Video may have killed the radio star, but social media is bringing back the radio station. In today’s world of 24/7 connectivity, traditional forms of media have found they either need to adapt or they’ll become obsolete. While television and film industries have been slowly adapting to the new way of the world, radio has been a little slower to jump on the bandwagon.
Read More…
Hey Guerilleros, it’s time for another post! Yay!! Sorry we haven’t posted anything in such a long time, but you know how it is when you get busy; all the side projects get put on hold. However, we’ve been working on some fantastic new projects that will certainly be responsible for some fantastic future articles.
Read More…
Good Morning Guerilleros! I swear, spring has come early in my part of the world. This is another beautiful day is a week long string of beautiful days. But you didn’t come to hear me talk about the weather. Last week, Dr. Anna Gralton was kind enough to talk about using humor in a social media campaign. And she mentioned one of our clients, The Cornhole King – producer of custom cornhole boards. The King’s social media marketing strategy really relies on humor. And it’s been enjoyable, to say the least.
If you do a Google image search for Cornhole, I hope you have the SafeSearch on. And if you do, you’ll see plenty of pictures of the game cornhole, a popular party game. I’ve never played it, but the rules are easy enough. You have to throw three bags full of corn into a hole on a sloped board. Probably harder than it sounds.
There are numerous companies online selling cornhole supplies, and even numerous Cornhole Kings. As a matter of fact, just yesterday we had a polite little C&D letter. So now he’s the NEW Cornhole King, which was actually the name of our site all along, and we refer to him as The King.
The most immediate way we convey the humor is through the blog and Facebook. Anna has done a wonderful job building up a faux mythology behind both the King and the game. She has provided detailed descriptions on the Cornhole Court, the way Cornhole Evolved From Warfare, and other posts that are pretty funny. However, she also puts useful info into the posts, like the rules and etiquette; things of that nature. And every other week is a news update from the world of Cornhole. Real news, not fake. Cornhole is amazingly popular.
To go along with each post is an appropriate picture. Initially it was a photo-shopped picture of the King’s head on some real kings body. He had a terrible grin and sunglasses on. So now I do some simple editing to pictures of real nobility to give them sunglasses, and the King has an instant family tree.
Of course, all of our posts make it to the Facebook page, and our FB specialist posts humorous updates on the page daily, as well as frequent twitter updates. It’s proven pretty popular, and we’re pleased with the reception it’s had. Moving forward, we’re going to do a few videos with the full Cornhole Court in attendance, and see if we can’t get those going around.
Well, that’s it for today, Guerilleros! It’s too nice to stay in here all day. I’m going to the beach. See you next time!
Social Media Guerilla brings tips and tricks for effective social media marketing, as well as social commentary to anyone who is interested or will at least listen. We are waging a war on traditional marketing techniques. We are the underground. We are the future. Enlist now.
Today is a special day, Guerilleros! We’ve got the new theme up and running! While it’s a little more modern, this is still the same revolution you know and love. But after the Crash, we figured we’d modernize a little while we were at it. So we hope you like it. Tell us if you don’t.
I also noticed that we now have 42 followers on Networked Blogs, and 42 just happens to be my favorite number. Our 42nd follower also happens to be the newest writer I’ve been working with, and I invited her to write a guest post. Dr. Anna Gralton is a talented writer from Australia, and has been very helpful to the Chefe and I with some blog posts lately.
One of the blogs Anna has been running is topcornholeboards.com. The company name is The Cornhole King, and Anna has written some brilliantly funny posts following the royalty theme. They are completely worth stopping by for. But let me stop going on, and here is Anna’s article!
Writing humor for social media can be akin to a minefield. Humor’s a great way to get the message across, especially in this day and age with social media. If you get it right, the benefits can be nothing short of a miracle: increasing brand awareness; buzz; attracting new clients and leads; promoting firm-client interaction; increasing followers, fans etc. In contrast, if you get it wrong, you’re likely to confuse the heck out of your readers or, worse still, insult them. They will lose interest and not come back.
Although social media marketing is ultimately about selling and is very serious, the fact of the matter is that much content is set in a light-hearted, entertaining backdrop. As such, if you can find a funny angle or if it just slaps you directly in the face, such as with our Cornhole client blog, then why not run with it? Let’s face it; no one wants to read dull, dreary blog posts about an obviously funny topic.
You might also think that writing a humorous piece is easy and can be done on the spot. Wrong! When writing for social media, as you know, there are many more considerations that go into it. This is where you have to sit down and consciously merge the two.
When writing humor for a social media client, try not to get too carried away. This can lead to “humor specialization” – that is, humor that only you find funny. Keep it light, simple and connected to the brand and customer base.
Social Media Guerilla brings tips and tricks for effective social media marketing, as well as social commentary to anyone who is interested or will at least listen. We are waging a war on traditional marketing techniques. We are the underground. We are the future. Enlist now.
For an example using humor to drive traffic check out the Cornhole Kingdom, the place for custom cornhole boards. The Kingdom is a great site for humor, and it certainly spreads into the realm of social media.
Hey Guerilleros! I’m a HUGE fan of NBC’s 30 Rock, and I often have repeats playing while I work. I find Tina Fey’s glib show a constant reminder to write better and more personal. And occasionally, something happens to remind me of work.
