Web Ink Now

Google does a funny: This site may harm your computer

This morning Google kinda went haywire and all the results for my search had a message "This site may harm your computer."

For fun, I entered "Google" into the search bar and got the same results.

Note: Click on any of the screen images for a larger size.

Clicking the link led to a warning page.

A quick search on Twitter confirmed it wasn't just me.

Very quickly the hashtag #googmayharm started to be used so people could share stories and screenshots via Twitter and other social media sites.

Google does so many things so well, that it is sort of fun to catch them with a little hiccup. Just shows that we all have issues.

How Lisa Genova used social media to turn a self-published book into a NY Times bestseller

Lisa Genova created one of the coolest World Wide Raves I've seen. She is the author of Still Alice, a novel about a young woman's descent into dementia due to early-onset Alzheimer's Disease. I met Lisa at Grub Street Writers in Boston where we both lamented the traditional conventions of book marketing and strategized on how we can market our books ourselves using social media.

After she wrote Still Alice and was ready to get it into the market, Lisa spent a year trying to get literary agents and editors at publishing houses to speak with her. The editors all treated her as yet another aspiring writer not worth their time, and the few literary agents she managed to reach thought her novel wouldn’t sell.

Don't take no as your final answer!

Instead of letting "rejection" mean no book, she created a web site with valuable information about Alzheimer's Disease and started a blog. In addition, she worked with the Alzheimer's Association to establish a blog on the association site. Still Alice, although fictional, was still a truthful and respectful depiction of life with the disease and her free Web content resonated with tens of thousands of people who talked about her ideas.

She then decided to self-publish her novel and received a stamp of approval from the Alzheimer's Association. As a result of the valuable information in her blogs and the partnership with the Alzheimer's Association, Lisa developed a huge platform and the book sold briskly.

"I received lots of email from people who thanked me for writing the book," she says. "For someone with Alzheimer's or a caregiver of a loved one with this, to tell me that I got it right, that it’s uncanny how true it all was, that they saw themselves all over the book, well that's the highest compliment I can get."

As a result of Lisa's World Wide Rave plus the measurable sales success on Amazon.com and other online booksellers, Lisa generated buzz in the book world too. "An agent contacted me and I signed with her," she says. "Still Alice sold at auction in June 2008 for just over half a million dollars to Simon & Schuster." The first print run of the new edition of the book was 250,000 copies and translation rights have sold to ten foreign countries so far, with more in the works. In addition, Still Alice won the 2008 Bronte Prize.

The new edition of the book was released in January 2009 and in both of the first two weeks of availability made the New York Times Bestseller list.

Remember, this was a book that the "experts" said wouldn’t sell.

What an amazing success story!

One person with a self-published book who had been ignored by the entire book trade shared her enthusiasm, generating a World Wide Rave within a specific group (people who care about Alzheimer's), and the result is the fulfillment of a dream—the chance to share her passion for the subject with people who care—not to mention a huge book deal from a major publisher.

"Do I think that my Web site, reviews at Amazon, my blog, interviews on podcasts, profiles at MySpace [and sites for book lovers], and reviews of Still Alice at other blogs, links at my Web site to traditional press on the book, all contributed to the bidding publishing houses' ability to see the market potential for Still Alice?" Lisa asks. "I absolutely do!"

Lisa offers this advice:

"It feels like I'm been trying to storm the castle of traditional publishing for more than two years. I'm bloody and sweaty. But they finally let me in, and now they are welcoming me. I know so many aspiring writers who are sitting in a holding pattern, with a work completed, waiting to find a literary agent. They're stuck, unable to give themselves permission to write the next book because they’re waiting to find out if their work is 'good enough'—waiting to find out if they're a 'real writer.' This state of waiting, of not writing and self-doubt, is the worst state any writer can be in. My advice is this: If you don't find a literary agent falling into your lap quickly enough, if you feel like your work is done and is ready to be shared with the world, self-publish. Give your work to the world. Let it go.

You absolutely have to have a Web site. Get a profile up on Facebook and MySpace right away. When you get press, people will immediately want to go to your site. And link to the amazing reviews and news that comes out. Your site is your business card; it is how you show the world what you’re doing. A site facilitates everything you’re trying to do, and you don't need to spend thousands of dollars. You can do it yourself."

Thank you Lisa for this inspiring story. A longer version of the story of Still Alice is in my new book World Wide Rave along with stories from over 30 other successful people.

Fun with Sharpies

I love Sharpies. I carry one in my travel bag at all times because you never know when you might need one — like the time that I accidentally gouged the wooden desk leg in a hotel room. Applied a little black Sharpie and it was as good as new!

