Cris: What do you think that a lot of marketing people are missing right now? Michael Hourigan of Shoeboxed: In terms of being a good marketer, especially for a tech company like Shoeboxed, the most important thing you can do is be a data-driven marketer. You'll get a lot of marketers who understand the theory and understand building brands, which is exactly what you need to be doing. But at the end of the day, you have to have quantifiable results of the ad campaigns you're running or the social media campaigns you're running. You have to have numbers to back it up. And even before you start them, you have to have projections and hypotheses of what you are looking to accomplish. Instagram launched a feature they call "Instagram Stories". Theoretically this sounds better than "Snapchat Ripoff". Essentially Instagram has added Snapchat functions to their own platform. Thus you can now use Instagram as you would traditionally or as if it were Snapchat.
Snapchat distinguished itself by becoming home to some of the most boring content on the Internet. Insurance seminars are more exciting than most of the material on Snapchat. A select group also liked that your posts disappeared after being viewed on Snapchat. This was a big draw for people who posted obscene hand gestures and occasional nudity, but did not like being sued. Of course, then it came out that all of those disappearing posts were being stored on the company's servers. So the company has a different definition of "disappear" than most people do. I was visiting with a friend from college who I had not seen in 30 years. And the person said, “You're a lot more head strong and sassy than you used to be.” I said, “Well, raising two strong, independent girls and running a business will do that to you I guess.” - Marcia Cubitt of clients Essential Bodywear Cris: What's one of the more memorable projects you've worked on? Will Hardison of FanBase: We redesigned RCA Television's website. That was fun because that was a huge learning experience. RCA is located in America, but they have branches all over the world. So not only were we working with the American division, we were working with the French division, etc. I remember we were on a phone call and each representative from each brand around the world was on it looking at the home page we had designed. It was our first time working with a global brand that had brand standards, like how much white space had to be around the logo. With, say, Bill's electrician shop or Sally's bakery, they don't have that type of stuff. So you're kind of free to do whatever. But when you're working with RCA Televisions, they are like “No, it has to be an inch around every single time you use our logo." Something to consider: While everyone else is chasing perfection, imperfection might be how you stand out from the crowd. - Cris
One of the big trends in social media right now is live video. Mainly this has enabled a number of people to bore their followers in real time. "Yesterday we live streamed these drapes for two hours."
The world is filled with interesting bands, businesses, and individuals. But when you give them the ability to broadcast to the entire world, all most of them can think to say is, "There's Carl. He has trouble digesting dairy." Live video can be great, but first make sure you have something worth broadcasting. - Cris |
AuthorCris Cohen Archives
March 2021
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