Our new product provides both phone and online live chat services to businesses seeking to help older customers better navigate web sites and better understand what they need in order to make a purchase.

Click here to read the full press release.

Follow us live on March 28th to hear our knee-jerk reactions to all that is boomer marketing from what we learn at the “What’s Next Boomer Business Summit.” We will be live blogging on our new Tumblr blog (http://facetimestrategy.tumblr.com/), and live tweeting (twitter.com/facetimestrat) all day.

We’re excited to attend! Our CEO, Todd Mason, will also be speaking on a panel about the power of integrated marketing at 2:30.

Absolutely… but sadly enough, they were never really alive to begin with.

Sure, you can see them everywhere today – bus stops, billboards, newspapers, magazines – but have you ever seen people actually interact and engage with them while out and about? I honestly don’t think I have. In all my years of working within the industry, noticing all the codes displayed in the physical world, and loving the technology with all my heart, there is not one time that I specifically remember seeing a stranger scan a code. It’s weird to think about it as I write this post, but it makes sense. Barcodes were never adopted by mainstream consumers.

Every new technology has a short-lived timeframe of achieving mainstream acceptance because of the rapid rate of technological innovation. This was very true for QR codes. In just the past two short years, QR codes’ adoption window has opened and closed.

The window for QR codes was between 2009 and 2011 – no earlier and no later. During this time, QR codes had a good chance to achieve consumer adoption because of its open-natured software, increased usage levels of Smartphones by the general public, improved scanning applications, and the rise of mobile commerce.

QR codes could not have achieved mainstream adoption before 2009 because it needed a certain number of Smartphone users and better barcode scanning technology to flourish.

Furthermore, QR Codes cannot reach adoption levels past 2011 because of exactly what’s shown in the video below – the progression of Mobile Visual Search (MVS) and the soon-to-be launch of Google Goggles, reportedly coming next month.

You can read it here.

Call me out my writing diversity if you must, but I’m loving Pinterest’s rarely-seen climb to the top of the digital world. Furthermore, some impressive statistics have been compiled recently by Monetate (whom created a snazzy infographic from their findings) and Compete that showcases just how powerful Pinterest is becoming for brands and retailers. Here are some noteworthy findings from the reports:

While search is still king when it comes to online traffic referrals, brands and retailers are looking more and more to social networking websites to help boost website visits. And with Pinterest driving almost as much traffic as Google and Twitter, I feel that it is important to observe and report on all the different ways your business can successfully engage with this captivating social media platform.

So with all that said, here are a few cool ways your brand can use Pinterest to improve your digital presence and overall product offering:

Is 2012 the year that you want to add/update a product or service offering? If so, Pinterest can be an effective online focus group to learn more about your target audience. By tracking what consumers are pinning, who they are following, and what they are saying about certain images across the site, your business can effectively predict trends and opinions within your industry’s community.

See: Nordstroms

Pinterest’s co-founder said it best, “For most consumer brands, the idea behind your brand makes sense on Pinterest.” It is frowned upon for marketers to simply blast out photos of your products, it’s important to think outside of the box when using the platform. Try to post images that capture the essence of your business. If you own a hotel, post pictures of cool attractions nearby or even pieces from local artists. If you own a restaurant, post pictures of cool appliances that you use in your kitchen or dining room furniture that goes well with the décor of your establishment.

See: Whole Foods

Aside from your products, Pinterest also can be a great forum to showcase your company culture.  I love it when I see companies post pictures of all the different surroundings and events around their office. These types of images help to humanize the business.

See: The Today Show

Similar to showcasing your company’s culture, Pinterest can be used as a great place to promote your company to other businesses by nicely organizing your company’s information and services.

See: FaceTime Strategy! Yep, that’s right, we created our very own Pinterest page to practice what we preach. As you can see, we have boards showcasing our management team, clients, service offerings, and industry expertise. These types of organized displays allow Pinterest users to get a clear and organized look at the make-up of your business, making Pinterest a strong B2B community.

