal and pretty classic Flash banner
3. a non-intrusive overlayer launched through a simple click
4. a real website inside the overlayer
5. no fake links to send you to the website

What are the conclusions? Well, I have a few and I’m glad I can write them down:

1. the ad gives the viewer almost full information about the product
2. the only thing you have to do to get a price list is to click, which is a cheap price to pay
3. a great average time spent on the microsite, which gives the advertiser great brand exposure, especially product exposure
4. exceptionally great PR potential
5. a real clickthrough rate, because only the interested people will click
6. a huge potential conversion rate, even if it’s not about sales, but test-drive requests

I’m not sure what agency is behind this cool idea, but I tend to believe it’s Grey EMEA. Actually, Grey EMEA got a few prizes at this year’s edition of Cannes Lions Festival.

Post from: Tonify.net

Your clients are your money source. Train them and they'll stick to you and obey you.

So many agencies and much more clients! Look at the companies and see the trend: getting new media managers, having teams for online marketing, etc. But what happens if you’re an agency and they come to you and tell you what they want done? You know what they want might be wrong, so what do you do: are going on with their ideas to get the paycheck or are you trying to explain where they’re wrong? Because, remember clients don’t always know what online actually represents. That’s why I compiled a short list of preconceptions among the clients. Let’s see it and find the solutions

Those suits with the bags full of money. Those are their clients. Your goal is to get what’s inside the bags, right? But how do you actually get them? What is there to do? You just listen to them and obey or are you giving them some piece of advice for better results? Because, remember clients have some preconceptions. They want “that and that thing only”. And if you know that’s wrong, what do you do? Take their money anyway or are you trying to educate them?

What do corporate suits know?

It’s well known that guys corporate managers don’t really understand the online presence and what online marketing really means. For them, the internet is mostly perceived as e-mail and mobile e-mail. And, once in a while, some Google to find out where they should spend their vacations. Their knowledge about online marketing are limited to almost none. Usually, clients come with three or four examples in mind, some stuff they have seen once and they want something similar. Let’s see a few of these preconceptions:

1. I loved that Flash site! Can you make me one just like that?

   Usually, when it comes to presentation sites, a corporate manager – let’s say, the marketing manager, if you go to them to purpose a project – is going to show you some Flashy website. He knows it’s glowy and if he liked it, everybody will like it. This kind of managers are the ones that believe that advertising is irrelevant for their business, but hey!, it’s something you have to do either way. For them, people should come buy their products, even if their products are unknown. Those are the guys that give you headeacks and the ones you have to explain why they should have a web presence. They are the guys that will spend the money on a website that will never have enough traffic and then they’ll ask themselves why. Because Google’s bots and spiders don’t read Flash content? Duh!

2. Can we have a social network? I heard it’s cool for companies to have networks

   If you’re a small agency that works strategy as well as creation, design and development, then you should know that some of the marketing managers that still have some time to read the papers must know about successful online campaigns powered by Nike or Reebok. They will remember about social networks created for these brands and they will want one of their own, though nobody will be interested in yet another socialization website.

3. I think you should create it from scrap, even if we’re going to pay $100.000

   The point is some companies have a tendency to pay a ton of money on nothing. Yes, it’s good for you, as an agency, because it’s good money. But if the product is not exceptional – and this usually happens because after the launch no one will take care of updates or marketing the product – and people will find out the price the company payed you, it’s your image that will be burned.

4. Have you seen that overlayer? I want two of those!

   Company marketers don’t usually know that online advertising means. They take newspapers articles as guiding base. They don’t usually know what metrics mean. If they read an article about overlayer efficiency, they will take it for granted, not knowing that more than 40% of those clicks are by mistake and the time spent on their website is equal to none.

What should we do? It’s a crisis, for God’s sake!

The simplest way to deal with this kind of problems is called education. Educate your clients! Don’t be some slave obeying to any order just to get more money. It’s your image we’re talking about. It might happen that after taking five, ten, twenty projects payed with big money, someone will find out the prices. Tigh that to the lack of success of the projects you worked on and no one will want to work with you again.

What you can do is charge for consultancy. Advice your clients, train them and get their money. Then help them build a successful project. You might not get $100.000 for the first three projects, but those clients will stick with you. And if it’s successful, you’ll get new clients that will eventually pay you those money.

Educate your clients!

I know, that’s hard. But the general perception in the eyes of the marketers is that everyone knows everything about online advertising, online marketing strategies and they can handle it anyway. I’ve seen hundreds of thousands of dollars spent in two years for relaunching the same website three times in a row, just because someone who had no idea about the internet industry thought his a better online strategist.

If you don’t educate your clients, no one will. They’ll always do the same stupid mistakes and they’ll take you as the guilty one, though it’s not your fault. Get ready to change something! It’s in your best interest!

