Wesley Chapman » Blog

An Opportunity for the Ages

Wesley Chapman — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 03:49:33 +0000

Back in August of 2010 a new company was born, www.orcamd.com, focusing on the mHealth ecosystem through the exploration and development of mobile technology. There is a lot in that little sentence and it has created quite a stir in the mobile world.

To date Orca MD has developed four iPad/iPhone apps and is currently working on 6 additional apps, with 10 more slated for this year. This is only the beginning. Without giving out too much information we are saving for conferences, I can state that apps are only a third of the Orca MD game plan. When you truly dive into mobile technology and into this ‘mHealth’ world you quickly see how lacking in quality solutions, it truly is.

Two months after Orca MD was launched I was asked to become the Chief Operating Officer and to help guide the company into the future of mHealth. This was an overwhelming offer especially when I saw the caliber of people involved. Individuals with degrees from Harvard, Stanford, University of Washington and USC just to name a few. I was honored and two months and a few days after the launch of Orca MD, I accepted the offer.

Now that five months have past I have had the privilege to be a part of something I can only compare to the revolution of the internet. I know a bold statement, but as this industry develops more and more is coming to the lime light and it only brightens its’ future. ( I know shameless plug for LIME )

My involvement with LIME is still 110% and growing. LIME is opening a new production office out of state and we are growing like mad. My family has truly supported me in these endeavors as my days are packed to the point of explosion! We live in a revolutionary time where only the imagination is our limitation.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Buzz Words, iPad, iPhone, LIME, mHealth, Orca MD, Personal, Updates

Harvey

Wesley Chapman — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 02:52:02 +0000

How perfect would it be if we could instead of looking at our past could look at our future and then learn to control our past? If one could simply look ahead and not behind, if you could see what was coming, not what had already passed you by. How then would life be? Could you miss a car wreck, plan the perfect date, could you pick the winning lottery numbers. Just think of all you could do. Sadly though this is not how life is, yet in many moments of life, I wish it was.

It was a cool summer evening, my grandmother was busy in her room for hours talking to herself as she stood stoically in the mirror, changing her outfit at least 10 times and then reverting right back to the first set of clothes she started with. Curlers in her hair and all kinds of weird fruity smells engulfing her body. I was with Foxy just watching as my grandmother seemed more concerned with her lip paint then with the fact that her toes were separated in toilet paper, which we just did not understand.

My grandmother just kept saying to me over and over again, “Don’t fight with the babysitter, I need this night out.” It was like she thought I didn’t hear her so she just kept repeating it and repeating it as she looked down at me with a look of pain and pleading. Just a few days prior to this evening I had pulled off one of the most epic “Problem Child” moments. You see at this point in my life I was not welcome at public schools and so I was forced to be home taught and babysat while my grandmother worked in the days. I wasn’t a fan of this in any light and did all I could to share this opinion.

On Wednesday I had had enough of the teacher/babysitter and set a plan in motion to expel her from my home. Through careful planning and exact timing I managed to get her to leave the house just for a moment, but before I did this I handsomely stole her keys to both her car and our home. Once she was outside I simply locked all the doors, ensured the windows were locked, sat back and watched as she frantically searched for a new way into our home to no avail. She was successfully expelled and I never saw her again. Her among several other in house care givers lasted only for a few days and some even hours, as I managed to expel each of them one by one.

Yet this summer evening I felt something different, like a need to just let my grandmother have this evening out, that is until I saw why she was so methodically preparing for the evening. Just moments after I had told myself I would comply with her wishes our door bell rang. We had just moved into a new apartment, now no longer in my grandmothers fancy condo. With all the outside battles grandmother was forced to quit her high roller job and take a job that was less intense and so we lived in a small 2 bedroom twin home with a small living room and an even smaller kitchen. One bathroom and small hall that connected the house to the main door. Getting around in the home took only but a second, yet once in your room you felt tucked away and secluded from the main entrance.