As mentioned in the video above, a new Pew Research study, which looked at Facebook activity of users over a one-month period, has dug up some telling statistics around where the majority of Facebook action is coming from:

• The average Facebook user has 245 friends… but the average friend on Facebook has 359 friends.
• Users receive more Facebook love than they give out. Users pressed the like button for friends’ content an average of 14 times, but had their content “liked” an average of 20 times.
• Women are far more active Facebook users than men. The average female user made 21 updates to their Facebook status, while the average male made six.
• People comment more than they update. Users made an average of 9 status updates or wall posts per month and contributed 21 comments.
• People are tagged more than they tag. 12% of users tagged a friend in a photo, but 35% were tagged in a photo by someone else.

So what does this all mean?

It’s not that Facebook users are selfish, it’s that there are people on Facebook known as “power users” that skew this data.

That’s right, POWER USERS.

For my sports fans out there, think Lebron James on the 2008 Cleveland Cavaliers.

For my music fans out there, think Beyonce on Destiny’s Child.

These powers users put in the most work, generate the most engagement, and drive the majority of Facebook’s activity results. They work the hardest to make sure they are seen and heard. They make up for all the Facebook slackers that do the majority of the the viewing, but hardly any of the sharing.

According to the report, about 20-30% of all Facebook users are considered power users of at least one activity – between that of posting updates, adding photos, sending friend requests, or “liking” others’ posts.

As a marketer or brand, this is very important information to consider when brainstorming your next social media campaign.  No matter how super-duper your strategy and content is, if it does not reach the power users and spur their engagement, your campaign will fall flat on its face. Period. Like I hinted at earlier, they will work the hardest to make sure your brand is seen and heard!

For those of you that do not know what Megaupload is, it is – or rather, was – a Hong Kong-based online “locker” that allowed users to upload files to their digital “locker” for others to download. Though the idea was not novel, the sheer number of files on the site, the ease with which users could upload video and music files specifically, and the ability for other websites to link to those files for streaming the information without even needing to first fully download the files made Megaupload a unique, and especially poignant, example of a legal website that facilitated online piracy. In fact, the website was so large that it accounted for approximately 4% of all internet traffic.

There are a thousand arguments for and against the morality of what Megaupload did, but here are the facts:

• In order to download or stream a file from Megaupload, you would either have to be a paying member or would have to wait 30 seconds on an ad-laden page. This is how they made their money.
• Many of Megaupload’s copyright-infringing files were blatantly illegal, using names such as ShowName.Season#.Episode#. A simple glance at many of their files should have been enough to realize their illegal nature. Beyond that, for only $1 to $2, smartphone users can download applications that immediately identify the name of a song or show based on the audio of it (see IntoNow and SoundHound). Such algorithms could undoubtedly be applied to files being distributed by service’s like Megaupload to determine if they are copyrighted. It wouldn’t fix every case, but it would certainly help to diminish the number of copyrighted files. Given that one of the primary issues with Megaupload wasn’t so much that they had illegal content on their site as it was that they not only knew about it, but didn’t do everything within their power to eliminate it, this is obviously a huge issue.
• Megaupload and its owners were charged with conspiracy to commit racketeering because the service would pay people who uploaded the illegal files. They did so because the increased traffic drove up ad revenue and made their site more attractive to paid members. The issue is that such popular files are almost always copyright-infringing, and though Megaupload claims that it did everything within its power to prevent copyrighted material from being uploaded, as a business they have a legal obligation to ensure the legality of all of their content. Or, at least, as I said earlier, to demonstrate that they were making a wholehearted effort to host only legal content.
• Megaupload and its owners were also charged with conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and criminal copyright infringement.
• The aggregate effect of all of these charges and the situation at large led the U.S. to press charges of $500,000,000 – the largest criminal copyright case ever – as well as arrest the 7 highest ranking employees of Megaupload, all of whom now face up to 20 years in prison.