Other people dig Sharpies too, such as the guy who decorated his basement with a Sharpie or celebrities such as the Olsen Twins who use them to sign stuff or creative people like Mike Peyton, a "snake artist."

So it was fun to come across the Sharpie Blog, "a dedicated space where we can showcase some of the really fun, cool, creative stuff that gets made using Sharpie markers." The blog is written by Susan Wassel, better known as Sharpie Susan.

I connected on Twitter with Bert DuMars, Vice President E-Business & Interactive Marketing at Newell Rubbermaid (makers of Shapies) to learn more about this blog and others developed by the company.

Graco (another product from Newell Rubbermaid) was the first blog that was created. "They read mommy bloggers and met with a bunch of them in person to find out what they wanted," says DuMars. The mothers that they spoke with said to avoid being hardcore about the product and instead focus on helping parents.

"Then about a year ago, customer surveys showed that Sharpies were fun and creative but the site, because it is just a product site, was not so much fun," DuMars says. "So that led to the idea of a blog about creativity and art. The blog is about showing additional use for the pens."

I like that the Sharpie blog is not a hard sell. A lot of the blog is focused on art and Sharpie Susan does a great job showing off the work of the artists. Sharpie King for example creates works that can sell for thousands of dollars.

Sharpies already had fan sites, Facebook groups and video tributes, so the team needed to work with what was already happening. "We didn’t want to invade and ruin much of the social media stuff going on around Sharpie," DuMars says. "We wanted to help push it along a bit."

So what does executive management think about the blogs? "Senior people were happy to have us do this if we didn't invest a lot of money and didn’t harm the brand," DuMars says.

If your brand is fun and useful, consider the approach taken by Sharpie. Showcase your fans' creativity and let them market for you.

smashLAB shows what to do when another company hijacks your name

Imagine that your successful company has been doing business for years with a name that people recognize and that you think is kinda cool. Then imagine a big corporation launches a television program that uses the exact same name as your company.

Ugh, right?

Imagine how your life would be if the TV show sucks.

That's exactly what happened to smashLAB, a strategic interactive agency in Vancouver.

However, Eric Karjaluoto fought back in a very clever way by launching www.smashlabsucks.com.

What do you think of Eric's response?

Film producer builds pre-release buzz by making soundtrack available for free download

Readers of this blog know that a great way to build buzz and generate interest in products and services is to make select content available for free online. There's no doubt that free content sells. For example, my free ebook The New Rules of Viral Marketing has been downloaded over 330,000 times propelling my book The New Rules of Marketing & PR to bestseller status and helping to sell translation rights in 22 languages.

So it was with great interest that I had an opportunity to connect with Ryan Gielen, Executive Producer of The Graduates to learn about his strategy of making much the soundtrack of his new film available for free download. From this link, you can get a new song every week, or if you don’t want to wait, you can get the entire soundtrack for just 99 cents.

The Graduates, which will be released in May 2009, is an award-winning comedy about four friends who head to the beach without a care in the world, The film has been developing a loyal 18-34 year old following through a dozen sold-out festival and sneak preview screenings, advertised solely by word-of-mouth.

The film features the music of some incredible indie bands including:
The New Rags
Plushgun
Sonia Montez
The Mad Tea Party
Our Daughter's Wedding
The Smittens

Of course, the bands also benefit because people are exposed to their music and if they like it, may buy an album or see them live.

David Meerman Scott: How did the idea to offer the music free come about?

Ryan Gielen: "Marc Cuban wrote a great column on why studios should give away their soundtrack to every audience member, and advertise that as part of the ticket price. I forwarded it to my producers, even printed it out and put it on my wall, it's still there (I'm not a Mavs fan, but my best friends are, and turned me onto his blog).

Studios are extremely unlikely to ever adopt this model- for a lot of reasons- but we're not a studio film. We're a very indie film, with very indie bands on our soundtrack. Both the bands and the film need as much promotional help as possible, because we're competing with studio films, major marketing budgets, stars. We don't compete exclusively with low-budget films. We compete with everyone. So what do we have to offer our potential audience to set us apart? A great film and a great soundtrack isn't enough, we need people to know about it.

The film comes out in May, and we'll launch by giving away the first 20-25 minutes, free. But for now, we can only release the soundtrack. So we felt it made sense to give away half the soundtrack leading up to the release to build loyalty, show off the product, and compensate for a zero-dollar marketing budget, all in one fell swoop.

And when the film does well, everyone including the bands will make more than enough money to ease the pain of giving songs and 25 minutes of film away."

DMS: Was there any resistance from others on the film (producers, artists, etc.)?

