Wowza

Word of mouth now the most effective way to find a job

2008-10-28T12:53:00.000-07:00

Given the current state of the economy a lot of folks are looking for work. They're calling recruiters, searching through job ads and combing the internet. To help job seekers, TopGrading Solutions, an executive search firm, recently conducted a survey to determine how candidates should seek out out new positions.

Their research showed that 38% of successful candidates in the last four months found their last job through word of mouth or referrals. 29% of candidates found their job on the internet, and 24% were helped by recruiting firms. Only 9% were successful using newspaper ads and walk-in applications.

This just shows that word of mouth is a powerful tool for getting noticed, especially in uncertain times.

Wowza's 7 Favorite Ways to Use Twitter for Business

2008-09-18T12:08:00.000-07:00

Everyone's talking about using Twitter as a marketing tool, but it's not always easy to figure out how to do that. With only 140 characters to work with, how do you promote yourself without sounding like advertisement?

Luckily, Chris Brogan has put up a very helpful list of 50 ways to use Twitter for business.

Our favorites are:

...start using Twitter Search to listen for your name, your competitor's names, words that relate to your space. (Listening always comes first.)
Share links to neat things in your community. ( @wholefoods does this well).
Instead of answering the question, "What are you doing?", answer the question, "What has your attention?"
Ask questions. Twitter is GREAT for getting opinions.
Share the human side of your company. If you're bothering to tweet, it means you believe social media has value for human connections. Point us to pictures and other human things.
Use services like Twitter Search to make sure you see if someone's talking about you. Try to participate where it makes sense.
Commenting on others' tweets, and retweeting what others have posted is a great way to build community.

Twitter is great for connecting customers and companies in a less formal way. The key is just figuring out how it can work you.

Head over to Chris's post if you want to see the others.

Customer Service is the new marketing

2008-06-02T12:14:00.000-07:00

Remember when sales and marketing would fight and bicker like fourth-grade kids on the playground and customer service didn't even get to play? Well it looks like customer service is the cool kid now. Now that consumers are empowered with information, they don't need sales chatter and marketing to make an informed choice. In these Google days customers learn from other customers. They don't buy from sales they buy from other happy customers. Who in your organization makes customers happy? take a look at Andy Ridinger's post on Sales 2.0 Social Media- Support is the New Marketing.

Wowza is moving to Minneapolis' most creative zip code

2008-05-16T09:33:00.000-07:00

Amidst the busyness of designing our new space and packing up our stuff, in preparation for our big move next week, we came across this article from the Southwest Journal. According to the article, Wowza is moving to the most creative zip code, 55408. Cool, huh?

15 Days...

2008-05-06T09:03:00.000-07:00

Only 15 days after receiving our first Mashup of the Day Award (for Tweet Volume), we won another Mashup of the Day Award, this time for Site Volume!

Check it out:

Site Volume allows users to enter a few words or phrases and find out how often they appear in sites such as Digg, Flickr, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube.

Tweet Volume...All Mashed Up!

2008-04-28T12:29:00.001-07:00

We won a mashup award for Tweet Volume and think it’s pretty cool. Check it out and spread the word about our fun interactive tool!

Wowza was awarded the Mashup of the Day Award on April 17, 2008 for Tweet Volume, a fun, free interactive buzz metrics tool that we unveiled in May 2007.

To our surprise, a Tweet Volume fan nominated the mashup for this distinct honor. Utilizing resources from Google’s search engine and Twitter’s open API to capture and compare data points, Tweet Volume makes it possible to identify popular brands, words and phrases used on Twitter.

MashupAwards is a hand-picked display of the best mashups, or websites with a unified interface and experience created from at least two web data sources, and are awarded on a daily and monthly basis. In order to be considered for and receive a Mashup Award, the mashups much excel in each of the five areas: uniqueness, creativity, utility, content, and user experience.

Ted. Smart talking heads

2008-04-23T07:15:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I hadn't found Ted.com before yesterday when, through word-of-mouth of course, Will told me about a Michael Pollan video. Ted.com is filled with 20 minute videos of really smart people lecturing on a variety of interesting subjects. I was almost late for a meeting because I started watching a lecture about one of my favorite books, The Paradox of Choice, by Barry Schwartz. Here is a wonderful talk by Amy Tan on creativity. Enjoy.

