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What is Pinterest anyway?  Why should I use it for my business?
 
These are some of the Pinterest related questions I’ve been getting asked lately, so I wanted to share some insights with you.
First, what Pinterest is:
Our good friend and Boulder Blogger Beth Hayden, of Blogging with Beth, stated it well in her recent guest post on Copyblogger, “56 Ways to Market Your Business on Pinterest“:
…you can create online collages (“boards”) for different topics you’re interested in, and then add images and videos to your boards by “pinning” them (the equivalent …

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Today there was a post on Ragan’s PR Junkie’s Blog (self-proclaimed “For Communication Junkies Everywhere“).  The blog post was written by Michael Sebastian about a press release from PitchPoint Public Relations –which consists of Chicago-based PR pro Mitch Delaplane, an Apple computer, and his dog Sally–issuing a press release titled, “The most amazing press release ever written.”
Here is the link to the post: http://blog.ragan.com/prjunkie/2011/01/did_this_pr_pro_write_the_most.html
When you read Michael Sebastian’s post, you’ll note his mention of the press release getting a #1 Google ranking for the term “amazing press release.” I’ll talk …

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You gotta admit, Santa rocks the marketing!

Whether you celebrate the Christmas holiday or not, you have to agree, Santa is the ultimate marketer. For one month out of the year (December), he does a bunch of high profile joint partnerships (tie-ins with everyone from Macy’s to Salvation Army – not to mention Rudolph), everyone is talking about him the whole time (effective word of mouth marketing), and, in one night, he gets more done than most of us do all year!
Santa Marketing Facts:

Branding: Everyone knows who he is and …

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Recently, it became clear to me that I was not walking the talk.  That as a marketer, I was using excuses like: “I spend my days marketing others” and “I am very fortunate that I get so many referrals, so I don’t need to be marketing myself.”  But then, it occurred to me I couldn’t ask other folks to be investing their time to doing email marketing, blogging and social media, if I was putting it on the back burner, myself.
I understand how hard it is to find time, and …

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I was checking out this article on WebDesignLedger.com called “40 Tasty Restaurant Websites to Inspire You” and two things immediately occurred to me.

I was really really hungry looking at all the amazing food on these sites’ home pages – great job on most of them to really highlight their food well in a very appetizing way!
My marketing head kicked in.  Fortunately, many of these guys do a great balance of graphic art (look of the site and displaying the food well) along side complementary marketing (making sure people can find …

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Two of my favorite things are food and marketing, so a blog post about how restaurants can cost-effectively market themselves was bound to happen.  Here are a couple of quick ideas that have either been percolating in my head or I’ve noted area restaurants doing:
1. Twitter and blogging:  There are endless possibilities for using twitter and blogs to promote your restaurant:

Today’s Specials – I don’t know about you, but if I was following twitter posts and I saw that my favorite restaurant was tweeting their daily specials, my mouth would …

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When you hear the words “keyword” or “keyword phrases” do you know what they mean to you, your business and especially your clients?
So many times, when I begin to work with a client, the first thing they say, before they even have content for their home page, is “I just want to rank #1 on Google.” So, I naturally ask them which keyword or keyword phrase they plan to rank #1 for? And, that is when I often learn that they hadn’t thought much past the desire to …

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You know that feeling, you are unhappy or frustrated with a product and you finally get to the point where you have to call the company to get a resolution. So, you pick up the phone and you get:

A recording telling you to either wait or leave a message
A customer service person who isn’t able to answer your question, because they don’t know the product well enough and therefore they aren’t listening to your specific question
You get that one guy who thinks you are the problem, not the company’s …

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I thought I’d write a follow up for my last post entitled Oprah, Skype and the Book Club:
I did have a chance to watch the taped version of this ‘premiere’ use of Skype for Oprah’s Book Club with author Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth: Awaking Your Life’s Purpose
If you haven’t read my last post, it was not a review about the book, but (since this is a marketing related blog) more an examination about the marketing behind the event. I am still fascinated by this campaign, it …

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I am always looking for interesting ways to market something, so when I got the email (pictured left) from Skype, I had to check it out.
After all it seemed to be about Oprah and her Book Club using Skype to conduct a chapter by chapter reading of bestselling author Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth: Awaking Your Life’s Purpose.
It seemed, from this email, that Skype was hosting this virtual book tour/club. Every Monday for 10 weeks, starting yesterday (Monday, March 3rd), they explained, Oprah and Eckhart would be reviewing a …