The door bell rang again, my grandmother still had all that toilet paper shoved in her toes and her hair was wrapped in a plastic tent. She looked down at me, “His early! Go to the door let him in and keep him in the living room. I will be there is just a minute.” I slowly got up, grabbed Foxy and headed to the door. Before I opened the door I took a peek and saw the frame of a giant standing on the concrete porch. He had to be at least 9 feet tall. His arms were the size of my entire body and his legs were like trees with shoes on them. His hands were ginormous and his head was the size of one of those pumpkins you saw on tv! “Wow”, I thought to myself, who was this man and what did he want?

I carefully opened the door and then his voice came down from the clouds, “You must be Wesley,” he said with wind gusts nearly blowing me away. “Is your grandmother here?” I froze, just starring at his bulk wondering why my grandmother wanted this tree man in our home. He wasn’t wearing anything special, no badges, not even a name tag. Foxy didn’t seemed bothered by him, yet I just didn’t like him. Something didn’t seem right and after what felt like hours I looked up past his inflated chest and replied, “No she left a few hours ago with some guy.” With in seconds the man’s pumpkin head turned tomato red and his trees for legs, fell down off our porch. His arms reaching for the sky and he turned, looked at me and then just walked away.

Done I thought, one less thing to worry about. Just then my grandmother came out from her room, “Where’s Harvey?” Harvey? “He left,” I stated as I headed back to my room. With in moments I heard the front door open and then slam. Minutes passed and then what seemed like hours. I climbed up on our couch, pried the curtains opened and watched as my grandmother spoke to the tree man and kept grabbing his hand. Then he wrapped his couch sized arms around my grandmother, picked her up like she was a small teddy bear and they both started walking back to our front door. Foxy and I quickly jumped down and headed for safety.

We darted to my room, past the kitchen and hiding back behind my grandmother’s flowery pasted bathroom wall. I quickly closed my door and jumped into my bed. Thinking that if I just could get to sleep I would avoid any trouble and escape what was surly to become one of those long parent talks. I failed miserably and standing above me was my grandmother and behind her that giant tree. Foxy squeezed out of my room and headed for safety. My grandmother pulled back my covers, looked me in the eyes and said, “Wesley this is Harvey.”

Thats it? You tell me the tree man’s name and we’re done? A small tear filled my grandmother’s eye. She popped up, “I will be gone for the evening your sitter is here, I will see you in the morning.” With that she turn to the door, flipped my light off and left. I just laid there motionless wondering why I got off so easy. I had obviously not only irritated my grandmother, but had shown this ‘Harvey‘ what a little brat I could be. Moments after my grandmother left my babysitter came in, handed me my ‘candies’, a glass of water and then exited just as my grandmother had. After this I laid on my bed and felt my eyes become heavy as they closed for the day.

It wouldn’t be until years later that I understood what the tear in my grandmother’s eye meant and why she cried that night. In the short time I had been with her, I had exhausted her and that night I had helped her realize that she couldn’t help me on her own.

The above all sounds like a common little prank, yet it is an example of what I was doing and who I was becoming. The ‘candies’ only seemed to help me forget, not manage my past. The doctors and weekly meetings just gave me a place to play with legos and talk about my fits. My anger, hate, fear and pain was no longer child like. I was showing the world that I was in control, I would have the final word. I would do what I wanted to do and nothing could or would stop me. No one would have control over me and no one would have the power to hurt me ever again. Yet I was as wrong and as powerless then as any other time in my young life. My out of control behavior only made my life that much more out of control.

If I knew that night what the next 12 years of my life would be like I know I would have handle Harvey so much differently and shown my grandmother a new side to me. As it stood Harvey would become a part of my life and would control more then I could have ever imagined.

Technorati Tags: Blog, My Story

The 7 Link Challenge

Wesley Chapman — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 16:50:01 +0000

Darren Rowse from ProBlogger.com had a great idea and challenge. He is calling it the “7 Link Challenge”. The idea is to highlight a few of the blog posts a blogger has made and bring them ‘back from the dead’ if you would. Giving new readers a way to quickly see the blogs history, potential and vision.

I thought I would take this challenge. Now being that this blog is new and I used a poor blog service before that didn’t allow me to archive or export my blog posts I can’t take you too far back, but we will give it a shot.

