hal thomas

This tourism spot from Holland has just enough personality to make me think it could be a fun place to visit. It also does a nice job of showing that Holland has more to offer than windmills, flowers, and Amsterdam's vices.

The best content marketing works because it doesn't feel like marketing. It feels like you're getting more of what it is you already love about a particular brand, organization, or entertainment property.

Case is point is a series called Nashville: On The Record, which takes a closer look at the songs and the songwriters who have contributed to the success of ABC's hit television show "Nashville." And while country music may not be everyone's bowl of grits, at the very least you have appreciate the way this series spotlights some of the unsung heroes—the actual "content creators"—who work tirelessly behind the scenes.

I've always held that content strategy is, in principle, very simple: Make stuff that doesn't suck. Stuff that people who don't work for/with you will actually want to watch. (Note that I didn't say, "Stuff that you want people to want to watch." There's a difference.)

Enter Jack Daniel's. The company is making some stuff that doesn't suck, and I don't only mean Tennessee whiskey. They've launched a new film series, The Independent Among Us, which celebrates independent spirits and people who stand up for what they believe in, ideals the iconic brand holds dear. "Independent Lynchburg" is the first film in that series. Says Jack's website,

People know Lynchburg, TN as the place where each and every drop of Jack Daniel’s is made. Yet, few know about the interesting men and women who call this small town home. In the first-ever short film by Jack Daniel’s, we take a closer look at the people, behind the town, behind the whiskey.

Learn about a man who started renovating his home by taking a chainsaw to it, from roof to foundation. Or learn about Goose (pictured above), who once caught man breaking into his house. What did Goose do? Naturally, Goose tied the guy up, tossed him into the back of his pickup truck, and drove the man into town to wait for the investigator to arrive.

Get to know the Jack Daniel's by listening to the stories it tells. Then ask yourself, what kind of stories is my brand telling?

[This post also appears on the BFG blog.]

Manpacks is like Netflix for men's underwear, except that you don't have to return anything once you've used it. Because that would be awkward.

The logic behind Manpacks is simple. Take items that men need to replace regularly—personal care, razors, socks, underwear—and create a service that results in one less thing guys have to remember. It also helps that guys tend to be somewhat brand loyal to most of the items that Manpacks offers, things the average guy doesn't want to spend a lot of time thinking about.

Manpacks also has the best return policy of all time.

Manpacks, because you're too old for your mom to still be buying your underwear.

[This post also appears on the BFG blog.]

We live in a driven, digital world where the full value of human connection is often traded for transactional proficiency. Many have mastered the ironic art of increasing touch points while simultaneously losing touch. […] 

There is a threshold to today's productivity found at the very point where progress with people is supplanted by progress. Often, it's the sheer speed of communication that affects our judgement. Because we believe others expect immediate responses, as we do ourselves, we often don't take the time to craft meaningful responses.

- Dale Carnegie & Associates, "How To Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age"

Relax, Chicken Little, the social media sky is not falling. Despite opinions to the contrary from a number of leading social media professionals, I'm here to tell you that the upcoming changes to Facebook Newsfeed will not mean less organic visibliity for brands in the Newsfeeds of people who like their pages. Here's why.

The changes to Facebook Newsfeed are all about improving both the user experience (i.e. less clutter, larger Newsfeed stories) and the user interface (i.e. navigation moving from the left side of the page to the top right). Beyond that, the only other change being made is that Facebook is giving its users new ways to isolate and view very specific items in their Newsfeeds: photos, music, and games. In fact, the only item absent from the new list is Top Stories, which (powered by the Facebook EdgeRank algorithm) is currently the default view for all Facebook users. My guess is that the Top Stories feed (and EdgeRank) is not going away; it's most likely been absorbed into the Newsfeed view (see image above), the top item in the new list of feeds and the one that will automatically reset every twenty-four hours as users' default Newsfeed view (as it does now).

Facebook users have had long options for isolating and viewing only certain items in their Newsfeed; the new design just makes those options a little easier to find, so most of this isn't really anything that new. And if past performance is any indicator of future behavior, all of the data points to Facebook users not making heavy use of these alternate feeds. Currently, most Facebook users don't consistently switch their feed from Top Stories (EdgeRank) to Most Recent (all posts in reverse chronological order). That's a big reason why the average unique impressions per Facebook post by a brand page is typically less than 5% of that page's total likes. It's also why Facebook can make a strong case that brands need to consistently run Marketplace Ads and Promoted Posts; they've engineered their own monopoly.