-Jeff

2008-03-10T09:04:00.000-07:00

We use a lot of stock photography. It comes in handy when there is a tight deadline or when the budget is thin. But given the relative ease and cost of creating your own images these days it's really a good idea to avoid stock when possible. I'm sure that's what Hillary's people are thinking today.

Girl in Clinton ad supports Obama

Posted: 10:30 AM ET

Watch Casey Knowles on American Morning Monday.

(CNN) — Casey Knowles has graced the airwaves this month as the unwitting star of a headline-grabbing campaign ad for Hillary Clinton. But the 17-year-old is hoping to grace the small screen this campaign year for another presidential hopefully: Clinton’s Democratic rival, Barack Obama.

Stock footage of an 8-year-old Knowles sleeping – shot when she worked as an extra in TV commercials — was used in Clinton’s “red phone” ad, which asked “Who do you want answering the phone at 3 a.m.?” in the case of a foreign policy crisis.

But the high-school senior – who will be eligible to vote in the general election – is actually a passionate supporter of Barack Obama’s, and has been volunteering for the Illinois senator’s campaign.

“I think it would be wonderful if Barack Obama and I could get together and do a counter-ad,” she told CNN Saturday.

Appearing on CNN's American Morning Monday, Knowles said she was shocked to discover she was in the commercial, and said it made her feel disloyal to Obama.

"It makes me feel a little disloyal and kind of," she said. "It hurts that footage of me would contribute to a candidate that I'm not necessarily supporting. Hopefully Mr. Obama would forgive me. "

Knowles, who lives in Washington State, also said she plans on helping Obama in Oregon ahead of that state's primary in May.

"They want to get me down there and hopefully get me to help support and get campaigning going on down there," she said.

In Wyoming on Friday, Obama told voters at a campaign event that people shouldn’t worry about what he’d do if an emergency 3 a.m. call came into the White House when he was president.

“What do people think I’m going to do? I’m going to answer the phone,” he said.

Bad Comcast. Very bad.

2008-02-29T09:09:00.000-08:00

Is this another reason comcast must die?

Published on Thursday, February 28, 2008 by The Philadelphia Inquirer

Comcast Admits Paying Attendees at FCC Hearing

by Ben Fernandez

Comcast Corp. admitted yesterday that it paid people to attend a government hearing. Company critics say the freelance attendees were there to crowd them out; Comcast says they were merely saving seats for employees.

The five-hour hearing Monday at Harvard University was organized by the Federal Communications Commission to address the issue of net neutrality, a hot-button topic for those who think there should be minimal restrictions on Internet traffic.

The topic has drawn wide interest from college students, media-reform groups, and Internet companies.

An official at Free Press, a nonprofit advocacy group that has criticized Comcast for limiting the amount of data some of its customers send over its network, accused the cable company of “stacking the deck” at the hearing with the 30 to 40 “seat-warmers.” An official at Harvard said dozens of real participants were left standing outside the auditorium with placards.

“They were taking seats away from other citizens who had a right to be there,” said Catherine Bracy, administrative manager for the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at the Harvard Law School. “It was a PR thing. [Comcast] wanted more people in the room who were sympathetic.”

Comcast feared a loud and critical crowd at the hearing where executive vice president David Cohen was scheduled to testify. Comcast, which offers high-speed Internet to 48 million homes, has said it needs to manage Internet use so that a small number of customers transmitting very large video files do not clog the network for everyone.

Comcast says the number of seat-warmers was small in proportion to the capacity of the 290-seat auditorium. There was additional standing room.

The practice is similar to one in Washington, where people have been paid to stand in line for congressional hearings, a company official said. The seat-warmers were to reserve places for Comcast employees. (Read the rest at Common Dreams.)

Who Benefits Most From Starbucks Closure?

2008-02-27T06:29:00.000-08:00

Was it really training or was it a big PR stunt? Whatever it was, closing their stores last night was a reason to talk about Starbucks.

From Adages:
Starbucks closed its door from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. last night for a little bit of continuing education for its baristas. It's questionable whether a three-and-a-half hour training session is actually going to improve the skillset of Starbucks employees, but you can bet 20 Duetto Dollars that there will be people sauntering into your office this morning swearing that the espresso tastes so much better than it did two days ago. (more here)

--Jeff

Here's to a homemade Christmas

2007-12-21T13:13:00.000-08:00

Have a merry and creative Christmas.

