Lady Gaga.  At 25 she seems to have come out of nowhere and then appears everywhere. How does she inspire such devotion from her fans?

Here’s how: aside from  costumes, choreography and vocals that stand out from a “me too” sea of pop music, Lady Gaga is completely about her fans, little monsters, and relating with them on common ground.  She includes us,  and that is her secret sauce.

“Listen up little monsters..”

Referring to herself as “Mother Monster”,  she fiercely protects “little monsters”.   Continue reading »

Giving back is a great way to say thanks to the community supporting you. Blackstone Media Network, a Web design and development firm in Louisville, KY wanted to give back to the town which helped them have a successful year. But how?

Their team got together and decided that giving back what they do best – develop effective websites – was a great way to help one of the many not-for-profit groups in the community. Most not-for-profits have lean budgets – especially in a recession – and a website helps with visibility and fundraising.

They came up with a contest. Their team decided to offer a local not-for-profit a free custom website, one year of free hosting and 15 e-mail addresses. Dubbed “A Website for Change“, local not-for-profits could enter from December 7, 2010 through January 5, 2011.

The company narrowed down the entries to the top 5, and has opened up community voting to select the winner. The contest is promoted through traditional media and via social media outlets like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Voting is easy – right on the website with descriptions for each of the finalists – and voters see who is in the lead with a real time graph once the vote is cast.

Benefits for the community: support for the not-for-profit community and for the people it serves. Benefits for Blackstone Media Network: great branding and a very effective way to give back.

No big surprise this year that online sales are up from last year, and cresting the billion dollar mark on Cyber Monday for the first time. The pleasant news for retailers (and all those selling goods to/through them) is that spending – at least so far – looks strong. In a year fraught with ups and downs for economic news, this piece of news is good indeed for many businesses.

To take a look at numbers from various sources, Search Engine Land has a “slice and dice” of charts for how sales track so far.

Want to know which browsers possess the greatest popularity stats over time? Jason Hiner of TechRepublic fame just posted this link in Twitter. Continue reading »

Digital marketing adds all kinds of wonderful ways to customize to your customer. But where is the line? Continue reading »

Have you visited a Web site with so many flashing animations that you leave? The same principle applies with logos: simple is good. Continue reading »

Even in my soft drink days, there was a certain edge of “geekiness” to me, and some fascination with technology. I probably got this from my dad. He was, no surprise, an engineer.  Back in my soft drink days, I learned a computer language  to do regression analysis charts on things like displays and market share. It printed out on a dot matrix printer.  State of the art.

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Small business owners often tap their children, students and friends to build Web sites. After all, it’s either free or very cheap, and helps out a relative, student starting out or  a friend. Others use a Web design shop, who’s sole business is Web design. (As opposed to marketing.)

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Recommended must read: Is your social media expert really an expert? The top 25 ways to find out.

This new post by Peter Shankman and Sarah Evans (both experts) nail the differences between those who claim to be experts and those who really are experts in social media. Social media is, of course, the hot marketing topic de jour, surrounded by tons of hype and more than a few charlatans. Peter and Sarah do a great job (as usual) of showing how to spot the posers.

Social media may not fit every organization’s goals and does require on-going attention. And the elements may vary from business to business. Not everyone needs to be on all of the “latest and greatest” platforms. Beware of anyone who makes a blanket claim to that effect.

Bing, Microsoft’s new search engine, offers some great features. The attractive landing page with a single stunning photo as backdrop to the simple search box sets the stage for a different experience. There are some interesting tools that come with search results – a table of contents, cool travel feature and others – but how has Bing performed it’s first few days?

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