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ThingLink…If an image could sound

Mar 30th, 2011 Comments Off

The photos above and below are part of a transformation that I’m helping promote. I work with ThingLink but I’m also a musician. And a lucky one that I get to pioneer something I feel is truly new, innovative and important. Like lots of indie musicians, I’m always looking for new ways to promote and share information about my music. In this case, I’m promoting my debut CD, Sacred Love. Now this is a post about images but I get to be the star too — so check out the photo below. I’m bronzed like Hans Solo in Star Trek. You’ll notice small dots inside the image. They are called ThingLinks: in-image links from inside this photo to any place I choose. The tags act like channels to information I want to share. The tags are easy to set up with a description (250 characters) and URL. In this case, I set up ThingLinks to my blog, my latest press release, my Twitter and Facebook pages, to my photographer’s website, and there’s a surprise. There is a Sound Player embedded in this image. Click on the play button and my song, Edge of Eternal, plays. That is cool! So for musicians like me, that photo – which I was only able to observe before – has become something more than a beautiful composite by photographer Mario Covic. It’s now an information wallet I can share throughout my social network. Here are some things I can do with Thinglinked images that help me socialize me images:

  • Announce my ThingLinked photo to friends and fans on Facebook and Twitter, and email a link. Fans can do the same. If ‘m lucky, I made a new fan. Thanks to this ThingLinked photo.
  • Embed a photo with ThingLinks… in my other blogs and websites. The links stay in the image. And fans can share it, too.
  • Allow readers to add their OWN ThingLinks to the image. I wonder where fans would place links.
  • Receive stats from ThingLink (as part of a free account) on how many people are interacting with my images with views, hovers and clicks.

Try hovering your mouse over the image and I put links into – and see what comes up. After you sign up at ThingLink.com, you add three lines of code to your blog or website page. ThingLink works on websites and blogging platforms. If you’re hosting a WordPress site, there is a beta ThingLink plug-in that you can download via WordPress. Have fun and share your stories.

NOTE: This post was reprinted from ShambhuMusic.com – my music blog.

Can Social Media Rebuild Detroit?

Feb 4th, 2010 Comments Off

What are the top five largest countries in the world by population? USA? Indonesia? China? India? Facebook?!? According to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook has acquired over 200 million users who are updating their online status, posting news, and connecting with friends and brands of interest. You’d think that every industry would be tripping over themselves to harness the opportunities offered by Facebook, Twitter and other social media communities. Yet, acccording to JD Rucker, the auto industry seems slow to cash in.

By maintaining a social media presence car manufacturers could interact with potential buyers before they head down to the auto showroom.  They could use search.twitter.com to find folks who tweeted about going car shopping or someone who tweeted about their car breaking down and offer to solve their problem by offering a new car alternative.

Sears uses this tactic with appliances. Recently my cousin’s dishwasher broke.  A Sears repairman came to fix it.  Later that same day, the dishwasher broke again.  After tweeting about it, she discovered a message from someone at Sears who was embarrassed by the repairman and offered to solve her problem by giving her a new dishwasher for free!  That is a terrific example of how brands are using Twitter to maintain customer satisfaction. Imagine the possibilities for auto industry!

Implementation strategies for social media use in both car sales and manufacturing can be found in JD Rucker’s post in FastCompany.com’s blog: Why Going Social Can Make or Break the Automotive Industry. In it he explores the potential for dealer and manufacturer impact on client relations using social media.

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HOW TO: Kick Start A Community – An Ongoing List

Aug 18th, 2009 Comments Off

community_picJeremiah Owyang’s suggestions for starting and building community online. Read more at Web Strategy.

  1. Create compelling content on a recurring basis. Brands sometimes create videos, podcasts, or stories on a daily or weekly basis that encourages members to come back.
  2. Reward users who fill out their profile. Folks like to see other friendly faces, so giving them access to premium features or recognition of those who have the most complete profiles should recognized.
  3. Invite community influencers and advocates to the community first –giving them first right of testing the system and then inviting others.
  4. Encourage interaction through conversations. Ask questions, talk about controversial topics, or host a contest that encourages participation.
  5. Reward top contributors: Those that participate the most, or perhaps, are the most helpful should be recognized on a leader board, and thanked in public.  Unexpectedly, send them something nice as a thank you, or reward them with premium services –never money.
  6. Centralize your community around your real world events.  People want to find each other before events, talk about the event during the duration, and then afterwards are key.  Use the community in your physical events.
  7. Virtual Events integrate community:  Don’t just use on your real world events, but integrated with your virtual ones, I‘ve written at length about that here.
  8. Integrate with your website –and other customer touchpoints. Remember, corporate sites of the future are aggregations of community discussion, be sure to integrate community in your corporate site.  Make sure your call center, email marketing, and external newsletters all integrate community.  (don’t forget even the email signatures)
  9. Encourage employees to get active.  A party isn’t much fun if there’s no one there, so encourage the hosts (often employees) to kickstart discussions by talking, debating, and arguing about the news, updates, or even relevant YouTube videos will trigger discussion.  Of course, you have a community manager on staff, right?

Is that blogger review really a paid ad? The FTC wants you to know.

Jul 28th, 2009 Comments Off

050727_mb_Payolacolor_tnThe Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is stepping into the practice of paid posts on the blogosphere and it’s about time. I have personally been solicited by mommy bloggers willing to write for cash.  Pay to play schemes among mommy bloggers have been commonplace, it is akin to payola in the record industry, and it does a disservice to other bloggers.

Decades ago there was a crackdown on payola in the music industry as record promoters paid off radio DJs to spin their records and popularize artists. The practice has largely been curtailed, although payments are still made under the table to DJs in major markets. Brands have been willing to shower freebees on bloggers in exchange for editorial coverage that fails to attribute the gifts and their influence. It stinks and it’s corrupting the blogosphere.

According to Consumer Reports:

“The FTC is updating its “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising,” which were last refreshed in 1980. What this has to do with bloggers is a new form of advertising, called word-of-mouth marketing, in which advertisers pay your favorite bloggers to “review” their products. The bloggers get paid, for example, with free product samples; gift certificates for JCPenney shopping sprees; cash payments; or the loan of a $30,000 Ford Flex for a year.

The bloggers are supposed to write whatever they want about the product—pro or con—but the payments put into question whether they would be inclined to seriously bite the hand of a “friend” lending a car or giving other valuable goodies or cash.

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