Jeff

Maybe Target Isn’t all That

2007-12-03T08:20:00.000-08:00

It’s no secret among those of us who have worked for agencies or vendors of Target Corporation that arrogance (well deserved) is part of the Target corporate culture. What else could explain their Rounders stealth marketing program. (Bloggers Seeing Red Over Target’s Little Secret, Sat Dec. 1)

Surely the brilliant marketing people charged with approving and supervising Target’s advertising and marketing programs know that transparency and full disclosure are required to ethically engage in social media marketing. Their agency, drillTEAM, certainly did. As members of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, drillTEAM agreed to a code of ethics that makes it very clear that when marketers compensate advocates, evangelists, bloggers or anyone else they are expected to say who they are, express their honest opinion and not obscure their identity. That drillTEAM complied with the operation of a secretive marketing campaign doesn’t excuse Target. Target should be ashamed of their spokesperson, Amy Van Walter, for blaming the vendor. The choice between designing an honest and transparent ambassador program or launching a CIA-style propaganda campaign was Target’s decision and they should own up to.

With their hip persona, trendy style and cutting edge advertising, one would expect Target to understand that in this new marketing world the corporation can't control the message any more. To be a hip and cool brand on a social network is to be upfront and honest. Otherwise you’re just a greedy poser. With millions of happy customers and enthusiastic supporters the coolest thing Target can do is let their advocates and detractors speak honestly for themselves.

Jeff

Comcastmustdie

2007-10-31T11:17:00.000-07:00

Last night I spoke to a class filled with entrepreneurs at St. Thomas University. The topic was Seize the Market. I suggested they change the theme to: Have the Market Seize You. The game of marketing is different now, I informed them. The customer is in control.

Andy Sernovitz's blog, Damn, I Wish I'd Thought of That. has a great example of a customer taking matters into his own hands. In this case the disgruntled customer is Ad Age columnist and NPR On The Media host Bob Garfield. His nifty little blog, comcastmustdie , invites those with a beef against the cable to giant to vent their issues. Mr Garfield is on a mission to make big corporations treat people better.

From Comcast-must-die.com:
"Congratulations. You are no longer just an angry, mistreated customer. Nor, I hope, are you just part of an e-mob. But you are a revolutionary, wresting control from the oligarchs, and claiming it for the consumer. Your power is enormous. Use it wisely."

-Jeff

A sticker and a blog save trees

2007-10-22T14:04:00.000-07:00

Here is a simple idea. Put a sticker on paper towel dispensers to remind people that paper comes from trees so it's best not to waste it. That's what These Came From Trees is all about. But in addition to being a nice way to help reduce waste, it's a great example of how to use free social media and web 2.0 to promote a cause, market a product or just experiment with an idea.

-Jeff

Change Positions

2007-10-11T12:08:00.000-07:00

This morning I had a conversation with a friend who's spent the last 30 years selling real estate. Today, in the midst of a real estate melt down, he's desperate to find buyers. The problem is, most of the motivated buyers are sitting on unsold houses because they have unrealistic expectations for what their houses are worth. They're stuck.

So you would think that the best prospects would be renters because they don't have a house to sell and with home prices falling and lots of inventory it would be a great time for them to own. But renters seem to have little motivation to buy at a time when fear of declining values and predatory lending is all around them. They are stuck too.

The agents keep saying: "it's a great time to buy!" But agents always say that. To a Realtor it's always a good time to buy and a good time to sell. If the agents really believed it was a good time to buy, they'd be buying. But most agents really aren't savvy investors, they're salespeople.

What are the motivating forces that would un-stick the hopeful seller and the fearful buyer? Sellers want to get more money, so how can an agent play on a seller's hopeful expectation for a comeback? The buyers are afraid of buying a declining asset. How can an agent influence them on the basis of that fear? In other words, the seller and the buyer have to change positions. If the buyer can convince the seller that prices are going to go down, the seller will lower the price out of fear of getting even less. If the seller can convince the buyer that prices will rise again, then the buyer will feel motivated to buy. But buyers and sellers don't talk to each other. They communicate through agents.

