“If you’re a good friend then you’ll be a good social marketer.”
Brands big and small have capitalised on social media, using various platforms to engage with consumers, attempt to drive awareness and build relationships.
The jury’s still out on whether customers actually want to be all friendly with brands. But in the meantime there’s an interesting post on Jon Silk’s blog comparing real relationships with brand relationships. Take a look.
The press release has always been a key cog in the PR machine. It can take many forms, go through countless revisions, and ultimately be pushed back several times before being distributed. But even in today’s hyper-connected, social media-led age, the press release is still an important news sharing tool.
Yet the growth of digital media has shifted the goal posts. It’s now more important than ever to be focused, concise and targeted.
These are just a few of the recommendations made by Tom May, Associate Editor at Creative Blog. He’s put together a 10-point guide to writing a press release for digital media. And it makes for great reading.
Take a look at the blog post here: http://itstommay.tumblr.com/post/50238782877/how-to-write-a-press-release-for-digital-media
“If you want something you don’t already have, you have to do something you haven’t already done.”
That’s quite clever, isn’t it? These words come from Marcus Taylor, who, according to his LinkedIn profile, is a bit of a social media and marketing whiz. He’s about the same age as me and has already accomplished a number of great things. Quite an inspirational guy, don’t you think?
He took part in a TEDx talk last year in Melbourne and discussed the direct correlation between the amount of money you earn versus the number of times you step outside your comfort zone. The video’s only five minutes long and is well worth a watch.
This time last week I was in less-than-sunny Barcelona, attending MWC with the rest of the Babel PR team.
Being at the centre of the mobile universe led me to think about the future of mobile operating systems, and whether we actually need another contender in this heavily crowded space. I penned the following as a result.
The mobile arena is already awash with competition. We’ve already got Android, iOS and Windows Mobile. The launch of BlackBerry 10 has given the ageing smartphone manufacturer a new degree of credibility, and there are still lots of Symbian devices out there. But with a number of new contenders stepping up to the plate this year, 2013 looks set to host the battle of the mobile OS.
Firefox OS and Ubuntu are two new mobile operating systems gaining a lot of interest. There’s also Tizen - another Linux-based platform that’s growing in the Asian market – and Sailfish, built out of the failed Nokia/Intel OS MeeGo. Like Android, these are all open source, meaning they can be customised and changed by operators to deliver a unique offering for users on their network.
Click here to read the rest over at the Babel PR blog.
I’d like to apologise. It seems I’ve only been blogging about problems with my Chromebook recently, instead of focusing on the positives. The truth is there are so many benefits to this platform, and Chrome OS does many things so seamlessly, that it’s easy to forget this is not a well-established operating system like OS X or Windows.
However, I think it’s because of how slick Chrome OS feels, despite its junior status, that I’m encountering more problems than initially expected. And it’s also because of this that I’m far less forgiving of said problems – the latest of which relates to using my Chromebook hooked up to a second screen.
When I connect my Chromebook to a second screen (my five-year old Toshiba TV) the image becomes pixelated and zoomed in. Watching iPlayer becomes impossible as I can only seen one third of the picture. I haven’t got another screen to try this with, so I’m not sure if this is an isolated issue.
Unfortunately this is one of the more prominent problems with running a web browser and not a fully-fledged OS. Unlike Windows, I can’t select the screen resolution manually and I have no say over how the image is displayed. Instead I’m forced to work with whatever Chrome OS decides is the ‘optimal’ resolution, which, when it comes to my TV, is far from perfect.
This post suggests activating the developer channel may solve the problem. But I’m not sure I want to head down this route. If I’ve understood things correctly, once you’ve activated developer mode you can’t go back without re-flashing the stable version of the OS onto the Chromebook via USB. And that’s a hassle I could do without.
I also came across this while scouring the internet for a solution. It’s a list of known issues with Chrome OS. Hopefully it’ll prove useful for other Chromebook fans out there.
I’m not sure what’s going on here. My Chromebook has performed almost flawlessly for over a month, but last week I started experiencing slow downs when viewing certain web pages – particularly Facebook, Google+ and YouTube.
It feels like the CPU is bottlenecking the device. The page content is already loaded, the problem only occurs when I scroll down to see more. It’s also far more frequent if I return to browsing after the Chromebook has been in sleep mode, or use the device on battery.
I’ve often found Google Groups to be helpful when it comes to resolving Chromebook gripes, so this was my first port of call. Here, I found that the Wi-Fi encryption setting on my router could be causing the problem, as apparently Chrome OS doesn’t play nicely with WEP or WPA. My router is set to WPA2, though, so that’s not it.
Another suggestion was to adopt Google’s DNS settings, but I don’t fancy messing about with this just yet. Has anyone else experienced a similar problem? Let me know in the comments below.
I experienced my first Chromebook crash this afternoon.
Right in the middle of browsing Facebook, the system locked up, the screen went black, and the device rebooted itself. Thanks to the wonders of cloud computing and the Chromebook’s speedy 16GB SSD, I was back online within 10 seconds. However, the lack of visible error reporting concerned me.
There was no pop-up to explain what had happened. No offer to send a bug report to Google. Nothing. Instead, I received a yellow ticker tape warning that Chrome did not shutdown correctly and an offer to reopen the tabs that had been lost as a result.
