Asheville is Strange
More than anything else, the strangest thing to me about Asheville is seeing the rivers run the wrong way (towards the Mississippi).
Growing Your Business with Email
We handle dozens of email marketing campaigns every week. It’s one of the most enjoyable parts of marketing for me, to be honest (I got my start in marketing doing email in 2003 or so). Email marketing is part science, part art, part analytics overload, part psychology, and part gut intuition. When done right, it’s an amazing augment to a wider marketing plan.
Even the popular payment taker Square is getting in on the act.
Here’s a nice intro to email marketing for businesses and groups that are looking to get started…
More than 90 percent of the world’s 2.4 billion email users checked their email at least once a day last year and received over 180 billion emails, according to vero. How are you going to make sure you stand out from the crowd? Marketing is a science and email marketing gives you access to a wealth of data that you can use to grow your results.
Every step in the process – including database segmentation, send number, time of send, subject line, content of email and landing page – is up for testing and analysis.
Going Viral on Twitter Just Got More Difficult
Yesterday, Twitter released an anticipated new feature that allows users to retweet without using any of the precious 140 characters available. The new feature is only available on the official Twitter app for iOS now, but expected to roll out to Android and desktop apps soon.
In essence, this sounds like a win for users as well as marketers who use the (lucrative) Twitter experience to get their messages out there. The original concept of a retweet goes back to March 2007 when users were searching for a way to share a tweet someone else had published. Originally called an “echo,” retweets became quickly recognizable using the “RT” convention, much like the concept of using # to denote “hashtags” developed from the bottom-up by users. Twitter incorporated RT into its official platform and now provides a means to retweet without having to include RT as it has gained mainstream adoption (though some of us old timers that were there from the beginning still prefer this method).
However, marketers should be aware of a few issues with the new retweet convention as it makes its way into wider adoption. Good post here with some things to think about regarding sharing, stats, images, and “virality” (which is still very important on Twitter)…
Going viral on Twitter? It’s harder. The first retweet with comment is not a disaster, but the subsequent retweet with comment is. Few chances to get one more retweet.The previous Retweet button was a bad choice for marketers. The new one is even worse.
via Retweet with Comment Punches Marketers in the Face | Adrian Jock’s Internet Marketing Tips.
Reedsy For Author Pages
Our sister (is that sexist?) Harrelson Press does a lot of work with author marketing and promotion. One of the key points of that conversation involves authors needing to have their own site or web presence.
Reedsy looks like an interesting go-between to solve some of those issues and needs that authors have.
Anything to blow up the publishing industry and make it more author focused is a good thing.
What do you think, Merianna?
Reedsy just launched author profiles on its website where writers can collect and showcase their work on a single page. This way, Reedsy provides a simple way to share your profile on the web, much like an About.me link.
As a reminder, Reedsy unbundles the good old publishing company and provides all the services you need to self publish a book. The startup helps you find an editor, copy editor and cover illustrator to turn your draft into a book.
via Reedsy Launches Behance-Like Profiles To Let Authors Showcase Their Books | TechCrunch.
Why Your Business Needs a Web Page More Than Ever
I have a similar conversation almost daily with clients or potential clients that involves the need for web sites. Not Facebook pages, Instagram accounts, Twitter profiles, or Snapchat presence. A good ole-fashioned web site.
Many of our new clients bring with them at least something like a Facebook page. A small percentage of them may have a site set up on GoDaddy, Wix or the other number of “budget” website builders out there.
However, web sites are just as crucial for business success in 2015 as they were in 1999. Having a presence outside of social media silos means taking discoverability seriously. However, setting up a site is not the end of the story. The site needs to move and evolve with the ever-evolving web.
What many business owners overlook is the notion that having a web site also makes you a part of the conversation about your own name (or brand). Whether you intend it or not (or realize it or not), people will talk about you and your business. Having a site that will be indexed and ranked by Google provides you with the insurance and protection that you need if or when the talk turns to negative.
Don’t forget, we live in the era of the .sucks domain now. Here are a few good examples of cautionary tales that should raise the hair on the back of your neck.
“The biggest myth about Google is they’re somehow the first amendment,” says Fertik. “That there’s a natural order of things of how Google presents stuff that is inevitable, inexorable and correct. That whatever floats to the top of Google deserves to be there.”
R.I.P. Terry Pratchett
I first encountered the Discworld books as a young reader trying to find something interesting at our public library, and they changed the way I thought about science fiction, satire, and our own world. I’m sad there won’t be more from him (his daughter might continue the series), but what a legacy (and a good way to leave this world)…
It is with immeasurable sadness that we announce that author Sir Terry Pratchett has died at the age of 66. Terry passed away in his home, with his cat sleeping on his bed surrounded by his family on 12th March 2015.
Colonizing the Colonials
To get the full implication of this piece, you have to listen to the Thinking Religion that Thomas Whitley and I recorded yesterday. Great show and the thought piece at the end regarding post-colonialism and the import of valuing plays in nicely with this…
In the same period, American public diplomats tried to influence education reforms in Western Europe, in view of the integration of North-Atlantic school systems and their cooperation in cold-war competition. Not by chance, in the 1950s Conant and his collaborators visited West Germany, Italy, Britain, and Switzerland as policy advisers.
via Why the US liberal arts tradition failed to take hold in Europe.
Arrrggghhh
Columbia weather in March.
My Tweets, Links, Music, and Books
I’ve put together a page here on my blog to aggregate all of my updates, music listening patterns, bookmarks on the web, and books I’m reading:
Twitter: updates etc
Music: iTunes / Spotify / Google Play Music / Pandora / Last.FM
Bookmarks: Pocket and Pinboard
Reading and Books: Goodreads
I was pretty proud of myself. I like having all of my consumption in one spot. I’m working on Instagram now, but they don’t have RSS feeds and clearly aren’t fans of users pulling their own pics out of their silo.
Tweets, Links, Music, and Books – Sam Harrelson.