We know that one persuasive advocate can convince several skeptics. So if my agent friend arranged a conversation between a persuasive seller and a group of skeptical buyers he may get more buyers. If he could get a persuasive buyer to talk to a group of skeptical sellers he may get more realistic sellers. An even better approach for a real estate agent might be to enlist sellers who were persuaded to lower their price to talk to other sellers and buyers who's fears were assuaged to share with other buyers how they overcame their doubts.

But how?

That's where the fun begins.

-Jeff

Post Secrets

2007-10-11T11:42:00.001-07:00

This blog post was going to be about starting conversations. But when I signed on to Blogger the sign-in page featured a screen shot from the Postsecret blog and a recommendation from the blogger staff. Easily distracted I went to the blog and I was instantly moved and inspired. If WOM marketing is about engaging in honest conversation what can we learn about the need to hold and share secrets? I guess this post is about starting conversations.

This IS your father's social network

2007-08-07T08:23:00.000-07:00

I've been getting more Facebook friend requests lately from my old friends. Not friends I new from the old days, friends who are, in the internet world, considered old. Like 35-50. So it's not really all that suprising to me to learn that according to data collected by a company called comScore the majority of Facebook users are between the ages of 35-54. I'm still not convinced that it's really true. Maybe they have an account, but do they really use it or it is just a way to make them feel young again?

Jeff

WOM Cheat Sheet

2007-07-26T07:46:00.000-07:00

While on SlideShare I found this great side show on WOM.

Jeff

Evolutionist vs. Creationist WOM

2007-07-26T07:35:00.000-07:00

John Moore from Brand Autopsy posted a fun little Powerpoint on slideshare.com with his take on WOM. If you don't know about slideshare it's a Youtube for Powerpoint.

You never have to feel like you're alone

2007-07-26T07:10:00.000-07:00

No matter how you feel someone else is right there with you. Sitevolume is a great way to check your thoughts and feeling against the online masses. Because on hot days like today, misery likes a lot of company.

Damn I wish I'd Thought of That

2007-07-11T12:24:00.000-07:00

Here is a plug for Andy Sernovitz's great blog on Word of Mouth Marketing: Damn I Wish I'd Thought of That. It's great. (Make sure you read today's post about Wowza.) But I especially liked this post today:

The Shortcut

I wish I wrote the following ... but Quinn McDonald said it better. I get a call like this every day.

The voice on the phone could have been any business call I get in the course of a day.
“I’m an artist, and a coach, and I teach business communications.”
“Great,” I say, and almost always, I know what’s coming.
“I’ve noticed on your website that you teach journaling classes, even incorporate them in business seminars,” the eager voice says.
“You are right,” I say waiting for the next question.
“Well, I’m having trouble getting a lot of people in my class. And you’ve had this up on your site for a while. So you must be doing something right. Can you give me some tips and shortcuts so I can be successful?”
It’s seldom that I am at a loss for words, but this is a sure way to make me speechless. Lacking understanding, I aim for clarity.
“I’m not sure what you want me to tell you,” I ask, although I’m beginning to think I do.
“I want you to give me shortcuts and tips to be successful,” the voice says.
“What are you doing now that works?” I ask.
“Well, I’ve been a coach for about six months and word of mouth isn’t working,” she says.
“Word of mouth is a method that comes after there are enough happy mouths to talk about your work. Word of mouth takes about four years to work,” I say.
“What? That can’t be. Look at all those people on the internet, and their sites, and all the ones that get thousands of orders overnight,” she says, what about them?
“I don’t know about them,” I answer honestly, “Here’s what I can tell you about my success. I work 120 hours a week, divided over 7 days. I make mistakes, I fail, I figure out what went wrong. I do something else. I advertise, I use every opportunity I can find, some work better than others. I don’t have a secret, and I don’t know any shortcuts.”
The voice at the other end of the phone is quiet.
“You won’t help me. Women are supposed to help each other,” she says.
“I am helping you. I’m telling you from my experience that there is no shortcut. I can give you tips, though.”
“OK, she says, GO.”
“Keep track of what works.
Listen more than talk.
Ask questions.
Go “huh?” a lot and wonder why.
Advertising takes longer to work than you think it should.
Run ads at least 7 times before you expect them to work.
Have a clear idea of what your business is about.
Know why what you do is different from what other people in the same line of work do.
Know what your features and benefits are, be ready to explain them.
Most people know features really well, but explaining the benefits of your service is the key to success.
Don’t ever undervalue yourself, but understand that value is a relative thing.
Don’t think everyone in your audience is rich, and don’t plan on having just rich people for an audience.”