Mac has hidden errors from the user for a long time. But, as a Windows convert, I’m used to the detailed error report that accompanies any system crash. Google’s Chromebook takes many cues from Apple’s Macbook Air (most notably the design, keyboard and portability benefits) but this is a feature that I’m not a fan of.
According to the following Google group discussion, the crashing problem can be rectified by removing the Adblock extension. And if that doesn’t work, a factory reset is also an option. As I’ve only experienced this problem once, though, I don’t feel the need to try this just yet.
I’ve had my Chromebook almost a month now and this is the first major fault. The rest of the experience has been almost flawless, so I’m hopeful that this was a one-off. That said, I’d feel much happier if error reporting was made more accessible, in case this problem becomes a recurring theme.
Oh, and for those who are interested, the lack of Netflix support is still an issue. Apparently there’s a fix on the way, but it’s still a little while off.
Sometimes, I wish I’d been born in the 1940s. The music, the suits, the cars. The buildings, the clothes, and even the (tommy) guns. The very lifestyle people led in those days. It just seemed better, somehow, you know?
Truth be told, that’s a very idealistic view; an extension of the American dream we Brits seem to have. But, it’s for this very reason I can’t get enough of any film depicting that special post-war Hollywood era. And, for me, Gangster Squad captured this beautifully.
It’s a film about the darker, seedier side of Los Angeles, a far cry from the crime-free picture I’ve painted above, but films of this nature – capturing this particular snippet of time – are so few and far between that I didn’t really mind. And as it goes, Gangster Squad was quite a good mob-themed flick, which is why I was very surprised to see such mixed reviews.
I genuinely can’t work out what’s not to love. The film is supported by a stellar cast, the storyline is slick and it’s action-packed throughout. Gangster Squad is a little gory in places for a 15-cert, sure, but the violence doesn’t for a moment seem out of place.
It’s been described as ‘The Untouchables goes west’ by more than one publication, but that’s rather unfair. Gangster Squad is more than capable of standing on its own two feet. It’s not the finest snapshot of this vibrant historical period that I’ve grown to love, yet that’s okay.
We’ve been spoilt by a collection of truly fantastic gangster films during the past few decades. Not every film can match Goodfellas or The Godfather. Does that mean we should disregard Gangster Squad entirely? No. Of course not.
Perhaps I’m biased, but, for me, there’s room for Gangster Squad near the top of the mob film genre. It’s an uncomplicated story of good triumphing over evil and doesn’t try to be anything cleverer than that, making it well worth a watch.
If you’re a StarCraft II fan, this one’s for you.
GLHF Magazine is an online e-sports publication focused on StarCraft II, capturing the best community stories and providing exclusive interviews and editorials.
The e-magazine has been around for about a year now, steadily growing in popularity. And considering it’s created by volunteers, the articles are of high quality and the design could easily rival that of a professional magazine.
But, as I’m not a big gamer these days, GLHF actually caught my attention for a different reason; its success as a ‘freemium’ magazine, published without the support of big industry names, investors or other elements that are often seen to be essential in today’s overly saturated gaming market.
The interesting thing about GLHF is that it isn’t unique. A quick Google search shows hundreds of alternative free epublications covering a variety of games. GLHF is not the first magazine to be published exclusively online, either. And it won’t be the last. However, it’s still an interesting approach to sharing engaging content.
The pay-what-you-want approach is also a great idea, no doubt building upon the success of HumbleBundle and other working examples of this pricing structure.
Through online advertising deals and a dedicated readership, GLHF can now afford to pay its contributors. The commissioning rates are quite low, granted, but it’s a start and shows how successful the ‘freemium’ pricing model can be.
This has got me thinking about adopting this model, or something similar, for future marketing projects. The goal would not be to secure advertising or sponsorship, but to increase traffic and inbound links.
Rather than placing content online and attempting to drive traffic by broadcasting its presence over social media, a ‘freemium’ model could be adopted where users have to actively share the piece of content before they can gain access to it.
Evidently this approach wouldn’t be practical for a blog post, but could work for exclusive video content, an industry report, or, indeed, an e-magazine – as demonstrated by GLHF.
This approach has already proven successful for Kelvin Newman, with the launch of his Clockwork Pirate SEO ebook. It’s a great idea, and something I’d like to try in the near future. Sometimes the best results come from experimentation.
Kelvin introduced this marketing technique almost two years ago, so it’s questionable whether this would still work. Would users be willing to give up a little social capital to access exclusive, engaging content that’s relevant to them?
I love films and TV. At one point while at university, I had a streaming subscription to Netflix and LoveFilm and would also buy DVDs whenever the feeling struck. Which was quite often. Watching movies and TV shows, then reviewing them when my busy schedule allows, is kinda my thing.
Imagine my disappointment, then, when I couldn’t watch Netflix on my shiny new Chromebook. The video launcher opened as per usual, practically teasing me with what I could’ve been watching, before abruptly closing down and displaying the following message:
Apparently this issue is being worked on by the head honchos at Google and Netflix, and has already been fixed for those Chromebooks running Intel processors. My Series 3 sports an ARM chip, though, meaning that for the foreseeable future I’m shit out of luck.
Bummer. Netflix support are also being remarkably unhelpful, making the situation worse. Does anyone know if LoveFilm have the same problem?