If you would like to see the full indictment, which spells out the specifics of everything mentioned above, here it is.

So, with the situation laid out, several questions come to mind: Megaupload has been around for years; why is this happening now? What does this mean for other similar sites? As marketers, what should we take away from this whole situation?

In case you were unaware, there was an internet “blackout” on January 18th during which sites including Wikipedia and Reddit shut down for the day to protest SOPA and PIPA – 2 laws that were being discussed that have to do with preventing copyright infringement. Many people were against the bills because of their vague wording which would allow the government to shut down any site at will, as well as their negative impact on IP security. In fact, several weeks ago the White House, when talking on SOPA and PIPA, said that, “while we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet” (for the full statement, see here). Amid public outcry law makers backed down from SOPA and PIPA nearly immediately after the blackout, and within 24 hours the Megaupload arrests were made. The investigation into Megaupload has been underway for a year and half. The indictment of charges were filed and sealed on January 5^th and were served on the 19^th.

I personally find it hard to believe this timing is mere coincidence. It seems to me that with the elimination of SOPA and PIPA, as well as the lack of White House support for the laws, the U.S. government wanted to demonstrate its commitment to enforcing anti-piracy within the confines of our current laws. What better way to reassure worried businesses and lobbyists than to take down the most iconic copyright-infringing company in the world? With all of that said, the investigation was underway for a long time, and as such would have resulted in something similar regardless. I only think that the intensity of the punishments as well as the timing is indicative of a reactionary move by the U.S. government.

Similar sites such as Mediafire, Rapidshare, and 2Shared should absolutely be concerned about the example that is being made out of Megaupload. Eliminating the risk of being charged with racketeering would be easy enough, but money laundering and piracy are still very real risks to these companies. In my eyes they have 3 options:

1) Stay the course and dig their own graves in the process.

2) Move their servers and their top executives to a country like Russia, where there is ample access to technology but also where U.S. laws don’t apply and won’t be enforced by the government.

3) Stop hosting illegal content.

As marketers we need to be aware of how events like this change our professional landscape.

One of the most obvious lessons to take from this is that one should always be wary of advertising on websites that have never been established as legal – such as The Pirate Bay or Rapidshare. I say this because it is ad revenue that drives the very existence of these sites, and though you may not think that as marketers we have a moral obligation to not instigate piracy, I think we can all agree that it isn’t a leap of faith to say that as advertisers we may one day be held partially legally accountable for the piracy occurring on such websites.

Another one of the less obvious lessons to be learned here is that the internet that we have known and loved is becoming a thing of the past. I am optimistic that the dynamic and free essence of the internet will be maintained, but I do not have much hope for the transfer of illegal files. I say this not because the act of sending the files itself will be limited, for I think that people will always find a way around such technical blocks, but because the monetization of such sites simply won’t be practical. As the U.S. and other western copyright-respecting countries expand their efforts to gain a global digital presence, our government’s ability to monitor and limit – either legally or technologically – the receipt of funds by these piracy websites will increase exponentially,, meaning no money to fund the maintenance of the servers and bandwidths required of illegal file sharing sites. So, in general, don’t put much faith in using ad space on such websites as a long term means of getting your message out.

Another, and perhaps even less obvious lesson to be learned from this is that as the internet leaves its infancy we will begin to see all sorts of new models for content creation. I believe the new model of distribution will most likely end up empowering individual creators, as opposed to the massive publishing houses of times past. With everything being digital, production and distribution costs are going to plummet, enabling artists to easily make their works available to the masses. The type of media that I believe will be least impacted by this transition is film, thanks largely to the huge amount of capital and effort involved in the mere creation of the content. Perhaps commercial-free, subscription-based services such as Netflix will be the wave of the future, or maybe internet TV will be the next big thing. I certainly wouldn’t mind commercials if I got the show variety of FiOS or U-verse with the convenience of being able to choose any show that I wanted, just like with Netflix. So, I would say that now is a great time to hop on the streaming video bandwagon, and to start to really think about how you can capitalize on the impending wave of interactive, web-based, and show-specific ads.