Post from: Tonify.net

Be smart! A huge list of followers means a potential huge number of customers

In terms of traffic, Twitter went up almost 2,700% in one year, from May 2008 to May 2009. That can only mean everyone is getting a Twitter account. And when I say everyone, I mean especially customers for companies that believe in using social media as a medium to promote themselves. What does that mean for marketers? It means it’s time to talk about how to use Twitter as a marketing tool as its best, ignoring the junk advice you can find with Google

You are a marketing worker for a company and you want to promote the business using social media. You think Twitter is helpful. What should you do? First of all, you create an account. You probably know what kind of people you want as clients. What can you do? The first step is to inform yourself. Let’s start with the stuff you should ignore.

Strategies you shouldn’t follow

If your Twitter account is older than 2 weeks, then you’ve probably noticed that some of your followers are twitting about how to emprove the number of your followers, how to get 400 new followers a day, how to engage your followers to become customers. Click the links and you’ll get to websites where you’re invited either to pay for some book or e-book, or to subscribe to some mailing list.

Forget about them! Anyone can compile a list of “strategies” about how to use Twitter. I can write 20 Word pages right now, then go to Clickbank.com and “publish” a book with a title such as “10 best practices to engage your Twitter followers to become your clients“. You’ll pay me, you’ll read what I wrote and eventually, you’ll discover that you want your money back. Does it worth the effort? No. Does it worth subscribing to mailing list? No, because you’d probably get spammed pretty soon. Now here’s some good advice about what you can do and can actually bring results.

If that’s wrong, what should I do?

That’s what you’d probably ask, right? Well, here’s a list of what you should do:

1. Follow your competition.

   This way, you can learn what strategies they approach and what you should NOT do. Doing the same only makes you look unoriginal, and you have to be unique.

2. Follow PR and marketing agencies

   Find those agencies you know they enjoy writing strategies about social media and online marketing and follow their Twitter accounts. You’ll get plenty of links to helpful resources about how to promote your business. Pay attention to what you read and try to use what you think it might help.

3. Use search.twitter.com to find people that wrote about products like yours and follow them

   No, don’t follow everyone. That’s wrong. You’ll lose track of what’s important to your business. Follow only those that you suspect they might follow back. Follow everyone that’s following you and pay attention to whatever they say about your industry. Tell them your opinion.

Now it’s time to go to the part where you actually do something productive. The first three steps above are essential in getting to know your public and your competition, but the next four are crucial in understanding how you should approach your public. Paying attention to how people understand to use Twitter is what gives you the advantage when you’ll start a campaign.

Start a conversation!

As a marketing worker, you probably read tons of blogs and pages about new trends and strategies. Last year, at Cannes Lions, Nick Moore, CCO Wunderman, had this presentation about what agencies should do for their clients. And his presentation had this title: “Start a conversation“. This is not a trend anymore, it is a must. People want to talk about brands. They want to talk with the brands. They want to feel safe when buying your product. That’s why you should talk to them. That’s why you actually use Twitter, right? Let’s see what you should do:

1. Start talking to the people

   Before posting any links to your company’s website, blog or services/products pages, ask the people you follow what are their expectations. No, your products may not fulfill their wishes, but send your message as they would. Start talking about their hopes and give them links to your products only after they show their interest.

2. Reply to all questions

   Don’t ever avoid answering people’s questions. If they say your products suck, try to explain the contrary. Don’t fight with them, you’ll lose. If you don’t answer, they’ll think you ignore them. Ignore them and they will ignore your products. Give them suggestions and you’ll be their best friend. Link to your cheapest products, but tell them what are your better alternatives that can suit their needs.

3. Give them resources. Even from your competition

   If you and your competition have similar products and you know their product is better, sell your competitions product, but tell the people that’s the only thing they might have better. Then suggest one of your similar products and pack it as it would be better, even if it might not be cheaper.

4. Link to cool stuff

   People are eager to consume as much information as they can. Is your company a furniture producer? Link to beautiful interior designs. Is your business a web design company? Link to case studies and beautiful websites, even if they’re not your works. Are you an internet marketing specialist? Link to articles about online marketing. Become a source to useful news for your followers.

That should do it, right? Well, no. That’s not enough. That’s not going to get you 10.000 followers in a week. Neither will following everyone. But it’s not the quantity you should be interested in. You should be interested in those people that really need your services or your products. You’re interested in customers.

