In further defining and developing our brand I got to thinking about my title. Marketing Director. Sounded good back in the day. The thing is, I’m not just the Marketing Director for Core Zero Creative. I wear that hat for many of the companies we work with, whether here in Maine or elsewhere around the globe, and whether it’s website design and development, social media marketing strategy, or search engine optimization, these are all services that Core Zero Creative offers. What we do is New Media Marketing Consulting. That’s much more accurate. It involves coordinating a company’s website, brand, social media, and search engine optimization efforts so that they work together in harmony.

Here’s a definition from trusty old Wikipedia:

New Media is a broad term that emerged in the later part of the 20th century to encompass the amalgamation of traditional media such as film, images, music, spoken and written word, with the interactive power of computer and communications technology, computer-enabled consumer devices and most importantly the Internet. New media holds out a possibility of on-demand access to content any time, anywhere, on any digital device, as well as interactive user feedback, creative participation and community formation around the media content. What distinguishes New media from traditional media is not the digitizing of media content into bits, but the dynamic life of the “new media” content and its interactive relationship with the media consumer. This dynamic life, moves, breathes and flows with pulsing excitement in real time. Another important promise of New Media is the “democratization” of the creation, publishing, distribution and consumption of media content.

Thus, a high-definition digital television broadcast of a film viewed on a digital plasma TV is still an example of traditional media, while an “analog” paper poster of a local rock band that contains a web address where fans can find information and digital music downloads is an example of New media communication.

Wikipedia itself is one of the best examples of the New media phenomenon, combining Internet accessible digital text, images and video with web-links, creative participation of contributors, interactive feedback of users and formation of a participant community of editors and donors.

So then, there we have it. I’m a “New Media Marketing Consultant”. Of course, New Media is mroe or less the “wave of the present” as I like to say, so don’t be surprised if I find the need to modify it again soon. I’ll try to get through 2010 with that anyway, OK?

Rock On!

Eric

What is the fascination with toilets these days? I can hardly get through an episode of The Bachelorette (I still wish she had picked Chris!) without seeing those new Clorox commercials, which crack me up by the way!

And today… We were on an appointment with a new potential client, talking about how awesome we are and the power of Social Media, and one of the guys tells us how he made a toilet purchase based on a YouTube video. I must admit, it looks pretty amazing! Is it gross that I got hungry after watching this?

Toilets and Social Media. Who new?

Twitter has rolled out a new feature based on studying its users’ use of the #FollowFriday or #FF hashtags. It suggests people you may be interested in following based on, among other things, who you follow and who they follow. You’ll see this on a tab called Suggestions For You on the Find People page.

“With more than a hundred million users on Twitter, there are sure to be at least dozens of accounts out there that will reflect your interests. The trouble is finding all of them. Today we’re beginning to roll out a simple, but powerful new feature to help address that — “Suggestions for You”. The algorithms in this feature, built by our user relevance team, suggest people you don’t currently follow that you may find interesting. The suggestions are based on several factors, including people you follow and the people they follow. You’ll see these suggestions on Twitter.com and the Find People section. If you like a suggestion, click “follow”; if you don’t, click “hide,” and we’ll try not to suggest that user again.” From the Official Twitter Blog.

Though not perfect, Social Follow helps users passively find new friends and in the long run may be a more productive alternative to the flood of follow Fridays that occur now. There has been no word on whether or not companies will someday be able to pay Twitter to be recommended to appropriate users, but that would certainly go over well. For now, it’s not only a handy new feature, but it will be interesting to see how this impacts the use of #FollowFriday over time.

Enjoy!

Eric

Yes, that’s a challenge.

I have made a commitment to blog more often. One reason, of course, is for all the reasons we’ve been telling you to start or be actively blogging… become a trusted resource on your industry, it’s great SEO (Search Engine Optimization), develop a conversation around your industry, product or service, cause, or personality. To be honest I have many of the same limiting beliefs as most of you. What do I write about and who actually wants to read what I have to say. Well, I guess we’ll find out! I know what you’re thinking “but you give hands-on workshops on blogging“? The brains and brawn of that division of Core Zero is Eric. He is an absolutely beautiful writer and speaker. Listen, I know my strengths and I am all too aware of my weaknesses but I am teachable. And so are you which is the point of this experiment. You know how much we love our experiments!

First, I will tell you what my qualifications are so that you will want to follow EVERYTHING I have to say… there are none! Well, mostly none, but that is exactly why you are going to want to follow my blog posts.