Comment away and let me know your favorites or if I missed something! Here are the questions to the challenge:

1. Your first post -

My first post was Chapter One and Two of my story. I will go with Chapter Two: Here is the link

2. A post you enjoyed writing the most -

This was a tough one because there are a lot of posts I enjoyed writing. I am going to give you two. One from my story and the other was a business post. Chapter Three and The Digital Door is Wide Open

3. A post which had a great discussion -

As many of you know I have both a FaceBook and a Twitter page that I am very active on. This means that often after I write a blog post I get several tweets, DM’s or FaceBook messages about my post. There is one post however that has not only gotten me an overwhelming amount of digital comments, but also ‘real world’ comments. Not to mention I was even asked to speak on the topic at a local business function. It is a two part post, enjoy! The Myths About Marketing

4. A post on someone else’s blog that you wish you’d written -

I get a lot of inspiration and ideas from other bloggers. Many times I will see a blog post and it will get me thinking. Those thoughts usually end up on my blog with a different ( or my ) spin on the topic. I wouldn’t say I have seen a post that I wish I would of written, but being that this is a challenge I will say—I wish I came up with this ”7 Link Challenge”!

5. Your most helpful post -

This is an open ended one. Most helpful for me or the audience? Well this has been the most helpful for me: Time for a Time Out and through feedback I have learned that this post has been the most helpful to readers: Killing the Mosquitos

6. A post with a title that you are proud of -

I love titles! In fact I truly believe that the Title will make or break your post. I have so many favorites, but truly the one that got a HUGE amount of traffic in just minutes was: Do You Have a Beethoven or a Hasselhoff?

7. A post that you wish more people had read -

I had to laugh at this question what blog post doesn’t a blogger wish more people had read? With that in mind however this is a blog post that I feel got decent traffic, but more would of been nice: The Dinosaurs are not extinct yet!

Well there you go enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Blog, Blogging, Marketing, Personal, Updates, Website

Comments, who needs them?

Wesley Chapman — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 03:38:22 +0000

Ever heard the saying, “If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all!”? If you have, you are part of the minority when it comes to web users and blog readers. It is funny how many of my clients, friends or like mined individuals will dive into the world of online publishing only to find out that people are quite or plain mean!

The online world of content delivery is hands down the best invention since the light bulb, but it is still very misunderstood. One of the big mysteries is commenting. Each time I have a client post a blog or a social media status I field the phone calls and questions about the comments. The phone call either goes one of two ways. It is either, “I have posted 3 articles and NO ONE is commenting on my posts, why and what am I doing wrong?” “Lets take a step back,” is my reply. I continue by stating that facts are facts. Your blog is new, people are still getting to know you. They are learning to trust you and learning your style of opinions or information.

Blogging and social media connections are much like starting a new friendship in the physical world. You aren’t going to jump into a room full of people you don’t know and have everyone tell you how amazing your shirt looks or how smart you look. It takes time, it takes getting to know people and yes some people have an easier time with this and some bloggers do as well.

Just because people are not commenting or replying doesn’t mean they are not reading. I have been to many functions where someone will comment to me directly how they enjoyed a post I wrote or saw a status update on my FaceBook wall. Some people just feel more comfortable telling you to your face, rather then to a comment box on a website.

I also remind my clients that if they or their company have different portals of online communication, say a twitter account, a FaceBook account and a blog, their customers may find it easier to tweet them a comment about their latest blog rather then comment directly to the blog. The number of comments on your blog is in no way a direct reflection on the blog’s or article’s impact.

Continuing to post is the key and then when you do get that comment reaching out to your opinion or information it is critical that you reply. Develop an open line of communication with your readers and show them that yes you do care about what they have to say.

Next the client will tell me about some hateful and spamming comments their blog is getting. In some cases the comments can be hurtful and damaging to a blogger’s morale. I can’t tell you how many comments and painful statements I have gotten in my blogging and social media endeavors and that is exactly what I tell my clients. Everyone will get the negative comments and hate mail. Every blog will be spammed by Viagra ads, you simply have to ignore them. People will hide behind their computers and there is just nothing you can do about it.