“Bribe” your potential customers

Bribery is not likeable and, under no circumstance, acceptable, right? But bribery doesn’t always have the same meaning. For example, you can “tip” or “bribe” your followers in different ways. And no cop is going to arrest you for what it’s called a “marketing action”. Here’s how you can do it:

1. Give your products for testing

   If you work for an automotive company, talk to dealers to prepare a few cars for test-drives. Invite your followers to go for a ride. If you’re a software company, give a copy of one of your products to some people you know they might be interested in. If your company produces or sales phones, find a way so some of your followers will have a test-run.

2. Hey, it’s a contest! Go win!

   Organize contests. You don’t have to give away expensive products. For example, BMW was giving away a box of chewing gum. The gum is called “Turbo” and after taking away the cover, you can find pictures with cool cars. Make contests with funny prizes. Give away useful stuff. Give away software licenses, books, whatever you think your followers can find attractive.

3. Huge prizes for greater campaigns

   You can even make a big online campaign to include bloggers in it. They can find out about the contest from Twitter, they should retweet your messages and write blog posts about your contests. Give away a vacation or plane tickets to the guy who sent you the 1,000th buyer, for example.

Do you think these tips were useful? If so, don’t forget to retweet, digg or stumble upon this article. Let everyone now how easy is to use Twitter as a marketing tool and if you had any wonderful experiences with Twitter as a online communication tool, feel free to share it below, using the form to leave a comment.
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Image source: Michael Schechter.

Post from: Tonify.net

The Pirate Bay was sold. The buyer just wasted a ton of money.

Sometimes, I think people either dream with their eyes wide open, or they’re just stupid. A Swedish firm, Global Gaming Factory, acquired The Pirate Bay for 4,6 million euros (about $6,4 million) “in a bid to legitimize the illegal file sharing service”. What does that mean? Because I don’t get it. I mean, how can you “legalize” a file sharing service? That’s either losing money just because you afford it, or some stupid form of idealism. Let’s see why.

Why should you pay for a file sharing service? Paying 4,6 million euros is like throwing the money from your window. And it’s not just the money, it’s the whole idea behind “legalizing” a file sharing service that’s actually stupid. Who’s going to pay to download from The Pirate Bay when you can easily switch to any other torrent tracker?

You can’t ask people to pay for what’s free

The files downloaded from The Pirate Bay are perceived as free. It’s true, movies are not free, at least not theoretically, music is not free unless the artists or the producers decide to distribute it for free, software is not free unless is freeware, shareware or open-source. I repeat, theoretically. In practice, when you go to The Pirate Bay, you’re not thinking you should pay to download something. By contrary, you go there because you don’t want to pay and you don’t have to pay.

Now, who’s going to download using The Pirate Bay under this circumstances? And how is it going to be done? What kind of business model can you implement in this case?

Hi, I’m a guy who goes to cinema with a camera and I record movies. I will uploaded on The Pirate Bay. How much do you think people should pay to download a shitty cam version? And how much do I get for each download?

I can see the point in selling a DVDRip of a movie after three to five weeks from launching in cinemas. How much is a cinema ticket? Seven dollars? OK, here’s the DVDRip version, 700 MB, pay seven dollars and download it. Oh, you want DVD quality? Pay 10 bucks to download the 4,6 GB archive, with the license included, now go burn it on a DVD. You want the 15 GB Blu-ray version? Pay 15 dollars! That’s more like it and I’d buy a service like that, because I’m not always in the mood to drive for 40 minutes in heavy traffic just to see the movie on a huge screen near some morons that can’t stop talking on the phone during the film.

Money to waste

If someone is thinking that The Pirate Bay will actually be payed by users, then they’re really some idealistic guys:

We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site.
Hans Pandeya, CEO, Global Gaming Factory

That’s really sweet, isn’t it? I wonder how fast they’ll get their money back. In about 200 years, maybe? Because the only good news in this case goes to the founders of The Pirate Bay: they’ll go out of jail rich.

Post from: Tonify.net

If you demand respect, then you should offer respect. Otherwise, you're just a Twitter jackass.

Here are ten basic rules of Twitter everyone should respect in order to be respected. I’m not some Twitter authority, but I strongly believe in giving your followers only the best. Otherwise, the vicious circle of bullshit will follow you allover. And if you don’t respect your followers, be sure you don’t deserve the respect of the ones you follow.

