Finally, A Place for me – A Social Media Addict

Finally a support group for people like me. My wife will be pleased to know that there is a place where i can get help.  Too bad it’s in the UK!

They say there is a difference in having an avid interest in social media and having a rabid interest in social media….who knew?

Great Information on Social Media

If you CEO doesn’t “get” social media yet….send him this video:

Concrete Countertops – Update #2

We will eventually tile the backsplash with white subway tile.

I have been working rather slowly on my concrete counter tops that I mentioned in an earlier post.  I have poured and finished most sections.  I only have one section remaining. The final section is the one that will house the sink.  I have been procrastinating because I am nervous about making it correctly.

We used double the charcoal colored tint recommended and they still seemed lighter than we expected.

The one piece that we have installed is a short section just beside our stove.  It has been in place for about  months and has weathered fine.  This little section gets lots of traffic from cooking and as it is right by the door as you enter the kitchen.  I hope to finish polishing the other pieces soon and get them installed.

I would like to have installed the other pieces by now but we have had a very busy last six months.  My wife and I tend to work long hours and not spend much time at home that shouldn’t we shouldn’t be sleeping or reconnecting.  Our busy lives got even busier last week when after a bad fall, my mother was rush to surgery and them rehab.  While she is in rehab, my wife and I are taking care of her two adopted daughters.  My little sisters are 5 & 7 and the never stop moving, talking, eating…..and most time consuming: needing attention. I have a new respect for parents and how to accomplish anything.

Hopefully we will install the other two large pieces this fall and maybe pour the final piece.  I’ll update you guys as the slow progress happens!

Channel Advisor Catalyst Coference – Raleigh, NC

That's right boys, listen up...Walt's dropping some knowledge on you.

I have been asked to speak about search marketing techniques to retailers for the last two years on behalf of Channel Advisor.  CA is most widely known for their eBay selling tools, but in the past few years, they have made a strong push into being one-stop for multi-channel retailers who want to control all of their channels from one platform.  I have been impressed with the functionality and reliability of the products they offer, as well as their service.

The session was called Paid Search: Rising above Brand Terms for Success.  (NOTE:I did not pick that title.) I shared the stage with Marketing VP’s from Croc’s, Meijer, and Ulta.  We each had very different SEM strategies. Mine was, of course, far superior.  I hope to post a link to a video when it is made available.

A New Direction for Walt

I have many passions in my life: God, my wife, my work, cigars, food…so far I have only really focused on my work here. If you have read this blog you can probably imagine that I work in internet marketing. It’s a great and complex subject that is constantly changing and evolving. I have now decided that my contribution to the endless amount of content on the web will also include a something I am more passionate about: Cigars. In my short time on this earth I have been lucky enough to have enjoyed many delicious, fine cigars. My memories of my past are almost always center around experiences with friends, family, and even strangers who I have shared a smoke with…often at night, almost always outside, and normally while discussing the grandest of subjects: God, future, our nation, relationships….

I don’t really know if I even like cigars. Their taste is sometimes harsh and the whispers of smoke often go in my nostrils and burn in my upper sinuses. But, every morning that I wake after smoking a cigar the night before, the taste of that cigar lingers and so do the memories of the night before, and the other grand times over the past dozen years or so I have had while smoking a cigar.

Please click the Cigars link in the upper navigation to see my reviews.

BarCamp Charlotte – BarCampCLT January 23-24

Coming up later on January is an excellent for marketers and developers in the Carolina area to network and learn from each other.  

The first Bar Camp hosted in Charlotte .

Check it out and sign up if you can make it.  If you are going to be there, let’s plant to meet up and talk shop.

 

http://barcampcharlotte.com/

My Neti Pot Saved My Career – A Testimonial Example

It all started with a visit from my wife’s hippie roommate from college.  She was telling us all about all the amazing remedies and herbal things that she sales at her hippie nature store in San Fransisco.  All this time I was barely paying attention until she mentioned the improvement in breathing she experienced after using a neti pot.  After much talk about the origins and “aboriginal traditions involving”…..zzzzzzzzz……she got to the words I was waiting on, “This is how it works…”.  I immediately got on the internet and saw that there were several non-hippies that had tried and enjoyed using a neti pot.  I also found that most drugs stores carry them.  I purchased one and found that she was right.  I slept better and breathed easier all day after using it. 

This is the neti pot I use. Click the image to see a YouTube instructional video on using a neti pot.

 One Month Later:  I recently acquired the PR department of my company and as the holidays were approaching my company president approached me and asked if I could put together a  nice digital media kit for one of our companies holiday product line.  I jumped at the chance and decided that we were going to use video and Flash to create a interactive experience guided by a video host.  Limited time and budget constraints meant hiring outside talent was not possible.  That only left one option: Walt.

For days before the filming I read over the tongue-twister laden, over alliterative script and channeled my best James Earl Jones voice.  The day before the shoot through I began to feel a small itch in my throat that soon became soreness and then total congestion though my chest and sinuses.  I thought to myself, this couldn’t come at a worse time, but then suddenly I remembered my neti pot.  I used it once that evening when I got home from work and once in the morning before leaving to film.  Due to my neti pot, I was able to speak clearly and make it through my project without the congestion that I had the day before.

Now that you have heard all that….don’t you want to buy a neti pot?  That’s the power of customer testimonies!

Top Ten Retailer Thoughts This Holiday Season

10.  Profit margins are for wussies.

9.  Maybe nudity would increase sales?

8.  I heard those new ninja throwing shoes are selling well this year.

7.  Is it possible for us to sale anti-depressants?

6.  I wonder if I can use some of our merchandise returns as gifts this year.

5.  Can we get use our employee discount on anti-depressants?

4.  I bet it’s that damn Santa who’s stealing our market share.

3.  We should air a holiday television special that says the “True meaning of Christmas” is gifts.

2.  How can I convince consumers that our iPods are greener than our competitors’?

1.  Maybe we can stay competitive with everyone else’s discounts if we give everything away for free ?

Google Chrome – Sweet, Now Google Will Know Everything!

Google just announced today on their blog that tomorrow they will be releasing a beta version of a browser they designed called ‘Chrome’.  While I use and appreciate many of the tools that Google produces, I often question, like many, their usage of personal data for ad displays. 

Google Chrome Interface

Currently Google analyzes that the content of the pages you look at to display ads that are related to the content of the page.  Once Google had the tracking power of Google Toolbar and now the Chrome browser, Google has the ability to track viewing and purchasing history for individual web users instead of individual web pages.  It is very similar to the power Amazon has to match you with products that people with similar purchase histories prefer, except during your entire web experience.  While it proves somewhat convenient to have products displayed to me on a shopping marketplace, I don’t want to have this targeted bombardment of advertisements in the same way every time I use the internet. 

Google Chrome Beta - Creates Privacy Concerns

I expect Google will release a statement saying that they will not use the technology for this purpose like several of their projects before, but this is just one more time when we are putting something of incredible strength and power into Google’s hands without any accountability for privacy.

PC term for PR?

Is the term PR correct or viewed in a good light?  It seems like many companies are calling that department corporate communications.  As I was recently promoted to Director of PR at my company, I was wondering. 

Please feel free to comment.

UPDATE: I found that Wikipedia has two different definitions for the positions that explains the difference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_communications

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_relations

I should have known Wiki-P would be there for me!

UPDATE:  I think I have decided that Media Relations will work for now.  It doesn’t nearly explain all that is encompassed, but it is a starting place.