RG: "My producers and I all loved this idea, and when we carefully explained it to the musicians they came along. I think it helped that everyone was aware of how hard the producers and I are working to promote the film and the individual bands on the soundtrack. They recognized that we're extremely dedicated to their success, not just our own. I think the knee-jerk reaction is to get really uptight about giving stuff away, even if it's just one song, but that's so shortsighted.

I should add that movie studios will probably be very slow to adopt this model, possibly because they load soundtracks with famous music that is too expensive to give away. But anyone outside the studio system can recruit brilliant music from tens of thousands of indie bands and use the soundtrack as a living, breathing flexible promotional tool.

This model is why iTunes has turned record stores into dinosaurs- anyone can preview the product on iTunes, we never have to buy blind again. Our giveaway is really just another version of the preview. If you're already letting people preview your music, why not give a song or two away, just to make sure everyone is listening to you, instead of the MILLIONS of other bands available."

DMS: What advice would you give musicians and filmmakers?

RG: "Music licensing is an enormous headache for indie filmmakers (and probably for ad agencies?), and we have enough challenges in front of us with this tiny little film to promote. We all agreed early on that we would go out and find great bands that hadn't been discovered because that would help us license the music, and they would be excited by the exposure. I expect that if we had pitched this to established, signed bands we would've been laughed out of the room.

But that's their own shortsightedness. The media landscape is so broad that we literally had 9,000 bands submit, something like 100,000 songs to choose from. If our little film takes off, people all over the country will discover new music and buy it through our website and iTunes. The worst-case scenario for even an established band is that we just crafted a $100,000 music video for them. The Rolling Stones should laugh us out of the room, but this is a good opportunity for many, many bands.

Bands need to take their future in their own hands. Track down indie filmmakers on IMDb and send them links. I listen to everything people send because I know they're as hungry as I am. One good indie film can set you up with a brand new audience around the country. One great indie can set you up around the world. If they were really clever bands would even insist on having a thirty-second or one-minute trailer cut exclusively with their song. The filmmaker would be likely to agree because it costs him nothing, and he gets a great piece of music, and the band just got a free music video.

Which, of course, they should give away immediately to any and all potential fans."

DMS: Nice work Ryan! You, your produces, and the bands that are participating are doing the right thing. I wish you great success with The Graduates!

Inclusive Language Ratio comparing first Obama presidential address with last from Bush

UPDATE January 20, 2009 at 7:30 pm

Thanks to several people who commented on this post and pointed out that my original analysis was not a fair comparison. "Comparing apples and oranges," Matthew said.

Therefore, I have analyzed George W. Bush's first inauguration address from 2001 and counted the following:
Internal language 11 (me 0, I 8, and my 3)
Inclusive language 100 (our 49, we 41, us 10)

President Bush First Inaugural Inclusive Language Ratio = 9.1
President Obama First Inaugural Inclusive Language Ratio = 47

Yes, the results are different. Thank you for suggesting the modification. However, this analysis still shows President Obama using dramatically more inclusive language than President Bush.

++++++++++++++++++++
ORIGINAL POST

I find presidential politics a fascinating area to study from the marketing and communications perspective. This post provides a detailed analysis of the language chosen by President Bush for his farewell address to the nation and the language chosen by President Obama for his inauguration address.

The most amazing contrast for me was the use of internal language by President Bush, who referred to "me," "I," and "my" a total of 44 times compared to President Obama's use of internal language only 3 times.

In contrast, President Obama used inclusive language such as "our," "we," and "us" a total of 142 times compared to President Bush who used inclusive language 64 times.

Let's call this the Inclusive Language Ratio which I'll say is inclusive language used in a speech divided by internal language.
President Bush Inclusive Language Ratio = 1.45
President Obama Inclusive Language Ratio = 47

As a marketer, I find this huge difference very telling. People want to hear about what's in it for them, and they are looking for answers to problems. Great marketing is created for buyers.

On Thursday evening, January 15, 2009, President George W. Bush's delivered his farewell address to the nation. The text, as transcribed by the White House, was made available by the Associated Press.

On Tuesday afternoon, January 20, 2009, President Barack Obama delivered his inaugural address to the nation. The text was made available by the Associated Press (which I found via the Miami Herald).

Granted, the purposes of these two speeches were different. However, coming so close to one another, I do think that it is a fair comparison.

Important note: Readers of this blog know that I do not write about politics and that is not my intention here. I am a marketer and write about marketing and communications. This is not a political analysis, but a marketing one.

I found several other comparisons interesting. President Bush used language referring to threats 18 times while President Obama did 6 times. President Bush used the words "freedom" or "liberty" a total of 9 times while President Obama did twice.