1. Stop reposting the same tweets over and over. It’s OK to publish the same link once in three days. I understand, it’s your business, but don’t post the same tweet from five to 100 times a day. It makes me nuts, especially if I’m the kind of guy that follows few. That means I consider you some important person, so I expect value from you, not the same bullshit played in obsessive rotation (yes, the term “heavy rotation” is already deprecated in this case). I will eventually block you.
2. Stop reposting the same quotes. I understand, they’re important to you, but after reading them 10 times, I’m starting to hate them. Yes, I get it, you have a few hundred new followers a day and they didn’t know those quotes. They will eventually learn them by heart. Use a blog, for God’s sake, and install WP-Quotes. It will rotate the same quotes over and over and they will be read by whoever pays attention to them. And yes, I’m talking about the “award-winning copywriter” and “e-mail marketing guru” Kenneth Yu, tweeting at @emailcopywriter. Give me value, that’s why I subscribed to your stream. Stop giving me the same bullshit! This applies to @webdesigndev just as well – posting over and over the same links to the last 10 blog posts.
3. I know you have a lot of followers and you can’t reply to all, but try to pay some attention to your followers. If they ask you something, try to give an answer. Stop posing as God, the all-knowing that never answers your prays with words. You’re just human.
4. Reply especially to those you follow. I get it, you have 15.000 followers and you follow 13.000, it’s hard to watch everyone. But once you followed me, you made me believe my tweets are important to you, they give you information you need, they inspire you in whatever way you think they might inspire you. If you’re just following me because you think you can attract new followers just because you follow everybody, then you definitely suck! Basically, you tell me “I follow you, I don’t know why, but I’m to lazy to click unfollow, so whatever, you’re lame anyway“. In the end, I’m going to block you.
5. Stop acting like you are some guru. No, you’re not Seth Godin! There are people better than you, that really know their industry, who can give me quality, not quantity. If you believe you’re some great expert and you tweet about your cat, you’d better shut up. Or just erase your description. I didn’t follow you for your cat’s life, I followed you for your expertise.
6. Stop adding “Please RT” at the end of every nonsense. Use it for the important stuff. Use it when you have a great message to send. Use it when someone said something really cool. Use it when someone needs help. Use it when people really need to retweet something. Stop using it for every “OMG, here’s a picture of my cat sleeping on the pillow! Please RT!“. I don’t care!
7. Instead of giving me crap, give me links and resources. I enjoy reading good articles, no matter if it’s about the industry or if it’s about something else. Give me examples, give me numbers, give me something. Stop tweeting about how good is to sit on the beach. I know, I’ve been at the beach two months ago.
8. Stop tweeting over and over about one single topic, Iran for example, especially if you’re a journalist. I know it’s bad in Iran and, by the way, everyone else tweets about Iran. Unless you have some breaking news or exclusives, give other subjects. I want to stay informed, but I care about other stuff just as well.
9. Lots of us use Twitter from our mobile phones. It’s not a “must”, but if you post a link to some YouTube video or to some website with lots of Flash content, please add something like “[FLA]” or “[FLASH]“. I have a HTC Touch Pro, running on Windows Mobile 6.1. I use Opera Mobile. Flash Player runs on my phone, but sometimes it blocks my browser and I have to restart my phone. And I hate it.
10. This one is a must, though: If you post any content not suitable for office or for public transportation (which I use, for instance, and people tend to stare at your phone if they can’t afford a similar one), please mark your posts with “NSFW”.

Hopefully, many will respect this list. If they will, they’ll definitely make our lives happier. Hopefully. Thank you!

PS: The title “suffix” is a joke, but I wouldn’t mind if you would actually retweet the link to this post. And by the way, feel free to use the commenting form below. Add your own rule to this list :).

Post from: Tonify.net

DeadlineHollywoodDaily.com, one ugly blog sold for $10 million

DeadlineHollywoodDaily.com is not the first news blog to be sold on such a huge sum of money. By contrary, Bankaholic was sold to bankrate.com for 15 million dollars (one blog, written by one man). Another example is ContentNext.com (which we all know today as paidContent.org) which was acquired last year by The Guardian for 30 million dollars.

But DHD.com is special. And that’s because it’s one of the ugliest blogs ever. I know, maybe this was important:

Deadline Hollywood Daily is the 24/7 Internet version of well-known showbiz journalist Nikki Finke’s uniquely candid and informed LA Weekly column. She never pulls her punches. Come for her cynicism. Stay for the subversion.

Still, it really needs a fast redesign. But that’s not point. The cool thing about this sale is that despite the looks, content will always rule. This could be a starting point for a long conversation about how newspapers won’t die, for example. Basically, DHD.com respects Justin Tadlock’s first rule of WordPress SEO (which is a joke, but it’s not that funny ’cause it’s the real truth).

In my opinion, Mail.com Media Corp. should invest in a new design for Deadline Hollywood Daily. Keeping its present basic structure, keeping few of the present elements, that would make a great change in a good way. Giving the blog a (some sort of) quality tabloid look, that could bring lots of new visitors.

Of course, one thing I would modify would be the headings, which look really unprofessional. And I’d work more on the titles, they’re really long. But that wouldn’t be Mail.com Media Corp.’s choice. Anyway, this is a really good example of success. Despite ugliness, content rules. That’s a lesson every blogger should learn.

Post from: Tonify.net