Caelum Marketing, LLC » Marketing

Top 25 Social Media Categories You Should Consider for Your Toolbox

Caelum Buzz — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 14:46:46 +0000

Social Media is NOT just the usage of networking tools like Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn. It’s a mix of channels that promote interactive community with your audience.

*Please leave comments below of sites that may have been left out. I will add tot he list and post as a note on our Facebook Page as a growing reference. Thanks for playing!

Communication

Blogs: Blogger, ExpressionEngine, LiveJournal, Open Diary, TypePad, Vox, WordPress, Xanga, Blog.com
Microblogging: FMyLife, Foursquare, Jaiku, Plurk, Posterous, Tumblr, Twitter, My2i, Qaiku, Yammer, Google Buzz, Identi.ca
Location-based Social Networks: Foursquare, Geoloqi, Gowalla, Facebook places, The Hotlist
Social Networking: ASmallWorld, Cyworld, Facebook, Hi5, LinkedIn, MySpace, Orkut, Tagged, XING, Hyves, My2i, Plaxo, Ning
Events: Eventful, The Hotlist, Meetup.com, Upcoming
Information Aggregators: Netvibes, Twine (website)
Online Advocacy and Fundraising: Causes, Kickstarter

Collaboration/authority building

Wikis: PBworks, Wetpaint, Wikia, Wikimedia, Wikispaces, Jottit
Social Bookmarking (or social tagging):^[17] CiteULike, Delicious, Diigo, Google Reader, StumbleUpon, folkd
Social News: Digg, Mixx, NowPublic, Reddit, My2i, Newsvine, MyWeboo
Social navigation: Trapster, Waze ^[18]
Content Management Systems: WordPress, Drupal, Joomla,
Document Managing and Editing Tools: Google Docs, Syncplicity, Docs.com

Multimedia

Photography and art sharing: deviantArt, Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa, SmugMug, Zooomr, BetweenCreation
Video sharing: sevenload, Viddler, Vimeo, YouTube, Dailymotion, Metacafe, Nico Nico Douga (japanese film sharing site), Openfilm,
Livecasting: Justin.tv, Livestream, OpenCU, Skype, Stickam, Ustream, blip.tv
Music and audio sharing: ccMixter, Pandora Radio, Last.fm, MySpace Music, ReverbNation.com, ShareTheMusic, The Hype Machine, Groove Shark, SoundCloud
Presentation sharing: scribd, SlideShare

Reviews and opinions

Product reviews: epinions.com, MouthShut.com
Business reviews: Customer Lobby, Yelp, Inc.
Community Q&A: Askville, EHow, Stack Exchange, WikiAnswers, Yahoo! Answers, Fluther, Google Guru

Entertainment

Media and entertainment platforms: Cisco Eos
Virtual Worlds: Active Worlds, Forterra Systems, Second Life, The Sims Online
Game sharing: Kongregate, Miniclip

Brand monitoring

Social Media Monitoring: Attensity, Statsit, Sysomos, Vocus, Social Mention

Corporate Citizenship

Caelum Buzz — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 15:09:31 +0000

Philanthropy is not limited to the wealth of individuals nor is it seen as a by-product of doing business. Today the philanthropic generosity of the corporate community is intertwined into the fabric of a brand’s recognition to its publics and stakeholders. Consumers increasingly take pride in associating their own purchases with companies to the social good they are affecting. The knowledge of this builds the brands awareness and loyalty via these brand champions.

A fantastic read, this article with research conducted by Interbrand, explains the quantitative benefits of Corporate Citizenship (Corporate Social Responsibility). Flip through the pages of this publication. Enjoy! *Hover over the ISSUU document to view as a full page for ease.

Open publication – Free publishing – More strategy

8 Basic Tips to Getting Published

Caelum Buzz — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 16:14:29 +0000

Publishing Your Expertise

Wanna get the buzz going about your brand/product/service/organization in a consistent manner? One way is to become viewed as an expert or thought leader in your area and you can do this by participating in the conversation. Posting your comments on relative sites is key but leading the conversation by penning your own articles is progress!

Get them published as a guest writer. Be courteous and respectful of publisher guidelines and your byline can be added to tout your micro bio, website, expertise, etc.

Here’s a few tips to remember:

(1) Follow the publisher’s submission guidelines to a T!

Do not include your own creative interpretation of the guidelines. Do not skip the guideline you don’t want to follow and keep the other. Just make it easy on yourself and DO IT THE WAY THEY ASK. If you submit an article that does not follow the guidelines, most likely the submission will just be deleted.

(2) FORMAT the RIGHT WAY!

Publishers DON’T have time to format your work. They are busy people trying to run a magazine/blog/paper for goodness sakes.

~ 65 characters per line then HARD RETURN – 65 characters INCLUDES spaces
~ Use text editor like Notepad (PC) or Text Edit (Mac)
~ Double return between paragraphs
~ Use short paragraph sections

(3) 6 lines for your byline

Publishers DON’T LIKE excessively long bylines. Keep ‘em short & sweet.

(4) Entice Your Readers with Intriguing Titles

Powerful headlines get ATTENTION! But… keep them one-liners.

(5) Retire Ur Texting N Social Media Grammar/Spelling 4 Now

A publisher is not gonna edit your article for you. On your personal blogs and sites, it is perfectly acceptable to add your personality and slang to your writings as long as it is relevant to your industry but when submitting articles, show them your professional capabilities to create the expert credentials. Read your article several times and use spellcheck.

(6) Don’t Submit Sales Pitches as Articles.

A Publishers wants to provide QUALITY to their audience. A sales pitch will go nowhere except the trash.

(7) Don’t Refer Readers to Your Affiliate Sites

Transparency is everything! If your article is filled with affiliate links, your credibility is shot. It appears biased and that is not going to gain you any trust from the readership.

(8) Be sincere.

Talk to your readers and portray a desire to inform and give good insight.

Writing takes time and organization. Put the effort into following the guidelines and then ensure you are submitting quality work. This is YOUR brand you know. Create the image in a reader’s mind that you are the expert by leading the conversation.

Good Luck.

Blogging Fashionistas Inspire the Market

Caelum Buzz — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 19:17:59 +0000

Blogging celebritydom…. The fashion world’s brands have jumped on the band wagon to “encourage” bloggers to review and showcase their products by using sponsorships. This is an elite group of bloggers that get chosen of course. They must have a fan base, following and audience they influence. We are talking about bloggers who have a collection of tens of thousands of impressions per month.

Check out this list at The Coveted of Fashionista Bloggers who are cultivating the conversations. Marketing has been transitioning over the years to conversations taking place between those in the know and those who want to be, expanding the avenues of awareness through “word of mouth” online. The social media world is becoming second nature in our daily lives but is exaggerated in this industry’s target market. These are people who MUST be connected. Brands and bloggers have found themselves a partnership worth investing in.

An industry of middlemen has sprung up to create the partnerships between the brands and bloggers. Some ad networks have writers on staff who write the articles as guest writers while other bloggers feature products themselves. What is the trade off? Some companies provide free products to the bloggers for trade and others are paying upwards of $4000 if the audience numbers are right. Beware to the bloggers who do NOT disclose sponsorship! It can backfire HUGE!

Read the entire article at WWD (Women’s Wear Daily) Marketing’s New Rage: Brands Sponsoring Influential Bloggers

What do Guitar Hero & Kindle have in Common?

Caelum Buzz — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 16:55:43 +0000

Guitar Hero is a massively popular video game interface and the Kindle is a book reader. For the most part the 2 target markets are pretty different. So what do these two entities have in common? MIT. You know… the highly prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
My father, Thomas Tahan, went to MIT. My perception of MIT has always been that it was a stuffy, techy school in Boston that bred a whole quirky, insanely genius populous of people that were beyond my comprehension. That still may be but I just learned something else. They have a Media Lab that is pumping out some of the world’s most popular technology for the everyday world. I just assumed all that is MIT was too high level for my cognizant faculties but Guitar Hero and the E-Ink of Kindle are just a few of the inventions created at the MIT Media Lab.

Read more details at Mental Floss. (My new favorite website. check out their Amazing Facts Generator)

7 Fascinating Ways to Spice Up a Boring Blog

Caelum Buzz — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 16:53:10 +0000

There are so many bloggers in the world. It’s easy, acceptable & economical (free in most cases). How do the best of the best create their cult followings? How are they enveloped in a crowd of salivating readers who are feigning for more, more, more? Are you able to draw the attention of thousands and keep them dangling on your every word? Probably NOT. I am not doubting you! The reality is that maybe 5% of the bloggers out there in the world are master artisans of this caliber.
So how do you uncover the secrets of true blogging celebrity-dom? Who knows. but you could start here. They all implement the tactics talked about in the Pushing Social article “7 Fascinating Ways to Spice Up a Boring Blog”.

E-trade Baby Rocks the Superbowl

Caelum Buzz — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:45:19 +0000

Grey New York manages to throw in the humor we all expect from Super Bowl commercials with a new E-Trade baby. What did you think about the commercial line up for Bowl breaks?

Top 5 Questions to ask about your Marketing Campaign

Caelum Buzz — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 11:20:49 +0000

The Big Picture: Is your marketing campaign up to the challenge?
Marketing campaigns are the success strategies of your business. Your marketing campaign’s purpose may be to create and reinforce strong brand recognition or launch a new product to market. To be effective though, it has to capture your audience. Ask yourself… will your marketing campaign be emotionally engaging enough to evoke action?
SO…What’s the Big Picture?
According to Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, we have entered a new more creative time for marketing, the “Conceptual Age”. The key to success in this new outlook, says Pink, is “the capacity to detect patterns and opportunities, to create artistic and emotional beauty, to craft a satisfying narrative, and to combine seemingly unrelated ideas into something new.”
Put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) with your creative team to erect the BIG PICTURE.
Look through your checklist for the fundamentals:

Is your campaign emotionally engaging?
Does it possess an amazing visual connection?
Will the audience remember the creative tagline?
Does the campaign tell a clear memorable story?
Does the campaign support and advance the business goals?

The More the Merrier!
Great ideas come from great collaboration. Team members with different skill sets tend to be a good representation of the general public who will see your marketing campaigns. Extra sets of eyes and minds can catch mistakes, dissipate confusing verbiage or concepts, and/or add unique dimensions. The possibilities are endless. This process could come up with a great deal of material that may or may not be utilized but it creates an open environment of free flowing ideas to work with. From here your marketing unit can whittle down to the nitty gritty of a relevant, clear, and succinct marketing picture.

All Your Options
Whittle down the ideas to create the refined succinct marketing objective and messaging and there you have it. You have emerged unscathed with a marketing campaign that can be tweaked for usage between all your media options.
Map out how you will transform your marketing campaign between print, radio, interactive, and mobile media channels. Most importantly, BE CONSISTENT! The message must be reflected throughout every path to your consumer.
Stand strong, push forward, and put on your thinking caps! The right Big Picture will drive a marketing campaign the extra mile.