Some details:

President Bush's speech

1860 words and he spoke for approximately 15 minutes.

Internal language 44 uses (Me 4, I 31, my 9)

Inclusive language 64 uses (Our 37, we 23, us 4)

Threat language 18 uses (Attack 3, terror/terrorist 7, enemy 1, threat 3, battle 1, safe / safety 3)

Freedom and liberty – 9 uses (Freedom 5, liberty 4)

President Obama's speech

2403 words and he spoke for a little over 20 minutes.

Internal language 3 uses (Me 0, I 2, my 1)

Inclusive language 143 uses (our 67, we 60, us 15)

Threat language 6 uses (attack 0, terror/terrorist 1, enemy 1, threat 3, safe / safety 1)

Freedom and liberty 2 uses (freedom 0, liberty 2)

CENTURY 21 moves TV ad spend to online: Bev Thorne, CMO, tell us why

Back in October, I posted several times about Real Estate giant CENTURY 21. Initially, Matt Gentile, Director Public Relations and Brand Communications for CENTURY 21 Real Estate LLC challenged me to provide my Top 10 ideas for CENTURY 21 Real Estate to implement The New Rules of Marketing & PR. Then, I posted Attention CENTURY 21 Real Estate: Proof new marketing works because just two days after I sent my Top Ten post, Google has indexed that blog post as the number six result for the phrase CENTURY 21 Real Estate out of 1,780,000 hits.

CENTURY 21 has just announced a significant move, pulling its national television advertising in 2009 and investing those resources into online marketing.

Wow! I’ve seen CENTURY 21 TV ads for years. This is a big deal.

I had an opportunity to learn more about this from Bev Thorne, Chief Marketing Officer at CENTURY 21 Real Estate LLC. Bev kindly took time over the weekend to answer some questions about this bold move.

WebInkNow: CENTURY 21 is pulling national television advertising in 2009 and investing those resources into online marketing. Why are you doing that?

"We are moving our advertising investments to the mediums that have the greatest relevance to our target buyers and sellers, and to where the return on our investment is most significant. In 2008, we found that our online investments provided a return that was substantively higher than our more traditional, TV media investments."

WebInkNow: What have you learned about how people use the Web to buy or sell real estate that prompted this move?

"We've learned that people who are in the market to buy or sell a home utilize the Internet heavily. And the closer they get to a real estate transaction, the more they use the Web. They often self-identify when they are on various real estate sites, and they clearly identify the geographic locations and properties that they are interested in. Our online initiatives will be focused on ensuring that our listings and sales professionals are positioned in as many online channels as possible to meet the consumers' needs and then enable the transaction via an advanced CRM platform."

WebInkNow: Will you be doing some of the work in-house? Or using agencies?

"We will predominantly, but not exclusively, rely upon professionals who specialize in this area. The greatest value that we as a marketing team can bring to the CENTURY 21 System is to provide the vision and direction to our vendors and business partners. By providing industry leadership online, we are creating a competitive advantage for our brokers and agents."

WebInkNow: What are you doing in the social media space? Will you be focusing efforts on media like YouTube videos, blogs, and social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others?

"CENTURY 21 is just beginning our efforts in this area, and are beginning to embrace LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Active Rain, etc. You Tube is already a central component of our activities, and we seek to utilize it even more in 2009. I know through the efforts of our PR team the power of social networking with opinion leading bloggers like yourself. In addition to the social networks and content platforms, we are also focusing on creating an environment to drive organic messaging content through sites like WebInkNow. Media monitoring is an important part of any cogent marketing strategy and we understand how important it is to leverage content and opinion in this space. Thank you for taking the time to jot down your thoughts with regard to the Top 10 Things CENTURY 21 can do to utilize social media. I am always interested in reading the opinions of thought leaders who are successfully utilizing social media in their business."

WebInkNow: Anything else you'd like to add?

"The CENTURY 21 network spans the globe. With our existing global network of over 135,000 brokers and agents, I believe that we are only beginning to understand and leverage the business possibilities through the practical application of Web 2.0 tools and social networks. Many of real estate professionals are setting the trends for us with regard to social media and we are developing a social media platform to empower those not yet comfortable in this space. It is a very exciting time to be at the forefront of real estate marketing."

WebInkNow: Thank you for taking the time to tell us what you're up to, Bev.

Editorial comment:

This is an exciting move. Many companies that spend large amounts of money on television advertising are afraid to make even a partial move away from the comfort zones and into online marketing and social media.

