La Mime After My Own Heart

...., .... .., .. ... ..... ...!

This has got to be the best Mime on the planet. La Mime has figured it out how to be a funny mime. He also keeps in the tradition of being a bit creepy with his since of hummer too. This one particularly poignant because of the new laws in BC regarding cell phones and driving.

Be warned you could be watching this guy for hours.

Great Tweeting Tips for 2010

Tweeting all the way to the Bank

Be more innovative with Twitter this year. Here are 10 useful tips.
Thanks to Andra Picincu for her great blog post.

1. Expand Networks
Using Twitter, you can join topic groups related to your business and career and gain valuable information from scanning others’ tweets. Your company will gain new customers and potential partners. Do a search for keywords related to your product on Twitter Search and then follow the users.

2. Build Credibility
If you hold free workshops, seminars or web meetings; let people know that it’s starting soon, how to participate and join in by tweeting about it.

3. Highlight Your Tweets
Twitter allows you to share the latest news and events related to your business in 140 characters. Set up a Twitter feed for the specific purpose of notifying customers when new products come in.

4. Look For Leads On Twitter
Twitter can be used to direct traffic to your websites. You can share information that is useful for prospective clients or employers to enhance your reputation.

5. Communicate With Employees
Twitter is a great collaboration tool, which can be successfully used to save time and money.

6. Deals & Promotions
Offer incentives to those who follow you on Twitter. You can give them free coupons, discounts, package deals and samples.

7. Customer Complaints and Service
By accepting customer complaints in the open, other consumers can see what kind of company you really are.

8. Interact With Your Competition
You can read the tweets of your competitors daily and stay in touch with them. Although this rarely happens in the real world, Twitter has changed it all.

9. Organize A Local Tweetup
Twitter can help you organize meetups. All you have to do is to send a message announcing the time and place of the meeting. It’s an informal and effective way of planning a meeting.

10. Brand Loyalty
With Twitter, you can always stay in touch with your followers. All these people are potential customers, so you must help them get used to your products and services. Participate actively to conversations and tweet constantly.

Social Marketing is still marketing: know your audience

Are you talking to me? ...are you taking to me?

Check out this great blog post that takes you through a wonderful example of how to approach your social marketing as part of your overall marketing strategy. The original blog post was written by Heidi Cool and can be found here.

Social Media Marketing is hip. It seems like everyone wants to get involved, call themselves an expert and use the magical powers of social media to triple sales, recruit students, etc. But social media isn't magic. Social media, like advertising, direct mail and telemarketing is but one of many tools in the marketer's toolbox. Like any tool it needs to be used in the proper context—in conjunction with other marketing strategies. As such social media—when used for marketing—still relies on basic marketing principles such as understanding your target audience, the features and benefits of your product or service, brand awareness and so forth.

Taking the time to narrow your audience to an easily defined niche makes marketing more cost effective. People think of social media as being a free alternative to traditional advertising or direct mail, but making successful connections requires time and labor. By targeting your audience you can focus that labor on connecting with the people who matter most to your goals.

Once you've found that audience you need to connect with them on their own terms if you want to achieve any level of success. Study the usage patterns of the social media services/platforms you intend to use. Find out how your audience uses these tools, then follow their lead. If you put as much effort into tailoring your communication methods to your market as you put into developing a product or service that suits their needs you'll have a far better chance of establishing connections than you would with a more generic approach.

It doesn't take magic, just time, research and work.

Time to Get Ready For 2010

I see great things happening this year...

Time to start your marketing and advertising for 2010 today. Check out the new trends that are being talked about for this coming year. Thanks to Robert Passikoff for this great post. Predictive loyalty metrics measure the direction and velocity of consumer values 12 to 18 months in advance of the marketplace and consumer articulations of category needs and expectations, they identify future trends with uncanny accuracy.

1) Value is the new closing point 

Consumer spending, even on sale items, will continue to be replaced by a reason-to-buy at all. This spells trouble for brands with no authentic meaning, whether high-end or low.

2) Brands a surrogate for "value"

What makes goods and services valuable will increasingly be what's wrapped up in the brand and what it stands for. So make sure that you aligh yourself with other great brands.

3) Brand differentiation is Brand Value

The unique meaning of a brand will increase in importance as generic features continue to plague the brand landscape. Awareness as a meaningful market force has long been obsolete, and differentiation will be critical for success meaning sales and profitability.

4) "Because I Said So" is so over
Brand values can be established as a brand identity, but they must believably exist in the mind of the consumer. A brand can't just say it stands for something and make it so. The consumer will decide, making it more important than ever for a brand to have measures of authenticity that will aid in brand differentiation and consumer engagement.

5) Consumer expectations are growing

Brands are barely keeping up with consumer expectations now. Smarter marketers will identify and capitalize on unmet expectations. Those brands that understand where the strongest expectations exist will be the brands that survive - and prosper.

6) Old tricks don't work work anymore
In case your brand didn't get the memo here it is, consumers are on to brands trying to play their emotions for profit. In the wake of the financial debacle of this past year, people are more aware then ever of the hollowness of bank ads that claim "we're all in this together" when those same banks have rescinded their credit and turned their retirement plan into case studies.

7) They won't need to know you to love you
As the buying space becomes even more online-driven and international, front-end awareness will become less important. A brand with the right street cred can go viral in days, with awareness following, not leading, the conversation.

8) It's not just buzz
Conversation and community is all; ebay thrives based on consumer feedback. If consumers trust the community, they will extend trust to the brand. Not just word of mouth, but the right word of mouth within the community. This means the coming of a new era of customer care.

9) They're talking to each other before talking to the brand

Social Networking and exchange of information outside of the brand space will increase. Look for more websites using "Facebook Connect" to share information with the friends from those sites. More companies will become members of Linkedin. Twitter users will spend more money on the Internet than those who don't tweet.

10) Engagement is not a fad
Marketers will come to accept that there are four engagement methods including Platform (TV; online), Context (Program; webpage), Message (Ad or Communication), and Experience (Store/Event). But there is only one objective for the future: Brand Engagement. Marketers will continue to realize that attaining real brand engagement is impossible using out-dated attitudinal models.

Santa Gives the Winter Olympics a Pass

Santa was quoted in Miami earlier today, "Ho Ho Ho.. I wasn't sure if I was allowed to go because I am not an official corporate Olympic sponsor, so my lawyers told me to give it a miss... but I will be back next year!"


The official "West Coast Canada Santa Visit" went to Lolloowet area this year. The Mayor of Vancouver was disappointed that Vancouver was not honored with Santa's presence but he says, "The Value of the Olympics far outweighed the downside...."