Now in some cases the comments need to be addressed. They may be negative, but true. It could be about your companies poor service or a bad experience a client has had with your firm. You need to address them in an open and professional way and good things can happen. Here is a live example of this from a project I am running:

The customer was upset and was quite open in his statements. We worked with him, not against him and in the end we have a fan of not just our one app, but our company as a whole.

Comments are a tricky thing in the online world of blogging and social media. Not everything you write or ‘status update’ will get replies, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t reading. Give it time, let it mature and ignore the online garbage.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Blogging, Content, Customers, LIME, Social Media, Social Space

Except one—my dog.

Wesley Chapman — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 04:27:15 +0000

It is funny how life will come at you full circle. How it will pull you and push you through your days, through the months, through the years and then at some point you will look around and see that the journey hasn’t taken you too far, yet it has simply taught you how to get around. When we look at it, it is almost humorous or ironic that in some cases the things we once feared would become the things that save us. Life is a funny thing, a thing that for my young mind was about to get a whole lot more ‘ironic’.

Dogs for me have a different meaning then I think they do for most of you. As a small child the phrase, “You are in the dog house” was more literal then it needed to be. My step father thought of us not as children, but as toys or pets. For my brother and I, being ‘in the dog house’, truly meant being in a dog house. Sometimes just for a few hours and then others times it would be a resting place for our small frames. A place to rest our heads throughout the night.

Then dogs took on a new meaning in my young life as I and the other ‘bad children’ were given the dog dishes as our serving plates. The dogs were treated more like humans then we were. Both my step father and this new cage I was put in, saw dogs as the superior species over me. I was placed in their beds as they enjoyed mine and was told to eat off their dishes as they enjoyed food from the tables. Yes, dogs for me were not, “boys best friend”. Oh how ‘ironic’ this would become.

There I was alone, trapped and afraid. Unaware of the outside world or the battle that my grandmother was enduring. Unaware of where I was, who I was or what I would become. Had my time of a normal childhood run out? Was I back in the system for good? Was my mother coming back for me? Where was my father, who was my father, for that matter, who was I? These questions and many more circled my mind and kept my nights sleepless. Fear filled my body and the only thing I could hope is that ‘mommy’ was coming back for me. Then almost as oddly and quickly as this chapter in my life had begun, it ended.

I was returned to my grandmother’s. No answers and no ‘mommy’. I would not learn until many months later that my mother had requested custody of me once more, but had failed to show up to the hearing. Months later the courts informed us that her welfare check was running low and she saw me as a way to increase her payday. I was a pawn in the game of money. I was not loved by a mother, yet used as a number. The feelings that came with this, were of hate, pain, fear, worthlessness and sorrow. My mother had shown the world and myself, that she was incapable of loving. She had done all she could do for me and now it was up to me to do for myself.

My young life was never the same after this. That trip to the zoo had changed me forever. I had learned at too young of an age that life was not fare, nor were there free handouts. In the next months I would become a terror. My fits and my temper were untamed. My concentration in school was almost non-existent. I had lost the will to survive, the will to overcome. I preferred to be lifeless and careless, then to enjoy life or care about those around me. Fighting was about the only thing I had passion for. Who could I pick on? What wall could I punch or what item could I destroy? I was fearless, but was becoming feared. My teachers worried about my progress in school. My grandmother quickly began to lose control of me. I had been beaten, abused, left, studied, caged and I had now drawn a line in the sand and I was not about to care about anything, but myself.

I had convinced myself that God had left, He had let me down. I was no longer ready to believe that God could truly love me and let all of this happen to me. Why would He allow this? If He was God he would love me and care for me, He would not let these people do all of this to me. I didn’t feel anything. I didn’t care to understand anything. I didn’t want to know anyone. All I wanted to do was nothing at all. All I cared about was protecting me at all costs.

With my fits and tempers came more doctors and tests. This time the doctors weren’t in white coats nor was I placed in a white room, this time they had toys and treats. They wanted to talk to me, have me look at puzzles and maps. Sometimes they would just watch me play with legos. Other times they would walk me to a candy shop and ask me what I wanted. These doctors and these tests I was happy with, but I remained quite and didn’t let anyone in. I wasn’t about to let someone else know anything about me or how to hurt me. This worked well until the doctors shared their results with my grandmother.