So despite all of the hype last week, the upcoming changes to the Facebook Newsfeed are mostly cosmetic. Don't expect to see any significant long term shift in user behavior away from branded content.

The EdgeRank algorithm is about the closest thing Facebook has to a cash cow. Don't expect them to do anything that would put that cow out to pasture any time soon.

[This post also appears on the BFG blog.]

Tax time is right around the corner. It can often be a jarring time of year as we're forced to examine how we've used our money over the past year. Most of us wouldn't mind a few pointers managing our money, but for some of us the thought of consulting a financial advisor is about as appealing as a trip to the doctor or dentist. Enter LearnVest.

What is LearnVest?

LearnVest is a financial tool that can help you with everything from basic monthly budgeting to debt reduction to financial planning. It helps you analyze both where you are now and where you need to be. In short, it can help you develop and achieve both short-term and long-term financial goals.

How does LearnVest work?

LearnVest.com is where you get started by inputing your financial information and syncing your financial accounts: checking, savings, home equity, school loans, credit cards, etc. LearnVest provides you with a real-time snapshot of your finances.

How does LearnVest differ from Mint and similar financial services?

There are a number of great personal finance apps out there but most of them require you to know what your financial goals are. LearnVest goes beyond just showing you where you are; it helps you figure out what your financial goals should be and what you need to to do achieve them.

How much does LearnVest cost?

LearnVest has several plans to choose from starting at free and ranging up to about $400.

[This post also appears on the BFG blog.]

"Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny, and a social media expert walk into a bar…"

Sometimes we just need permission to laugh at ourselves. Permission granted.

[This post also appears on the BFG blog.]

Here's a good of example of how not to do an email marketing campaign. This is an email I received earlier this week from a local events venue. I've blurred the name of the guilty party so as not to embarrass anyone, but there's a lesson to be learned here.

Notice the big red button inviting you to See What's Coming Up. Clicking this button takes you to the venue's website to view the upcoming events—adding an unnecessary step to the process. A better designed email would've simply listed the upcoming events and, with one click, I could get more info or purchase tickets for any event that interests me. Never require two clicks when the job can be done with one.

To be fair, minutes after I received this email I received a second email that was formatted exactly as I just described. But why send two emails when the job can be done with one?

For more tips on improving your email marketing efforts, check out this recent article from HubSpot about improving clickthrough rates.

Stunningly beautiful and yet a concept so simple it makes you wonder why you didn't think of it first. Photographer Murad Osmann documents his globetrotting adventures with his girlfriend, Nataly Zakharova.

[Via Daily Mail. Hat tip to Renato.]

What's the only thing that cinephiles and fashionistas like more than talking about The Oscars the day after at work? Talking about The Oscars on Facebook while watching The Oscars.

What were the most talked about films, fashions, faces and faux pas from the 2013 Oscars according to the Facebook maelstrom? Luckily, there's an infographic for that.

It's a finger on the cultural pulse of Facebook users, and it would be even more interesting to see this information compared and contrasted with similar information from other social networks such as Twitter, Google+, and Get Glue. Good stuff, although I'm rather disappointed that there was no mention of Jack Nicholson hitting on Jennifer Lawrence.

[This post also appears on the BFG blog.]

Imagine what it would be like if you could play a video game with your friend and the winner got free beer? That's the idea behind The Last Barfighter, a marketing tool from the Big Boss Brewing Company in Raleigh, NC.

Now imagine what it would be like if this was your sampling experience.

[This post also appears on the BFG blog.]

Welcome to Agency Life. Consider this part of your orientation.

[Via Adverve.]

Whiskey drinking—bourbon especially—has been steadily increasing in popularity over the last several years. If you're a whiskey distiller, this is a very good thing—or so you would think. But at least one distiller is choosing to water down its product in response to increased difficulty with meeting demand.

In an email sent last weekend to its enthusiasts, Maker's Mark explained that it will be reducing the alcohol content of its whisky by 3%.

“Dear Maker’s Mark® Ambassador,

Lately we’ve been hearing from many of you that you’ve been having difficulty finding Maker’s Mark in your local stores. Fact is, demand for our bourbon is exceeding our ability to make it, which means we’re running very low on supply. We never imagined that the entire bourbon category would explode as it has over the past few years, nor that demand for Maker’s Mark would grow even faster.

