Category — Online Marketing

My little Cuckoo isn’t little anymore; she’s about 10 months old and well on her way into becoming a doggie teenager. As teenagers they aren’t very different from us, she’s getting stubborn, shows attitude… you know the drill.

Lately, due to the summer heat I’ve taken to sleeping with the dogs in the hall. If you’ve ever slept with dogs around, you’d know how lovely it is to feel them around you. However my Cuckoo has a strange quirk, she’s hates weight being put on her. This quirk causes growls quite often at night as I turn about with her at my feet.

I’ve been trying different tricks to get her comfortable with people hugging her or smothering her. One thing I’ve been doing is smothering her 10 times a day and then giving her a treat. This method has shown marked improvement.

Last night however, as I was putting my bedding down on the floor, Cuckoo as always sauntered across the room and plonked herself at the foot of the mat. This triggered an idea in my head as I realised that maybe she wants to be close to me but not on the floor. So, off I went to get her mat and place it next to mine. We both had a good night’s rest with no growls at all.

Why am I telling you this? My learning from yesterday was sometimes the most obvious things to do can be the solution or what seems most unlikely to work may be a great solution.

What do you think? Do you act on the impromptu ideas you get? Do you think a lot before you act on anything? Do you prefer the “well-tested” solution to the “freak idea”?

Photo credit: Chenthil

[This post has been posted on the BookBuzzr blog too! For those who may not know I am a Social Media Marketer. I also represent BookBuzzr as the Author Community Manager.]

Phew! I’ve just gone through Tony Eldridge’s Conducting Twitter Contests and first reaction; Wow!

It’s been a quick skim but I already know that I’m going to go back for more. Tony has used a novel way to present his topic; he uses text and video so, you can read; absorb, and then watch and reinforce.

In this course Tony covers –

• Selecting the audience
• Planning a contest
• Pre-contest promotion
• Selecting prizes and setting rules
• Creating a tracking system and contest page
• Launching the contest and promoting it
• Contest end

Saying his course is about Twitter Contests would be limiting it! The course has nuggets of information that will benefit your outcome of twitter even without conducting a contest.

Summation – Tony Eldridge’s Conducting Twitter Contests is a must read for anyone planning a twitter contest!

Read more about Conducting Twitter Contests and order here. Tony Eldridge is a noted Book Marketer; creator of the Marketing Tips for Authors blog and has a free Video Marketing Tips For Authors newsletter. Tony Eldridge is the author of The Samson Effect, an action/adventure novel that Clive Cussler calls a “first rate thriller brimming with intrigue and adventure.”

While checking out Facebook today I noticed an ad for Grabbon (facebook ads are definitely getting better). Curious about the deals they are offering in Bangalore, I decided to check it out.

The How Grabbon Works Page says “Grabbon’s mission is to help you find awesome things to do around your city without emptying out your wallet. Leave it to us to find exciting things to do and see amazing discounts off the original price.”

Grabbon seems to have some good deals to offer especially for food. But getting the deal isn’t as straight forward as it seems and therein lies it power.

So let’s break that down – Grabbon offers an exclusive deal every day. If you like the deal you book it by paying a small token amount. However doing this does not mean you get the deal. The deal has a minimum requirement of bookings and only if that requirement is met will you get your coupon. If the minimum number is not reached your amount is refunded.

The key to Grabbon’s success will lie in this minimum requirement. Imagine that they are offering a deal that you really want and that deal requires 10 bookings. At this point, at some level, Grabbon and you have the same need (10 bookings). To get your deal you will pass the information onto your friends and influence them to buy it too. This is where the message goes viral.

Grabbon’s deals are an excellent example of social influence marketing. Everyone benefits, it’s a win-win – the restaurant gets a lot of mentions, Grabbon the traffic and you the coupon.

Have you seen any examples like it? What do you think of Social Influence Marketing? Have you noticed it in your day-to-day life?

Recently I was invited to be guest blogger on Tony Eldridge’s Marketing Tips for Authors Blog. Being such a fan of Twitter my post is about how Twitter has proven to be a great marketing tool and ‘Lists’ their latest feature only enhances its potential. Read my post: Twitter Lists: A Power Tool for Authors to learn how you can increase your productivity on twitter and engage better with your audience.

I am constantly on the lookout for good social media sites and here is my latest find.

Sendible helps you to connect with your friends, family, customers and co-workers by sending all types of messages from one place – now or in the future. I took a quick look around and liked what I saw though it still can do better.

The sign-up was pretty easy and clean. Had to wait a while though for the confirmatory email. The welcome page has a listing of all the sites you can schedule on, and there are quite a few. You can post on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter among others. You can also schedule Blogs, Email and even Flickr.
Before being able to use any of the services, you will have to enter details of the networks you want to use. You can connect not only to your Facebook profile but also your Facebook pages. That’s a nice touch!

You can import your contacts from most emails services. Sendible supports Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo or you can use a .csv file. The process is simple and easy and you also have the option of selecting which contacts to import. The Address book is well spaced out and easy to navigate.

The email setup is easy to use and even lets you blind copy everyone if you are mass mailing. The Multi Message allows you to send/schedule on multiple platforms and when scheduling you can also make messages recurring to act as reminders, however the scheduler right now only lets you go upto 30 hours. Hope they soon include days, weeks and months.

The sms scheduler allows only 160 characters and lets you get all replies to your sms as an email. A great marketing tool! However you have to buy credits to use the sms feature, hence not free

Sendible seems to be the only tool I have come across recently that allows multi-social network scheduling/posting for free. (I use SocialOomph quite a bit and I hate the fact that Facebook scheduling is not free). When scheduling status updates you can include URL’s and images too!

Sendible also lets you setup reminders for yourself by email or sms. Though am not so kicked by this as I can do this on my phone or outlook as reminders anyway.

On repeat login you will get to your homepage which is quite nifty. At a glance you can see scheduled messages, tasks and birthdays. You can also send out quick emails and status messages.

Something to note is that all messages will have ads in them unless you have a Sendible Pro account. The paid service also offers an newsletter sign-up widget for your blog. The widget adds the customer data to your Sendible list and so you can schedule and send out your newsletter right from here. You can even customize your newsletter and send them to select groups.

On the whole a great social media scheduler! It caters to almost everyone’s needs.

Photo Credit – Sendible