My grandmother had done all she knew how to do. She had become frustrated with me and I had not done my part to let her in. For her, the tests and doctors were hope, for me this was just another example of how everyone I trusted betrayed me. So the results were shared. I was uncontrollable and a risk to myself and others. I suffered from stress related illnesses and my mind was unable to cope in a normal social environment. I was for a lack of a better word, ‘a problem child’. Recommendation? Pills and clinical therapy. Yes the medications or ‘candies’ were back.

This time the ‘candies’ would not go away. My grandmother would see them as a hope to help me cope. Her only concern would be controlling the side effects. This would be a test all on it’s own and would lead to countless changes in medications until they found just the ‘right’ one. The therapy consisted of weekly ‘meetings’ with doctors and scans on my head. The meetings seemed silly to me. I would go in, sit on the floor surrounded by toys and then I was told I couldn’t play with them until I answered a few questions. Then some times I would be questioned with my grandmother in the room and other times I would be given cards and puzzles to solve. All and all the doctors in these meetings seemed to do nothing for me and I did nothing for them during these sessions.

I was wallowing in self pity and self destruction. No one understood me except one. One friend is all I had. Through my tempers and fits I had lost my friendship with Josh and my school mates. I was not liked, except by one and her name was Foxy. She had beautiful silver hair, her eyes were as black as the sky and her love was ironically just what this little boy needed. I had found a friend, someone that would listen, someone that seemed to care about just me. No matter how mad or how sad I was she was there for me. She loved me like no one else seemed to.

Foxy was a pure breed Keeshond and she was my perfect dog. My grandmother had had her for a few years before my arrival, yet I hadn’t paid much attention to her until after my zoo trip and frankly she hadn’t given me much time of day either. That all changed, it was if she knew that she had to do her job as a dog and step up and be this boys best friend.

What can a dog do for a small boy? Everything. Foxy would know things that no one else would know of my childhood life. I told her how I felt, how I hurt and how scared I truly was. The doctors and their tests could not get me to talk. I trusted no one, except one. I went through the motions and had the therapy sessions, I took the pills, but I let no one in my life nor would share my life with anyone, except one.

My world had come full circle now and the one thing I hated so much as a boy was now the one thing I trusted more then any. Ironically, I trusted—a dog.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Personal, Updates

A day of honor, a day to respect, a day to remember

Wesley Chapman — Mon, 31 May 2010 15:49:22 +0000

Today in the United States it is Memorial Day – a day to remember those that bravely given the ultimate sacrifice…their lives. Regardless of your political views or personal beliefs on War, please take a moment and honor the brave men and women that have fallen.

Whether you are an American or not take time to thank those that serve you, give them your respect and remember the heros that have been brave enough to give you everything—their lives.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Updates

The digital door is wide open—Anyone ready to walk in?

Wesley Chapman — Fri, 28 May 2010 16:33:16 +0000

So this week we had another player enter the digital media world, WIRED. How did they do in this humble marketer’s opinion? I give it a two out of five stars. It is an okay start, but honestly coming from a leader in the geek world I truly expected more from WIRED.

They did nail down the rich media content, but the delivery of the content was still laced with the feel of print and not the feel of digital freedom. The ads are nothing more then copies from the print addition and lack zero capabilities of tracking success or impact. The navigation of content is basic and lacks natural user interaction. All and all the app is not worth the $4.99 price tag. I hope it is a first step for WIRED and they look to strip away the print limitations and change the price point delivery system. Only time will tell.

So what makes a good digital magazine and why am I so hard on all these guys? I will answer the latter question first. I expect more from companies that have budgets that are deep, brand penetration and have openly announced they have been planning these apps for the past year. Spending upwards of $100,000 just to produce one issue and 10 to 20 people working on each issue. Then in the end we get glorified PDF’s or an untraditional digital experience. I get just a bit frustrated, but again it leaves the door wide open for the little guy.