Just my 2 cents.

In April of 2010, Facebook replaced its “Become a Fan” functionality with a “Like.” In rolling out this change, Facebook provided the following explanation:

Starting today, people will be able to connect with your page by clicking “Like” rather than “Become a Fan.” We hope this action will feel much more lightweight, and that will increase the number of connections made across the site.

Lightweight is not a fun word for marketers. Not in the least. Especially when it is in regards to the tender topic of Facebook ROI. Since the roll out, marketers from all industries have been trying to grasp the answer to the question, “how valuable is a “like” to a Facebook Fan Page?”

• If someone likes my brand, does it mean I have permission to advertise to them?
• Does it mean I can constantly post messages for them to respond to?
• Or rather, does it mean that they’re just interested in my coupons and discounts?

I have yet to come up with solid conclusions on my own so I decided to seek out help.

Enter: ExactTarget awesomeness.

ExactTarget, an email marketing and interactive marketing provider, recently published a report titled, “The Meaning of Like” that drew on experiences from real users to research how consumers “like” within Facebook and other sites, what consumers expect after they “like” a page on Facebook, and how marketers are “getting it right – and wrong” on Facebook. It’s perfect.  There is fantastic information in this report.

Here are the conclusions from the report that I think are worth highlighting… and my personal reactions to them:

-          Only 42% of active Facebook users agree that marketers should interpret “Like” to mean they are a fan or advocate of the company.

• This percentage is incredibly low, and very telling that “like’ is a very casual online action for most people. I’m a little shocked, I would have pegged this number at around 70%, but it just goes to show that users range in their perceptions. From this data, and from the overall report, I believe that it is more important to gauge user interaction as the top performance indicator as to how your social media efforts are going. Encourage fans to interact.

-          Once a consumers likes your page, they generally say that posting more than once a day becomes annoying.

• Agreed. It is also worth noting that it is best practice to post messages that are broad enough to engage a general audience. Localized messaging to a specific group of fans will miss the mark with the majority of your fans, which can very often result in “unlikes.”

-          Younger consumers like a page for purposes of self expression and public endorsement of a brand. They consider it a worthwhile bonus when they receive coupons or deals from the company as a result of their like.

• You’ve got to love those young bucks that have grown-up with Facebook as part of their social regime. They know what they want out of the platform and act accordingly without a second’s thought. They see it as a personal branding tool – a place where they can separate themselves from other students and showcase their personal identity.  If you’re a brand that caters to the younger demographic, give them something worth endorsing. Encourage your users to participate and help them earn “cool points” among their peers.

-          Consumers aged 25 and up are more likely to expect something of value in return. They are quick to “unlike” a company that does not follow-up with discounts, product information, or exclusive offers.

• I can certainly attest to this one. More often than not, I “like” a brand on Facebook to help me stay updated on deals and special offerings. Sorry I’m not sorry. As a general rule, rewarding fans with special content or deals is the best way to increase both fan growth and engagement.

-          Consumers expressed a wide variety of expectations when asked about what should happen after clicking the “like” button. But the most common responses were, predictability, related to exclusive content, discounts, and company updates.

• While slightly ambiguous, this conclusion screams “be honest and consistent with your fans!” to me. I always cringe when I see a brand posting messages that have nothing to do with their services or usual topic of interest. It’s an annoyance. From the outset of your Facebook efforts, make it clear to the consumer of what they will receive as a result of their connection through Facebook, and then follow through on that promise with minimal distractions.

-          39% of Facebook users who like at least on brand page say that marketers should never interpret their like as permission to post marketing messages that would appear in their news feed.

• Not the majority but still a surprisingly high number. I’m just plain confused over this one. I think this gives even more evidence that the Facebook page “like” is an incredibly light-hearted online interaction with a brand. Everyone perceives it differently.

While some of the findings in the report still leave this debate up to speculation, the main message is clear.

