Capulet Communications

During our social media marketing bootcamps and some of the other speaking we do, we briefly cover advertising on the web. The 15-second precis: only spend your money where you can target your audience with razor-like precision, and rapidly measure outcomes. Google AdWords and Facebook ads are two good places to start.

It's right around this time that somebody usually raises their hand and offers some variation of "I'm skeptical about your advice, because I never click online ads".

It's a classic misstep of logic that everybody makes occasionally: "I behave a certain way, so my customers will behave the same way". Its assumptions like these that can limit new ideas about reaching your audience.

I also sometimes encounter a certain snobbishness from tech marketers, who assert that most of their geeky target audiences uses browser-based ad-blockers, rendering online advertising ineffective. As with the above assumption, I encourage them to spend a little money and test that hypothesis. We've had clients who get the lion's share of their annual revenue (which was not insubstantial) through judicious use of Google AdWords.

I guess this is just another blog post about assuming, an ass, you and me, but I encounter the behaviour often enough (and sometimes in myself) that it's worth keeping in mind.

Last week an email was circulating among some of my PR colleagues discussing which PR and business books we're currently reading. I thought I'd share our top reads with you:

• Death Sentences: How Cliches, Weasel Words and Management-Speak Are Strangling Public Language by Don Watson
• E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It by Michael Gerber
• Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky
• Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers by by Shel Israel and Robert Scoble
• The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly by David Meerman Scott
• PR! A Social History of Spin by Stuart Ewen
• Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin
• What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis
• Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams

Have we missed some good reads? Please let us know which other books should be on our summer reading list.

Back by popular demand... after a sold out session in April, we're running another Social Media Marketing Bootcamp in Victoria on June 4th. What's SMM Bootcamp all about?

In this full-day workshop, we'll show communicators and marketers, as well as small business owners, how to add social media into their marketing mix.

We'll discuss the dos and don'ts of social media marketing; look at successful marketing campaigns; introduce the social media tools every marketer should know about; and cover online communications etiquette. You'll learn how to:

• Bring more visitors to your website
• Increase your company’s visibility online
• Approach bloggers and other online influencers about your products and services
• Get your website social media ready
• Craft a potent social media pitch
• Incorporate online channels like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter into your marketing programs
• Avoid campaign killers and online faux-pas

Students will leave with:

• A copy of our social media marketing ebook, Getting to First Base: A Social Media Marketing Playbook
• Templates for creating a social media marketing plan
• Templates for creating an influencer database

There will be a session in Victoria on June 4th. The workshop fee is $299 (taxes included).

Want to save $50? Blog about our workshop on your own established (meaning not brand new) site. Don't have a blog? Ask a friend or a local blogger if you can write a guest post for their site.

Register or find out more about Capulet's Social Media Bootcamp.

 

 

We recently helped to create an online marketing plan for the BC Healthy Living Alliance, an organization that focuses on British Columbians' health. One of their goals is to encourage politicians and citizens to recognize how social determinants affect the health of individuals and communities as a whole. 

With the BC provincial election coming up, the BCHLA is encouraging British Columbians to Live Healthy, Vote Healthy: voting for a commitment to improve conditions that impact our health:

Neighbourhoods need certain things to be in place in order for residents to live healthy. In particular, we need safe streets to walk or bike on, parks to play in, affordable recreation, and local stores stocked with affordable veggies and fruits.  Access to affordable housing, healthy food, a livable wage, education, early childhood education and recreational opportunities influence our physical and mental health as well as life expectancy.

Building on the sold-out course we taught for UBC Continuing Education this winter, Capulet is running full-day workshops in Vancouver and Victoria to teach communicators and marketers, as well as small business owners, how to add social media into their marketing mix.

We'll discuss the dos and don'ts of social media marketing; look at successful marketing campaigns; introduce the social media tools every marketer should know about; and cover online communications etiquette. You'll learn how to:

• Bring more visitors to your website
• Increase your company’s visibility online
• Approach bloggers and other online influencers about your products and services
• Get your website social media ready
• Craft a potent social media pitch
• Incorporate online channels like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter into your marketing programs
• Avoid campaign killers and online faux-pas

Students will leave with:

• A copy of our social media marketing ebook, Getting to First Base: A Social Media Marketing Playbook
• Templates for creating a social media marketing plan
• Templates for creating an influencer database

There will be sessions in Victoria on April 30, 2009 and Vancouver on May 28, 2009. The workshop fee is $299 (taxes included).

Want to save $50? Blog about our workshop on your own established (meaning not brand new) site. Don't have a blog? Ask a friend or a local blogger if you can write a guest post for their site.

Register or find out more about Capulet's Social Media Bootcamp.