If you're a brand that publishes content on the web and are looking for a way to increase the reach of that content without lifting a finger AND keep all the revenue opportunities (ie. ads on your site), then you should really check out Bo.lt launching in late April.
Bo.lt, which some might label blatant copyright infringement though it's not, allows anyone to easily create a copy of a web page, make changes to it and share it. Once shared, typical social media behavior sets in and the reach of that page is perpetuated.
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With the launch of community site Facebook Studio, Facebook looks to open dialog with marketers and their agencies about strategies and tactics which lead to better Facebook pages for brands.
Facebook Studio will include a Gallery of recent campaigns including those which were most liked, most shared and what page fans are saying. A Learning Lab will offer advertisers the tools they need to create campaigns on Facebook. A Spotlight section will allow for the searching of page work done by brands and agencies by region, category and other segmentations. An Agency Directory will allow for the rilling down through work by agency. And an Awards section will collect and award the best Facebook campaign/page work.
Will you Like Facebook Studio?
Writing on About.com, Paul Sugget has published an article entitled What to Avoid When Assembling a Portfolio. His primary piece of advice is to avoid going for the simple, the obvious, the easy. If you've ever done work for the likes of Nike, Viagra, Victoria's Secret, Red Bull or Wonderbra, leave that work out of your portfolio. Why? Because, in his opinion, it doesn't require much strategy or effort to come up with creative solutions for those categories.
He claims Wonderbra ads are a dime a dozen writing, "Big breasts, and the outcome of them, is a very simple idea to get behind, and it's easy to be visually funny and verbally concise." Instead, he argues, "do ads for bland products or services that have no easily-identifiable or unique traits."
He suggests an airlines, dish soap, a wireless carrier and we'd toss in anything from the business to business category.
Additionally, he urges creatives to avoid creative that looks expensive to produce as it could cause someone to think you can't work on a small budget. he says to make sue you don't stuff your portfolio exclusively with popular forms of media, make sure substantive ideas outweigh glossy polish, don't include anything your not 100 percent proud of and always finish strong.
SocialFresh, an organization that hosts social media conferences and other events, has launched InvestInSocial, a directory of social media companies and resources. The genesis of the site was the proliferation of comments thanking SocialFresh Founder Jason Keath for mentioning companies in his blog posts.
The site, currently in public beta, will list agencies, vendors and consultants that offer various social media services. Currently, rankings are based upon the completeness of a company's profile.
During the private beta period which began three weeks ago, 72 companies have listed themselves including Edelman Digital, Porter Novelli, 360i, Cake, Klout, Dachis Group, C.C. Chapman and Convince & Convert.
New York-based trend and research company PSFK has launched PurpleList, a Quora-like question and answer service for marketers staffed by 750 invited industry experts from around the world including Foursquare Founder Dennis Crowley, Engadget Founder Peter Rojas and Treehugger FOunder Graham Hill.
PSFK Founder Piers Fawkes tells us, "The site has been specifically designed to accomodate the rapid research needs of agencies. Strategists and planners will especially find it useful during new business pitches or when preparing an urgent creative brief."
Pricing for the service begins at $1 per question.
Who wouldn't jump at the chance to hang with Maria Sharapova? Certainly not Jonny Watson and Dan Harrison from Dare who were offered 90 minutes of the Russian tennis babe's time to come up with a video to promote Google's Search by Voice technology. The resulting video became part of Google's Demo Slam which allows the public to vote for their favorite Google product demo.
Sharapova, being the famous beauty she is, and the pair's Whack A Guy With A Tennis Ball approach has garnered the video 156,000 views and the number four slot in the Demo Slam competition.
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People love to save stuff for later. For when they have a free moment to get to it. It's why Evernote is so popular. It's why we have Read It Later. Photocopiers. Folders. Clipping services. Basements. Garages. Atticks. You name it, everyone has a place where they keep stuff they think they will need later on.
But advertising? Would anyone ever bother to save an ad to refer to later? Scott Kurnit thinks so and he's launched an entire business around the assumption that if, given a mechanism, many people would love to save ads and refer to them later. Kurnit, founder of About.com, is CEO of AdKeeper, a service that allows advertisers to place a button in online advertising which, when clicked, will place the ad in a person's "Keeper" to be referred to at a later date.
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So there's this thing in the advertising business where the work a company does to determine a brand's vision, mission, essence and position is supposed to carry significant value. And it should. After all, it's what's going to affect how a potential customers perceive a brand. But what if all you want is a logo and none of the lengthy, mumbo-jumbo filled platitudes that come with it?
That's where companies like Logo Mojo come in. We know. We know. We just heard every creative in the ad business groan with contempt for what they perceive to be creative chop shops. Companies with no true understanding of what a brand needs to survive in today's crazy advertising world. And any site on which there's an "Order Now" button can't possibly be worth anyone's time, right?
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- Absolut is out with an iPad version of its Drinkspiration app.
- To help raise money for the United Way, Colle+McVoy has launched Happy Exchange where everyone is invited to join the effort by posting their smile for just $1.
- Calling McDonald's a "hip hangout" is never a good thing. Especially in a forced product placement.
- Former buy.at executives have launched Performance Horizon Group which is out with new products aimed at improving campaign management for agencies and lead generation for publishers.
- Gossip Girl's Blake Lively has been tapped (not literally, of course...because that would be gross) by Karl Lagerfeld to front his Winter/Spring 2011 Chanel ad campaign.
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Well here's a problem we can all identify with: getting paid on time. These days, it seems the only reliable method of income is a directly deposited paycheck. But for those of us who rely on invoicing to get paid, well, reliable just isn't a word that comes to mind.
What does come to mind is your invoice buried in a pile two feet high on the desk of some accounting person who could care less who gets paid when as long as it fits withing their predetermined process of moving that stack from one side of their desk to the other.
And God Forbid if if the invoice doesn't match the estimate. Then you're in a kind of Hell that's far worse than your invoice getting lost in a stack of papers.
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