But the evidence of how people actually research products overwhelmingly suggests that companies must tell their stories and spread their ideas online, at the precise moment that people are searching for answers.

It will be exciting to hear from Matt and Bev in the months to come as the online initiatives kick in and produce results.

Download the free 2009 Bad Usability Calendar

My good friend Steve Johnson points us to the 2009 Bad Usability Calendar from NetLife Research.

Download it for free with no registration required.


I just love this kind of marketing. This is not a typical sales oriented message. Nobody at NetLife Research is shouting "BUY MY PRODUCT." Instead the calendar is a funny and valuable one-pager that people share. It presents valuable information about Web site usability.

If I were looking for someone to help me with a usability issue, guess who I would go to now?

NetLife Research is a team of Oslo, Norway-based UX professionals who are deeply passionate about user experience. Last year, over 100,000 people downloaded the annual calendar. It is offered in several different languages and in various paper output modes, so it is a perfect way to trigger another World Wide Rave for NetLife Research this year.

How can you create something simple and clever that gets people to share your ideas and tell your stories? Your Challenge: How can you trigger your own World Wide Rave?

How an active Facebook group drove 15,000 people to the Singapore Tattoo Show

I speak at dozens of conferences a year all over the world. Since organizers usually book me many months in advance, I have some visibility into how they promote the events. It tends to be the same old methods: Send an email and a direct mail to everyone who attended last year, buy some email and postal mailing lists and send some more promotions. Most shows build good Web sites and most have decent SEO. But that's usually it.

What if you're charged with promoting a brand new show?

Because there's no previous attendees to draw from the work is much more difficult.

Or is it? When a show is new, the “old rules” of promotion don’t apply. You can do something new and untested.

The 1st Annual Singapore Tattoo Show, held January 9-11, 2009, was endorsed and supported by Singapore Tourism Board and included Show Ambassador Chris Garver of Miami Ink. The goal was to get 5,000 visitors to the show where over 120 artists from around the globe representing all the various modern tattoo styles ticked away with their machines. All sorts of fun and funky exhibitors were there and Emcee & Show DJ Shawn Lee pumping awesome sounds throughout the hall.

Andrew Peters is the brains behind the social media promotions leading up to the Singapore Tattoo Show, working on both traditional and social media publicity.

What I find fascinating as a show promotional tool was the Facebook Group called Tattoo Artistry that was started three months prior to the event. This is important for all show organizers to study.

Andrew used Facebook as a way for people to connect well before the physical event and the Tattoo Artistry Facebook Group quickly gained 3,000 members, securing a place as the center of this artwork for the region. In a sense, the physical show started with a virtual group. The is new marketing for conferences and events.

The passion of the members of the Tattoo Artistry Facebook group for "their event" meant promoting to their friends. The online community included people eager to attend the live event. Instead of relying on buying expensive advertising, Andrew built a community of passionate fans who built anticipation and buzz for the event.

With more than 15,000 people attending, the event brought three times the expected number of attendees!

The Tattoo Artistry Facebook group is now Asia's largest social network for the tattoo industry, tattoo enthusiasts, and fans. The group will continue to grow as an online destination to connect and plans are already underway for the 2nd Singapore Tattoo Show in 2010.

Alas, no, I was not at the show in person. But with my participation in the Tattoo Artistry Facebook group and one of my World Wide Rave posters appearing in photos I feel like I was there in spirit.

Lose Control of your Marketing! New free ebook

Lose Control of your Marketing! Why marketing ROI measures lead to failure

Please download my new ebook Lose Control of your Marketing! Why marketing ROI measures lead to failure.

(Please note: This link brings you directly to the PDF ebook with no registration required and no landing page. It is a 1.2MB document, so please be patient.)

Do you market like the Grateful Dead? Or like Led Zeppelin?
(Find out in the ebook).

Here are some other things you'll find inside:

"For many executives, an obsession with ROI is just a convenient excuse to shy away from something new and untested. Yet that's exactly what the best ideas for creating a World Wide Rave are—new and untested."

"If you're obsessed with ROI measurements that worked in an offline world, then you're just making an excuse. If you worry about losing control of your message, then you're making an excuse."

"For decades, companies have offered Web content as lead bait. But the goal should be to get the word out about your organization, not to misuse the Internet for the sake of an outdated technique."

"For your ideas to spread and rise to the status of a World Wide Rave, you must give up control. Make your information on the Web totally free for people to access, with absolutely no virtual strings attached."

Please download my new ebook Lose Control of your Marketing! Why marketing ROI measures lead to failure. And please share!

(Please note: This link brings you directly to the PDF ebook with no registration required and no landing page. It is a 1.2MB document, so please be patient.)