We wanted you to be the first to know that, after looking at all possible solutions, we’ve worked carefully to reduce the alcohol by volume (ABV) by just 3%. This will enable us to maintain the same taste profile and increase our limited supply so there is enough Maker’s Mark to go around, while we continue to expand the distillery and increase our production capacity.

We have both tasted it extensively, and it’s completely consistent with the taste profile our founder/dad/grandfather, Bill Samuels, Sr., created nearly 60 years ago. We’ve also done extensive testing with Maker’s Mark drinkers, and they couldn’t tell a difference.

Nothing about how we handcraft Maker’s Mark has changed, from the use of locally sourced soft red winter wheat as the flavor grain, to aging the whisky to taste in air-dried American white oak barrels, to rotating our barrels during maturation, to hand-dipping every bottle in our signature red wax.

In other words, we’ve made sure we didn’t screw up your whisky.

By the way, if you have any comments or questions, as always, we invite you to drop us a line at rob@makersmark.com or bill@makersmark.com. Thanks for your support. And if you’ve got a little time on your hands, come down and see us at the distillery.

Sincerely,

Rob Samuels
Chief Operating Officer
Ambassador-in-Chief

Bill Samuels, Jr.
Chairman Emeritus
Ambassador-at-Large”

Maybe I'm missing something here but this just seems like lunacy. Fixed supply plus  increased demand should equal premium pricing, right? Granted, you can make the reasonable argument that Maker's Mark doesn't want to alienate existing enthusiasts by increasing the price, but is it worth the risk of being perceived as compromising on quality?

What say you?

[This post also appears on the BFG blog.]

UPDATE: Maker's Mark says, "You spoke. We listened," turning social media disaster into brand goodwill. This is what using social media for business looks like.

This is seriously better than any of the actual Super Bowl ads.

Red Stripe Jamaican Lager created this response to Volkswagen's "controversial" Super Bowl commercial. The clip was posted to Red Stripe's YouTube channel on February 3, the day of the Super Bowl. What's impressive is how quickly Red Stripe acted, no doubt starting production almost immediately following the pre-release of the VW spot. It's a case study in timeliness, relevancy, and absolutely knowing who you are as a brand.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm suddenly craving a Red Strip.

Consider this recent Facebook search for Ace Hardware which returned a Sponsored Search result for Home Depot before the official Ace Hardware Facebook page. If you're Ace Hardware, the Home Depot Sponsored Page ad on the right hand side of the page just adds insult to injury. It's kind of like running the score up on an already beaten opponent late in the fourth quarter.

This example underscores what I've learned this week spending some time going through Facebook Studio, the Facebook-authored training and education platform geared specifically toward helping marketers understand and use the Facebook platform. The training material from "behind the Facebook curtain" speaks loudly: In order to see any kind of real results on Facebook, a brand needs to be advertising consistently. That may seem like an obvious sell coming from Facebook, the people that want you to buy ads from them, but you have to consider that Facebook has rigged the game with their EdgeRank algorithm—the thing that determines what shows up in people's Newsfeeds.

It is becoming clear to me that campaign-specific Facebook apps (formerly called tabs) and regular content updates alone are no longer going to cut it on Facebook. If you want significant results, you're going to have to pay to promote those apps and those content updates. I know that's not what we as marketers and content creators want to hear, and it's definitely not what clients with limited budgets want to hear, but it is quickly becoming the new reality of the Facebook ecosystem. You have to pay to play.

And now you know one of the many reasons why, personally, I am not a fan of Facebook. I'm not saying it doesn't work, only that the game is rigged and Facebook makes the rules. As long as you realize that and are willing to play by the rules Facebook makes, you'll be fine. But, if you have only enough budget to create Facebook content/apps and not enough to promote (i.e. advertise) that content, you're likely to be underwhelmed with the results.

Hey, I didn't make the rules. I'm just telling you how the game is played.

“This short film combines Origami, Kirigami, Time lapse, nankin illustration, Comic Books and Western Cinema.”

Just watch it, enjoy it, and let it inspire you.

[Thanks, K-Dev!]

Facebook Studio, the Facebook-authored resource for marketers and page managers, doesn't seem to understand the difference between the most engaging and the most relevant media type. In the example above, Facebook Studio first asks you to copy edit a lengthy status update down to something more snack size. The copy shown is that which Facebook considers to be optimized.