With that said now I will give the three keys needed to making digital media content successful. I won’t give away all the ‘how to’s’, but I will outline the basics.

Rich Media Content: This seems to be the obvious and simplest of the tasks. Creating content and rich media content should be a no brainer, a 1, 2, 3, type of deal for these companies. Sadly it just is not the case. For years publishers have mastered the art of ‘less is more’ and working in the realms of print restrictions. Now we are telling them to abandoned what they have thought, trained and done for centuries. This process is more of a culture change then anything else. It will take time, but it is key to the success of digital media. ( more to come on what exactly Rich Media content really is, in a future blog )

Track-ability of User Interaction: One of the greatest advantages to going digital is the ability to track not only the ads, but the content as well. Now publishers can rely on more than just letters and casual conversations about their content’s success, they can get hard cold facts. What do readers like? What don’t they like? Was the cover story the right story? What content was the most popular, what content was interacted with the most? All of these can now be answered. Advertisers can now track their print ads much like they do for online ads. Ad delivery becomes a whole new ball game and everyone benefits, the users, the publishers and the advertisers.

Social Integration: What are we as a society if we don’t share? We are nothing and the same fate befalls digital media. It is truly worthless if you can’t share it. We have to remember that not EVERYONE owns a tablet or a portable media device…but odds are they have access to some type of internet connection. This means that if I am reading the latest digital news story I can quickly share it to my social community. In turn they can share it to theirs and so on. Now the digital content is no longer ‘just’ on my device, but it has spread to thousands and do this enough times with the right content and users will pony up and get into the portable media revolution. As a note this does not mean that ALL content needs to be shared in an open platform. There are many ways to protect the publishers content and still share the experience.

Now these are just the building blocks. Of-course there are other issues to address such as; Pricing, UI design, Flow, Gesture control, Speed and Delivery. The three keys above are what is minimally required to truly compete in the digital media market place.

If you are interested here are the links to the ‘top’ digital magazines out right now:

WIRED ( 2 out of 5 stars )

TIME ( 2.5 out of 5 stars )

MEN’S HEALTH ( 3 out of 5 stars ) – there are a few bugs in the app, but those will be fixed. As for content and user experience they have the most—so far.

POPULAR SCIENCE ( 2 out of 5 stars )

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Apple, Apps, Blog, Buzz Words, Digital Media, iPad, LIME, Print

Your reach might surprise you

Wesley Chapman — Wed, 26 May 2010 14:01:17 +0000

For the last week I have been fighting a nasty flu bug and have not had the opportunity to post. While I am not at 100% I wanted to get back to the writing world, so here we go.

During my ‘rest’ I thought about a lot of different topics to write about, but one that kept coming out on top was ‘reach’. In advertising your services or products, this is one of the most critical pieces to success. Understanding your reach is something that takes time, data and patience.

Let me take a step back and define ‘reach’. Reach is the distance, influence and penetration of your sent marketing/advertising message. How far geographically is your message shared? How do you influence your audience and what is your audience number? Reach is the cornerstone of data gathered by both your online and offline efforts.

So how do you measure your reach? This is where planning, patience and persistence, or the three P’s come in. The first step is to plan. Yes you must plan to measure and set the tools needed in-order to measure your reach. Second you will need patience. Gathering useful data takes time. It will not happen overnight. Third you have to be persistent. This means you will need to send the message out at different times, in different ways and be able to adapt. Once you have set up the three P’s you will be able to truly measure your reach.

Why is reach and understanding your’s so important? As a business owner or as a marketer you can only sale to those that will listen and react. You don’t use a shotgun to kill a mosquito. Reach is a powerful tool and an unprecedented ally once you understand and use it.

Here is one piece of my reach; Geographical Location and Data. These are the points from around the world where people came to this blog last week:

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Blog, Blogging, Content, Geolocation, LIME, Marketing, SEO, Social Media, Social Space, Website

Write it, type it, post it, tweet it, status it…what is it all?

Wesley Chapman — Mon, 17 May 2010 14:48:08 +0000

Another buzz word to really catching on fire in 2010 is ‘Content Marketing’, well what is it?