Last season, one of the episodes had Jack, Liz (who I always think of as Liz Lemon, thanks Tracey) and Cerie all in Liz’s office. Jack is upset about a post on YouFace, a Facebook clone, and wants to check it. Both Cerie and Liz rush into action, Cerie on the smartphone, Liz on the desktop. Before Liz can even finish entering in the sites name, Cerie announces she has the relevant post. And this scene is clearly meant to be a joke on Liz.
But this innocuous little scene really hammers some facts home. It clearly demonstrate that Lemon’s generation of 30-40 year olds has already been left behind in the IT field. Tech is advancing so fast, that people who were not brought up with this constant race are not adapting as quickly as younger people.
Of course, we all knew that. What’s more interesting though, is that Cerie went to her smartphone first. And this is the most common way to get on the web if you just need something quick. I’m on my laptop, and out of habit, I still used my phone to find out how to spell Cerie’s name properly. A vast majority of younger people get there main exposure to the internet through their phones. Google Mobile Search has drastically increased this year, no doubt in part because of the slew of new smartphones that really cater to the tween crowd.
But we knew this too. So what did I learn from that episode of 30 Rock? The fact that everyone already knows these things so well, that 30 Rock had a throwaway joke about it.
This is a quickly changing world Guerilleros. But you knew that.
But you can at least stay up to date on Social Media Marketing information with us. So sign up to get us everyday. Or at least as often as we post.
And now for something completely different. The Williamsburg Wedding Guide is up and running with the goal of helping people plan their marriages in the Colonial Williamsburg area. They have some great vendors and are going all out to be the best in the area. If you are looking for a great place for your wedding, you should certainly check out the Guide.
Good morning Guerilleros! It’s another beautiful day in paradise! And today I’m going to talk about a new client we have that’s pretty interesting: Kill Cliff. Kill Cliff is a sports recovery drink that is fairly new to the market, and they asked us to run their marketing campaign. Of course, we’d never done a sports recovery drink before, so it posed some new challenges we met head on, using tried and true social media marketing techniques.
Once we took over the marketing, we took control of the website and started updating both the site and blog on a regular basis. It was a custom WP site, which we’re pretty familiar with, but we still haven’t entirely figured this one out. It’s a pretty advanced theme.
The biggest aspect of our campaign, however, is on Facebook. Kill Cliff sponsors some pretty big name athletes, including UFC fighters. And since we have more than a little knowledge of the MMA world, we decided to go with what we know, and focus on that.
We created fan sites for the more popular fighters, and we’re monitoring their organic fanbase’s growth carefully. All the pages prominently feature the Kill Cliff can and have a trail back to the Kill Cliff page. Depending on the success of that experiment, we may develop more pages.
We’ve also developed a campaign demonstrating that Kill Cliff isn’t just for athletes. It features three videos of some of the more advanced students at our local MMA gym. We’re using those heavily in the campaign.
We have a lot more in plan for Kill Cliff, but we want to see what works best before we commit any more resources to a project with less than minimal results. We’ll probably come back to the subject more in future articles.
PS. Speaking of marketing, you need to check out some of the great real estate that is selling cheap on the Outer Banks. For a lot less than you might expect you can get a Nags Head luxury home. If you prefer something in a quieter neighborhood, how about a beautiful oceanfront home in Corolla? I know what you are thinking: One is too far south and the other is too far north. How about splitting the difference with a great investment property in Duck? With OBX real estate prices so low, buying an Outer Banks home is one of the best investments you can make!
Twitter stays at the front of user privacy protection
Hello Guerilleros! Recently, the Guerilla Chefe received an email from Twitter discussing two big changes they are implementing. These improvements will be unfolded over the next couple of months. More than likely, a few of you also received the same email, but perhaps, you were a bit confused. Well, lets clear that up.
The first update is for new authorization rules for applications. This change will begin implementing OAuth, an open standard that will not require you to hand out your password to programs anymore.
Much like a valet key, OAuth gives applications very limited access to your account, so unauthorized users can’t hijack your feed. And you can control exactly how much access this key permits.
And, applications are no longer allowed to store your password. That’s great. You no longer have to worry about someone stealing your phone and gaining access to your password. And lets face it, the majority of people use the same password for almost everything, so keeping it safe is pretty important.
We comon folk will start experiencing the t.co URL wrapping. This is a n order to provide better content.great feature too. No longer will you need to fret over following a link in a Tweet. Before it even gets to you, it is screened to make sure it’s not affiliated with any sort of malware.
Plus, with the URL wrapping, you’ll actually be able to see where the link is taking you. No more clicking a link to go to amazon, and ending up at 4chan.
Also, Twitter plans to collect data on the sites we click through to, to enhance user experience. I think that is just market speak for “So we can more effectively target you with ads”.
In light of all the problems Facebook seems to have over privacy, it is nice to see a social media site trying to stay ahead of the curve. These updates, while not exactly super cool, are important, and will help protect you and your clients in the long run.
Good Morning Guerilleros! Actually it’s about 2:30 in the afternoon my time, but it’s AM somewhere. Today the Guerlla Chefe suggested we discuss proper use of a blog. We’ve been discussing the proper way to utilize a blog, and felt that it might be an appropriate discussion for this blog. And it kind of goes hand in hand with the last post on getting people to read your blog. Read More…
Here at SMG we trust Volusion with our ecommerce needs. We’ve had multiple clients use them and can sincerely recommend it.
This is an affiliate link and we’ll receive a commission if you sign up for volusion. If you choose to do so, we really appreciate it.