When Northtown's contemporary art museum was facing an image problem [sic] we challenged the complainers: Do you think you can [sic] a better job yourself? Facebook fan Keri Tsu could and did. Check out the amazing results.

The next task you're given is to pick the best visual element to accompany the post. Your choices are:

• Photograph of people waiting in line outside of the museum
• Photograph of Keri Tsu
• Video interview with Keri Tsu

According to Facebook, the correct answer is the photograph of Keri Tsu because "[p]hotos tend to get 120% more engagement vs. text only; video tends to get 100% more." Facebook would have you believe the correct answer is as simple as picking the visual element with best engagement rate. However, this answer is erroneous if the example is taken at face value; the photograph of Keri Tsu would not, as the status update suggests, communicate "the amazing results."

So Facebook Studio and I are going to have to agree to disagree on this one. In this case, a picture is not worth a thousand words. The goal of the post was apparently to familiarize people with the winning work, which is not the same as simply showing a picture of the person who did work no matter how many likes it gets.

(Side note: The typos are bush league.)

Cover letters suck. They all pretty much sound the same because unfortunately we're all taught to write them the same way. Most cover letters are utterly useless yet we still cling to them as a matter of formality.

Now imagine doing away with cover letters and replacing them with a couple of screening questions that might actual help you learn something useful or interesting about a potentional candidate. Enter Ziggeo, our topic of discussion today for Tech Tuesday on WSAV.

Not Just Another Job Website

Ziggeo isn't another online job board; it's your own private virtual screening room. Simply input some basic information and tell Ziggeo what kind of job you'd like to screen. Are you looking for job applicants, a roommate, a caretaker, volunteers, or a new babysitter?

Decide what questions you want applicants to answer but keep it to 1–3 questions; applicants only have two minutes to record their video responses. You can even request a resume from applicants at the time they record their videos. And since every Ziggeo screening room gets its own individual link, you can use it to enhance your job listings no matter where you host them—your blog, Facebook, Twitter, Craigslist, wherever.

Ziggeo is Convenient for Both Interviewers and Interviewees

One of the toughest parts of interviewing people is finding a time that is convenient for all the parties involved. If you're an applicant, you can record your video responses at your convenience, even if that's on a weeknight or on the weekend. If you're an interviewer, having the opportunity to see video of candidates answering a couple of questions may help you make better decisions about which candidates to bring in for a more in-depth interview.

Ziggeo is Affordable

For a limited time, interviewers pay only $9.95 per position to view up to 500 video responses each. If you are a candidate responding to a job listing, the service is free.

[This post also appears on the BFG blog.]

In a recent Fast Company article, Paul Adams, head of global brand design at Facebook, says only three factors will induce people to consider chatting with a brand and sharing the experience with others.

1. The encounter will help consumers express themselves.
2. The encounter will help them forge and maintain relationships.
3. The encounter will help them help someone else.

Cayman Brac, BWI. #beach #ocean

Turquoise bracelet. #fashion

Southern girl

Southern girl

Southern girl

Southern girl

Grand Cayman, BWI

Smith's Cove, Grand Cayman, BWI.

Cayman Brac, BWI. #fashion

pin up girl and classic car

Social Media Workflow [INFOGRAPHIC]

The New Face of SEO: How SEO Has Changed [Infographic]

Social Media Cheat Sheet for the top Nine Social Networks for Business [Infographic]

Facebook Do's & Don'ts for businesses [infographic]

We have a strict policy:

We have a strict policy:

The #Georgia Home T. Show a little state pride and help raise money for multiple sclerosis research. (http://www.thehomet.com/georgia-home-t-shirt)

TIMOTHY ANDERSON ART PRINT STORE

The best — and worst — times to post to social media | infographic

Sweet Tea

storms rolling in. beautiful barn.

Key West

Summer thunderheads in Georgia #South #Southern

The story behind the ‘meme’ | infographic

Le Beau House in Arabi, Louisiana is an abandoned, haunted sugar plantation. Francoise Barthelemy LeBeau bought the land in 1851, the house was finished in 1854 but a few months later he died. It stayed in the LaBeau family for about 50 years; they had a history of mistreating their slaves & some of them died as a result. They buried their bodies in adjoining fields. The deceased slaves came back... One by one the members of the LaBeau family went insane, with 2 hanging themselves here.