Funny how we use these words in hopes to identify a process in an industry ( whether that is the medical world, auto industry or anything really ) and then we have to write blogs and articles just to explain it. This is one said blog, an explaining blog.

‘Content Marketing’ is advertising or marketing with content. Simple right? Implementation of Content Marketing—not so simple. It is a way for businesses to utilize the ever expanding search market for consumers to find their products and or services. The problem with ‘Content Marketing’ is too many people don’t know what to do or how to truly take advantage of what it can offer. This leads to a lot of ‘junk’ on the internet and in the advertising world. It leads to a lot of businesses overloading their consumers with different messages. For example I just starting working with a client on a large marketing and advertising campaign and found out that they had 3 different FaceBook pages all run by different managers in the company. Oops. Yeah not the way to run your ‘Content Marketing’.

What counts as ‘Content Marketing’? There are all forms of Content Marketing. It can be ‘big’ or ‘small’. It can be a press release to a Twitter post. Content Marketing is not just limited to the web world. Your newspaper, magazine, billboards, radio ads are all part of your Content Marketing. Your employees personal blogs can also effect your Content Marketing as well. It is hard to tell your employees what to do in their personal time, but if they understand and buy into your mission for online media, they tend to ‘get it’.

The critical thing to remember in Content Marketing is to have a solid, concise and fluid message across ALL media/web outlets. It is imperative that you have strict Content Marketing Management system or CMM. See we just love to name things.

So today is the beginning of a new week and a great time for you to refocus your efforts. Spend some time with your team today and plan out how you are going to change your ‘Content Marketing’. How are you going to collectively spread the message? What medias are you going to use? How often are you going to use them? Make ‘Content Marketing your friend, not your enemy: Fired over my blog

The image credit used in this post goes to a talented art student: http://typophile.com/node/62809

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Blog, Blogging, Buzz Words, Content, SEO, Social Media, Social Space, Updates, Website

The Dinosaurs are not extinct yet!

Wesley Chapman — Thu, 13 May 2010 13:30:54 +0000

With all the hype about social ‘this and that’, websites and portable digital media, have we just abandoned talking about all ‘traditional’ forms of distribution and media? I am referencing that big square box called your TV and about those print newspapers and magazines you have lying around. It seems the only reason people will talk about the ‘big box’ is if it has to do with 3-D technology. Or the only reason print is mentioned is to say how it is going to be destroyed by digital content—well let’s change that!

Your traditional medias are strong and while they may not completely rule the headlines, they still rule living rooms, bathrooms and doctors offices all around the world. This means as a business owner you can’t jump ship and not focus on the bread and butter of advertising. Example, last night my wife and I were watching American Idol and there was Apple and it’s iPad.

Apple launched a new media campaign showing the iPad in the real world, running apps and trying to convince the masses to ‘buy one’. So the king of the headlines ( the iPad ) is using the grandfather of media distribution to spread the word—yes, your business needs to use grandpa too.

Now lets look at great grandpa, print media. Yes it is understood that print medias are hurting and readership is down, but the asterix here is that readership is down due to the fact that at one time the only way to get the news was in print. Now we have several different ways to gather information, thus readership in one is down and up in another.

With that said there are still A LOT of human eyes reading print media and they will be for at least the next 10 years. Example number two. A few months ago the New York Jets traded away their number one running back to the Kansas City Chiefs. This had the makings of a PR nightmare for the team and an ethical one as well. So what did they do? They, the New York Jets, took out a full page add in the Kansas City newspaper to thank him for all he had done as a Jet. Could of they of blogged about it? Yes and they did, but the impact of that print ad was so well received add read by thousands of fans which shared it with hundred of thousands of people. Print is in no way dead, it is just not the same as it once was.

So in all the hype about social media, blogs, FaceBook, Twitter and so on, don’t forget about the ‘dinosaurs’ of advertising and marketing. They may not be as giant as they once were, but their impact and reach is still too great to ignore. The true trick is to use the hype in combination with tradition to create unprecedented results. Need to know how? ( shameless plug about to come ) Contact me at LIME Marketing 801-423-LIME or email info@getlimed.com

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