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Well, July is almost over and I’ve neglected to post on a couple of great events we’ve been a part of this month.

First, on July 7, 2010, Eric Bryant had the honor of doing a special breakout session on Social Media for Maine Successful Thinkers and on July 22, 2010 Core Zero Creative hosted a face-to-face networking event at Margarita’s in Auburn, Maine with guest speaker Debra Ann St. Hilaire of Menda-A-Body. Both events were well attended and many great connections were made.

Jeff Ball of Maine Successful Thinkers and Debra Ann St. Hilaire of Mend-A-Body are both exceptional people and business owners with the highest integrity! We are honored to have been paired with them during these events and pray many blessings on their endeavors.

Hang around these two, take lessons, and pick their brains if you want to know how to be successful.

Today we had our first Social Media Lunch & Learn at Margarita’s in Auburn, Maine. Everyone brought their questions, concerns, and gave great input. Margarita’s served a great lunch and as usual, great service.

We talked about concerns regarding time management, the differences between the different platforms, and what you should be doing online. The participants have given a lot of positive feedback.

Thanks for the Lunch & Learn on July 6 at Margarita’s. Your presentation was clear and informative. Thanks for answering questions in a way I could easily understand and will be able to use the information immediately. I’m looking forward to future lunches.

Freddie Collins
Next Level Business Coaching

We are so pleased with the turn out and are really looking forward to future Social Media Lunch & Learns.

Congratulations to Ellen Gibson of Professional Writing Services! She won the Sony Walkman Water Resistant 2GB MP3 Player that we raffled off to those that participated in the up close and personal social media consults we had at the Androscoggin B2B Trade Show! It’s a neat MP3 player because it has no wires to tangle up! It was carefully selected by our Media Team Leader, 16-year-old Zaq Stiles. It’s got to be good if a 16 year old musician selected it, right?!!

If you’re in need of professional writing services give us a call or shoot an email over and we’ll connect you with Ellen!

And Ellen, it was a pleasure working with you at the trade show.

Best wishes and enjoy!

The Core Zero Creative Team

Core Zero Creative, your one-stop shop for Maine Web Design & Social Media Marketing Workshops in Maine had a WHOPPER of a day over at the Androscoggin B2B Trade Show Thursday! First of all, Thank You to the LAEGC, The Chamber, and all the businesses and people involved to make this event happen each year. What a wonderful statement of commitment to our economy and local businesses! It was our first year there as an exhibitor and we could not have been more delighted with the experience. We brought a crew of 5 to “work the show” and that really paid off. We all got plenty of face time with visitors as well as enough down time to stay sane. Those that chose not to stay sane spent their free time walking the show visiting other booths, sharing the insanity. And eating cookies. And other good stuff. I may still be touched…

With over 200 vendors plus their crews, and over 2,500 visitors… 3,000 people… what a great day to network and get the pulse on who’s who and what’s what here in Lewiston-Auburn and the surrounding areas. (Not to mention getting to sleep all day Friday!) I highly recommend taking a day out of your busy schedule next year to attend this show. You will be glad you did!

Privacy on Facebook

Privacy is built around a few key ideas: You should have control over what you share. It should be easy to find and connect with friends. Your privacy settings should be simple and easy to understand.

On Facebook, there are three basic levels of privacy: Friends, Friends of Friends, Everyone. You also have a set of public information, which helps your friends find and connect with you: your Name, Profile Picture, Gender, and any Connections you’ve made. This includes the friends, networks and Pages you’ve chosen to connect to. You also always have control over who can see your Connections on your profile.

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If you really want to know what you should be doing online my recommendation is to network in a real and authentic way. We’re not talking about networking like you see at your local chamber of commerce meet-ups where people whip out business cards and throw them around like ninja stars, but networking as in:

• Finding a networking community that shares your interests (and yes, this can be a Facebook page, LinkedIn or a handful of Blogs).
• Making sure that everyone connected in the community has shared/similar values.
• Adding your own value (insights, news, etc…) that helps to elevate to the community and the participants.
• Do much more for others before asking them to do something for you (I think Chris Brogan’s rule is perfect: do twelve things for others before asking them to do one thing for yourself).
• Don’t ask for business, but try to find business for everyone else.
• Plug into the community. Sincerely. Get to know your neighbors and be helpful.

It’s not sexy and it doesn’t add to your bottom line… today.

And that’s why so few people do it so well, and those that do it very well are the true rock stars of their industry.

That’s what you should do online.

Many thanks to Mitch Joel for this post!