Marketers should realize that the “like” is just the beginning of their online relationship with a user, not the end goal. The most important aspect of the relationship is the level of interaction you will have with the user as a result of the content that you provide.

However when looking at recent social media mistakes and their respective responses, I learned an important lesson in social media – mistakes happen, and that’s okay.

I mean, think about it. Social media is just a bunch of people connecting with one another. No matter if it’s a company account, school account, building account, fake celebrity account, etc., there is always a human driving these social media interactions. Social media is essentially human nature in digital form. Just as you see love, humor, camaraderie, hate, and accomplishment, you see mistakes.

So if you’re a company or brand that just made a social media mistake, don’t worry about it! There are certain things you can do to make up for the mistake and smooth things over with your followers. In short, do the same things you would do if you made a mistake in the physical world:

Own Up

Take a lesson from Major League Baseball (I’m serious) and their recent steroid scandal from a few years back. As we all know at this point, a whole bunch of people did steroids in the early 2000’s. A lot of home runs were hit and a lot of biceps were flexed. However, through recent developments, some steroid users have been all but forgiven while other users are still looked upon as villains to the game. Why? Because the players who owned up (i.e. Andy Petite) are seen as human beings and treated with respect, while players who still deny it to this day (i.e. Barry Bonds) are seen as something even worse… phonies who lied to fans.

I could also use an example of a certain congressman whose last name rhymes with beaner. But I will refrain.

All in all, the lesson here is that when a mistake is made be sure to own up immediately and apologize. I guarantee you that if you do this, you will have a much easier time earning forgiveness from your followers.

Make light of the situation

I saw a tweet-mistake awhile ago that was handled perfectly. The Smithsonian Museum’s twitter account accidentally double posted (seen as quite the amateur move to some) in the middle of the day. Soon after they sent out this tweet.

Not only did I forgive them for the slight annoyance, I also enjoyed the little chuckle I got out of it. As a follower, I felt even more connected to their social media efforts. Well played museum peeps!

Use the Attention for Good

You can even allow your mistake to help others. Take the Red Cross’s #gettngslizzered mistake from a little while back as a great example. The person behind their twitter account accidentally sent out this tweet to 268,000 people:

BIG mistake! A terrible twitter mishap for one of the most prestigious organizations in the world. I cannot even fathom what was going through the mind of the person who sent out this tweet. If it was me, I might’ve considered changing my name to Svetlana Gorbev and becoming an aspiring gymnastics coach from Slovenia.

But through all the chaos came great clarity in handling this unfortunate situation. The Red Cross pulled off the ultimate combo – owning up to the mistake with a touch of humor!

Twitter nation loved the response. So much so that a blood drive and fundraiser was started using the hashtag #gettngslizzered and the beer company mentioned , Dogfish Head, even decided to get involved!

I love happy endings.

Conclusion

Showing human traits in your social media efforts is always a good idea. This is especially true when any mistake are made as people can relate to mistakes very easily. As long as the mistake reaction is handled correctly by the guilty tweeters, everything will be perfectly fine and your fans will simply laugh and move on down the twitter/facebook stream. That is, unless you’re this guy:

Ouch. No comment about this one.

One of the best contributions to CSS Resetting comes from CSS guru Eric Meyer. As he says:

“The goal of a reset stylesheet is to reduce browser inconsistencies in things like default line heights, margins and font sizes of headings, and so on.“

