Buddhist Marketer

Williamsburgh Savings Bank Party Tiiiiime

According to Katherine Dykstra’s “Bank On It” in the June 25, 2009 New York Post, Magic Johnson and crew have tapped Jennifer Blumin, “whose Manhattan-based company converts old spaces into high-end event venues”, to manage One Hanson Place’s 15,000 square feet of event space.  From the article:

When One Hanson first approached Blumin, whose other venues include Skylight in West SoHo, where buzzy fashion parties and product launches regularly take place, she wasn’t sure about the project. But that changed when she saw the Fort Greene space. With 75-foot ceilings, marble floors, a mezzanine balcony and ornate wooden teller stations running the perimeter of the room, the site is majestic, to say the least.

“My jaw was on the floor when I saw it,” says Blumin.

Having attended the Whitney Art Party the other week at Blumin’s Skylight, I know that any event that she oversees here will be A+. But she’s not targeting Manhattan douchebags who’d prefer to throw something on the island but Capitale’s already booked; nope, she wants to book clients who believe the hype:

“We’re not making excuses for this space, like, oh, it’s only a 10-minute subway ride from Manhattan,” says Blumin. People will have events in Brooklyn, she adds, “because they want to be in Brooklyn.”

The day rate on the space is about $15,000, although Blumin says she gives preferential treatment to Brooklyn brides.

Hmm; time to move back to Clinton Hill?

From the 2009 Whitney Art Party

Silos Are Optimization Killers

From an interview at AdExchanger with all around good guy Tim Ogilvie (9Y7), CEO of AdBuyer.com, an online media buying platform that optimizes your campaigns while you eat fried chicken:

Successful online marketing is about building lots of 5% and 10% improvements into a commanding lead. Most marketers that we talk to are drowning in data, but can’t act on that data because they’re overwhelmed or the data lives in different silos. We’ve built a platform that puts all the data in one place, makes it easy to identify improvement opportunities and just as easy to act on them.

Yes.  I mean, maybe it’s communist when you’re talking about humans, but

f’(x) + g’(x)

is an inferior approach to marketing optimization versus

the optimized sum (f(x) + g(x)).

Or something like that.  (It’s been, like, sixteen years since I’ve had calculus and stuff.)

Go AdBuyer!

Into Bits And Bytes I Am Torn

From “Write More Good” by Wayne Geyer in the June 2009 ish of HOW:

As communicators, our job is to feed our audience information in bite-sized pieces — and in a particular order.

But I attended a lecture by Stephen L. Carter during my reunion, whose thesis was

democracy needs dialogue more than it needs bumper stickers.

I agree with both.  Help?

How To Keep On Tickin’

From Patricia Marx’s “Face Value” from The New Yorker’s May 25, 2009 ish:

… how did Timex, which was originally a Connecticut-based company called Waterbury Clock, weather the great Depression?  As Jenny McLaughlin, a Timex marketing executive, explained, “Mickey Mouse saved our ass.”  Through the nineteen-thirties, the company churned out millions of Mickey watches.  (They originally retailed at $1.50 and are now collector’s items, one fetching $6,160 in a 2005 auction, although you can pick up a new one for about $20 on amazon.com).

To which I say:

• Jenny McLaughlin is my hero (unseating the reigning champion)
• