Hey, idiots: I’ve spent week after week eliminating spam comments from my blog. My email goes off every 20 minutes with people (spammers) posting their website with useless crap. A bit of a hint for you guys:
If you are trying to build (or pay someone to build) back links – blog comments do not count 99% of the time! The only way they would actually count is if there is a “dofollow” tag associated with them, and even then, chances are the moderator of the blog isn’t stupid enough to let this crap through.
To these scam artists trying to make a quick buck off of poor shlubs trying to increase their natural exposure to search engines: Knock it off. We know what you’re doing, and it’s annoying for everyone involved, and a scam in the purest sense of the word. I find it hard to believe, for example, that my blog now has 100 total comments when, honestly, I don’t have a very large reach as far as my audience is concerned. Out of that 100, a whopping 79 of them I’ve marked as spam. This is because they either advertise a product or build back links. It’s terrible form, and they know it.
Good luck spamming fellas, you won’t find any sanctuary here.
Part One: Guerrilla Marketing
Guerrilla Marketing is an essential part of any advertisers plan of attack; be it on online only business or a company looking to establish it’s brand into the virtual space, Guerrilla Marketing cannot be ignored. In the first installment of this series, I spoke about defining a advertising budget and briefly outlined a few aspects of marketing that I believe are proven and mainstream. The first of which is Guerrilla Marketing techniques.
For anyone that needs a definition of Guerrilla Marketing, simply look to YouTube for examples. In my previous blog entry, I mention how companies such as Old Spice understands the value of viral marketing, (in this case, in a video format), and is considered a form of Guerrilla Marketing.
Guerrilla Marketing is often times relatively free if you’re willing to do the ground work yourself. As marketers, it’s your job to spread the word about the company you own, or work for. As such, taking advantage of free measures such as YouTube and Blog entries (eh hem), is powerful because it not only shows that it’s possible to create something out of nothing, but that the traditional model of marketing doesn’t always need to be pursued in order to be noticed. Why pay thousands of dollars on commercial and TV placements when you’ve got YouTube? (Admittedly, this is a bit of a gross generalization, but the point still stands). For those looking for an official definition of Guerrilla Marketing:
The value of this can be immense if properly put together. Outside of the typical viral marketing video, however, are some other efforts that can be utilized. These include:
The Importance of Advertising Budgets in an online Business
Most everyone can agree that advertising a business is extremely important. The same goes for an internet business almost doubly so, simply because of the sheer volume of companies out there doing, likely, the same exact thing you’re doing. How do you stand out in this jungle of wares?
As I had mentioned a few days ago, Growing Your internet Business Organically is something that needs to be taken into consideration, and should be second to none – the first line of attack for generating business of average passers-by. But how do you give that extra boost your company may need to live up to it’s potential? Before you get started plummeting all of your money in to Google AdWords, there are a few steps you’ll need to take into consideration:
Financially Planning your Business
Growing Your business organically is one of the best forms of recognition, and is incredibly satisfying, but it’s not easy. Here I will detail what measures we have taken as Studio Symposium to organically grow our business without spending a dime.
Here is a quick bulleted list of efforts that can be done for free that have been gratifying to take part in with Studio Symposium:
I refuse to stand here and tell you that if you follow these steps that you’ll be an internet millionaire in 6 months, but I highly suggest that if you’re a business owner like me, you take advantage of everything free before you start digging around for services that are paid for. Everyone wants to get paid, but you don’t have to pay to get noticed in your industry, that I can guarantee. Good luck!
– Chris
Old Spice is currently utilizing Youtube to advertise by speaking directly to it’s Twitter audience. What resulted is a brilliant marketing effort.
With a few million views under it’s original “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” commercial, it quickly became apparent that Old Spice had a marketing gem on it’s hands. They also released a series of commercials strictly on Youtube that consisted of a very strong guy screaming about how powerful Old Spice deoderant was. From there the stage was set. Soon, Old Spice had achieved cult-icon status, and the commercials spread like wildfire over the internet – the true meaning of “Viral Video Marketing”. But it gets interesting when you consider the next step they took in the process.
For years, advertising companies have tried to bridge the disconnect between consumers and advertisers because ultimately, they advertisers were never truly able to respond to consumer demand in a very agile way. The difference here is that Old Spice has finally figured out how to cross that gap. By combining a now-recognizable face with the companies Old Spice Twitter Account, and lets face it, fantastic writers, they were able to come up with a series of videos based directly off of viewer demand in such a rapid pace (in some cases up to FOUR videos per hour!) that it kept viewers melting that refresh key to see if a new video was out. It caught the attention of internet forum giant Something Awful, the Scientology-warring group Anonymous, and even the likes of celebrities such as Demi Moore and going through the rigors of hand-writing a note and sending flowers overnight to Alyssa Milano (the end result of which was Ms. Milano making a video in the same fashion, requesting that, in order to continue “Their Relationship” the Old Spice man must donate $100,000 to help clean up the Gulf. You’re move, Old Spice).
I hate to say it, but one man even went so far as to propose to his girlfriend using the Old Spice writers to do the proposal for him.
Forget putting a name up on a scoreboard, at the time of this writing, that video has over 100,000 people cheering that guy on. Can you say Old Spice customer for life? That’s the point that I’m trying to get to. All of these efforts allowed Old Spice to connect with the customer that was only previously achieved by having some poor bastards in a focus group for hours on end thinking about what the next great marketing plan will be. That may be the way this whole ordeal started out, but it sure as hell wasn’t how it ended. So congratulations, Old Spice, you have managed to accomplish what many companies before you have failed to do so properly and completely. Your marketing team deserves a considerable bonus this month.
Cheers,
– Chris
How to make sure you’re getting the most from your employees.
At the risk of sounding like an advocate for burning through company time, I’ll go out on a limb and say it – relaxation is a good thing at work. Today is a miserable day outside here in NJ, and I came into the office this morning expecting the usual frenzy of activity. Instead, I found my desk, closed all of the doors, and quietly spent my morning reading updates on the latest SEO Blogs. Is that technically considered work? Not at this particular juncture, but instead of being frantic and miserable, I am now relaxed and ready to start my morning, perhaps I’ll grab some tea at some point. But the point remains, Relaxation is the best Motivation.
Before you sound the alarms, consider this: Google famously allows their employees 20% of their work week to be devoted to their own projects. Thats one full day a week where they can work on anything that they want to. That, among other many, many perks of working at Google, allows them to attract the top-level talent that they need to propel the search engine head and shoulders above the others.
But the idea that employees can devote a good portion of their work week to their own projects simply appeals to a broader idea – people will work better when given the opportunity to relax. Unlike jobs that are physically labor-intensive, people get rewarded with quality far overshadowing quantity. Take this blog for instance; would you rather me write 10 entries a day with 100 words, each pertaining to a barely coherent thought? Or would you rather me write one well thought out, interesting longer post to generate some material actually worth reading?
Allow me to tie this into Google. Google recently, and quietly, re-tooled everything under the hood of the engine in the way that they index the internet. They call this new enging “Caffeine”. The general principle behind Caffeine is that, in order for your web site to be ranked properly, there are still the same general guidelines to follow, but with one getting more emphasis: Strong, relevant content. Things like updating web pages, writing blogs, staying current in the field of a particular website, are all factors that weigh more heavily towards ranking than previously anticipated. And, as I’ve noted earlier, it is my theory that the best content doesn’t come from grinding out page after page of jargon, but more from people such as myself writing at their leisure, but with a sense of direction.
So here’s to the pioneers over at Google, understanding that allowing an individual to focus on themselves can prove to be a far greater asset than one who churns out 10x the work with 1/100th the quality.
Now that you’ve read the post, grab yourself something to eat, sit down, relax, and plan your day. You’re welcome 
– Chris
Studio Symposium is proud to announce the syndication of the blog for Utopia Communications on the official Studio Symposium blog!
Ann Subervi is the owner of our award winning partners over at Utopia Communications, and has agreed to allow her blog posts to be syndicated on our website. Ann has long been a celebrated voice in the industry, and has had a strong following for her blog – even having been invited to speak at several PR conventions. It is her drive that pushed Utopia Communications to the forefront of their field, and we are glad to have her on board. You can also find our blog on the Utopia Communications Blog website – a little exchange of business never hurt anyone! Glad to have you as a contributing editor, Ann!
– Chris
Starting a Software Company and Reinventing the Business
Over a year ago, when Studio Symposium was founded, we had a single objective: create iPhone applications that people would love, and try to generate revenue for ourselves outside of our normal day jobs. Like most ‘indie’ developers, we didn’t have much to invest from our personal funds to get the company started. Originally, our major investments were simply a 13″ macbook and company iPod Touch – just enough to get us started.
It was only a few months after we began experimenting with different ideas that we quickly realized that, as an indie developer, our chances for success were greatly overshadowed by our chances of having our hard-earned wares lost in the sea of others just like us. As a result, we had decided to take our talent and extend it to those who wanted applications produced for themselves; either individuals with an idea or companies with a need to expand their brand into the mobile space. It was out of this principle, and this want to fill a market demand, that we began to expand on our initial philosophy. Sooner than we had anticipated, the initial investment had been completely dwarfed by our profits. Any company would be thrilled with the return we had seen in the first 3 months.
Approximately eight months later, after strictly focusing on iPhone and iPod Touch development, we began to explore the idea of expanding the number of services we provide to perhaps increase our customer base. We were doing fine as a company, but we needed to reinvent ourselves to appeal to a broader audience (as a mentor once said “There are good problems, and there are bad problems. Expanding is a good problem). So, we decided to hit a few personal contacts, and began to plan our expansion.
The first to come naturally was to expand into different mobile platforms. Without a second thought, we were soon developing applications for the iPhone, Google’s Android, Blackberries, and eventually, the Apple iPad. This expansion came without batting an eyelash, and we were up and running within days on developer portals in all markets, and pulling in contracts from clients for multiple platforms.
The second expansion was a bit of an outreach. During my day job, I had experimented with simple Search Engine Optimization techniques, and decided that Studio Symposium was the perfect place to hone the craft. Within two months, we added SEO to our array of offerings for clients. Going hand-in-hand with Search Engine Optimization was Website Design. This, initially, we had to outsource, but through a deal with Grand Vision Design(whom were responsible for the beautiful website template you see today), we were able to bring the service in-house. Combining SEO and Website development meant we were now able to bring a powerful package offer that most companies can’t bring to the table. Often times you’ll find that SEO firms and Website Development firms are mutually exclusive, and we thought that offering the entire package would give us a leg-up on our competition (something that is proving to be more and more true as the days press on).
Deciding to offer our final service into the stable was a bit of a wild card. Though we typically deal with clients who either need Mobile Software or Website Design, offering professional, ethical Public Relations with Utopia Communications appealed to the broader idea of what we can offer clients. Soon, we realized that a complete package such as ours needed a new phrase to encapsulate everything we had on the table. After a brainstorming session, we had coined the term “Virtual Branding Optimization”, which takes everything into account and offers clients exactly what we needed a few months prior – that total “Reinvention” that so many clients, we feel, will take advantage of to come out with a bang into their market place.
And so now we have the company you see today: 5 employees strong, Studio Symposium offers Website Design, Mobile Application Development, Search Engine Optimization, and professional, award-winning Public Relations. We hope you enjoy the new Studio Symposium Website, and find that there are services we can offer you! Check back here frequently, I’m attempting to establish a consistent 3-4 posts per week on various industry topics. Hope you found this worth your reading! If managed properly, owning your own business can be incredibly rewarding. Cheers!
– Chris Culos