Those are the best tips I know.
“Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “So you won’t share shortcuts.”
“I can’t,” I say, wishing I had some myself. I’m not pushing 50, I’m dragging it, and I wish I had discovered some shortcuts.
“Can I ask you another question?” the voice asks.
“Sure, go ahead. If I know the answer, I’ll tell you.”
“Do you know someone else, maybe someone famous, who’ll share their shortcuts with me?”

Nicely said, Quinn.

These are the shortcuts I know:

Work your ass off
Try everything. You never know.
Repeat what works. Stop doing what doesn't work.
Make lots and lots of friends. You never know who can help you someday, so help them first.
Read everything you can get your hands on, from people who aren't like you.

As long as I'm at it, here is the secret shortcut to losing weight:

Eat less crap
Exercise more

Perpetual Motion and Viral Marketing

2007-07-09T11:42:00.001-07:00

We are about to see something big.

It's a product from a small company in Ireland, Steorn. The device is called the "Orbo" and Steorn is claiming that it is nothing less than a perpetual motion machine. I say "claiming" because the chances of a device like this actually existing along with our current scientific understanding of the universe is literally zero. A perpetual motion machine violates the first law of thermodynamics:

"The increase in the internal energy of a thermodynamic system is equal to the amount of heat energy added to the system minus the work done by the system on the surroundings."
-from wikipedia

That is to say, energy can only be moved around, not created, and not destroyed.

So obviously this would be a big deal.

There are many skeptics. People are saying it's a scam or a social experiment. The most interesting theory however is that this is nothing more than a viral marketing campaign for a new video game from the Microsoft owned game developer Bungie Studios. The game is titled Halo3, and is scheduled for release Sep 25, 2007.

Right now there are hundreds, maybe thousands of individuals combing through the code of every page of Steorn's website. They are comparing Steorn imagery to that of individual frames in a trailer for Halo 3. You can read some of the discussions about this theory on both Steorn's own official forum as well as well as a teamxbox forum dedicated to Halo 3.

Even if this isn't a marketing campaign for the game, the interest in the game Halo3 is seeing a predictable spike.

Is this a new kind of viral campaign? One where the story is so difficult to connect with a product that the story itself is newsworthy? (ex: coverage on Fox via Youtube)

Viral marketing is memetic engineering. Just like with genes, engineering with memes can easily get out of control.

-Will

Not Buying It

2007-06-19T10:27:00.000-07:00

If you've ever thought about what it would be like to cast aside all your consumerism for a year and not buy anything, now you can do it by osmosis through Judith Levine's book: Not buying it. My year without shopping.

I had the pleasure of hearing Ms. Levine give a keynote address last weekend at the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair in Custer Wisconsin. Surrounded by "greenies", most of whom no doubt see themselves as non-materialistic, it was refreshing to hear Ms. Levine inventory all the shopping opportunities that make the Energy Fair possible. From wind turbines to sun ovens to solar-powered hat-mounted fans and goat milk soap even an event dedicated to conservation and sustainable living is not without plenty of consumerism.

As marketers, brand-builders and product shills there should be plenty we can learn from Ms. Levine's experiment without enduring the pain of forgoing our "necessary" luxuries.

- Jeff

Dice. Nice.

2007-06-11T12:08:00.000-07:00

Dice have been in existence much longer than recorded history can trace.
But I have never seen them used like this:

Good illustration of how you don't need to create something new in order to stay fresh, you can just find a new use for an old thing.

-Sarah

tweetVolume

2007-05-24T11:38:00.000-07:00

Last week when Will and I started talking about doing a Twitter mashup we never thought it would take off so fast. The night before last, just before we went home, Will put up the site - Tweetvolume.com - and sent it to one Twitter mashup blog. The next morning I sent it to two people. On Tuesday Googling "tweetvolume" returned no results. Today I got 9520.
We've already thought of improvements and features to add. But some will have to wait until Twitter's technical problems improve. We'll keep you posted. Try it out and have some fun.

Jeff