Eric Meyer – CSS Reset

/* http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset/
   v2.0 | 20110126
   License: none (public domain)
*/

html, body, div, span, applet, object, iframe,
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, blockquote, pre,
a, abbr, acronym, address, big, cite, code,
del, dfn, em, img, ins, kbd, q, s, samp,
small, strike, strong, sub, sup, tt, var,
b, u, i, center,
dl, dt, dd, ol, ul, li,
fieldset, form, label, legend,
table, caption, tbody, tfoot, thead, tr, th, td,
article, aside, canvas, details, embed,
figure, figcaption, footer, header, hgroup,
menu, nav, output, ruby, section, summary,
time, mark, audio, video {
	margin: 0;
	padding: 0;
	border: 0;
	font-size: 100%;
	font: inherit;
	vertical-align: baseline;
}
/* HTML5 display-role reset for older browsers */
article, aside, details, figcaption, figure,
footer, header, hgroup, menu, nav, section {
	display: block;
}
body {
	line-height: 1;
}
ol, ul {
	list-style: none;
}
blockquote, q {
	quotes: none;
}
blockquote:before, blockquote:after,
q:before, q:after {
	content: '';
	content: none;
}
table {
	border-collapse: collapse;
	border-spacing: 0;
}

Is it reset CSS the best solution? I am not completely sure about that.

As Eric Meyer says:

“In other words, this is a starting point, not a self-contained black box of no-touchiness.“

However, for the moment, CSS reset is a good solution to many problems I encounter.

If you are looking for more information, feel free to take a look what other stylesheet experts have to say on this subject.

A Killer Collection of Global CSS Reset Styles

Create Your Own Simple Reset.css File by Jeffrey Way

CSS Global Reset by Christian Montoya

Master Stylesheet

CSS Reset by Dave Woods

Crafting Ourselves by Eric Mayer

Generate Subscribers:

The cycle begins with people subscribing to your email campaign.  But they’re not going to subscribe for nothing—it’s up to you to convey the value of joining and get them past the barrier of becoming a subscriber.  Who should your subscribers be, and how do you get them to sign up?  I’ll dig into that in part 2.

Once someone becomes a subscriber they drop into the middle of the cycle, the email campaign itself, and the topic of part 3.  This is where you deliver on what got them to subscribe in the first place, and where they’ll reside until they unsubscribe or get removed.

Deliver Targeted and Relevant Content:

Regardless of the subject of your emails, subscribers will respond better to content that appears to be directed at them specifically.  They also don’t want their time wasted with fluff they have no interest in.  But how do you know what each subscriber wants?  Check back in the third installment to find out.

Develop Subscriber Relationships:

To understand this part of the cycle, think of the give and take there is in any relationship: “You scratch my back; I’ll scratch yours.”  The relationship is a step beyond sending relevant content.  Its understanding what your subscribers need so you can achieve your goals and get a return on the investment you’ve made.  I’ll explain this relationship in part 3.

Maintain List Integrity, Organization and Hygiene:

This part of the cycle is essentially keeping everything clean and organized.  It’s much easier to send targeted emails if you have some method of segmenting subscribers.  Occasionally scrubbing your list is also important so you’re not wasting effort on subscribers who haven’t opened an email in 6 months or bounce every email you send.  All this happens behind the scenes, but I’ll uncover it in part 3.

Generate Leads:

This is the goal and purpose of your email program.  In other words, what you want to get out of it.  Recruiting subscribers and sending emails isn’t free, so delivering emails should ultimately translate to an increase in your bottom line.  Achieving your goal may be the last part of the cycle but it’s easily the most important because your goal will determine how you structure all the steps leading up to it.  I’ll delve into this, along with generating subscribers, in part 2.

Track, Analyze, Report & Adapt:

One of the great things about digital marketing in general is how easy it is to keep track of in real time, and emails are no exception.  As you’ll notice in the diagram, tracking shouldn’t apply only to how well you’re accomplishing your goals, but how well each component is contributing to that accomplishment.  If any part can be improved, do it!  Since tracking applies to all the other parts of your email campaign, I’ll explore it exclusively in part 4.

And that sums it up.  While this whole cycle may start with convincing someone to subscribe and end when a subscriber is convinced to make a purchase, all the parts are connected.  It’s difficult to plan one aspect without an understanding of the others.  There is no one-size-fits-all approach to email marketing (that won’t get you labeled as a spammer).  Understanding how each phase in this process applies to your business, your customers and your goals is critical to designing an effective email program.

See you next week for part 2!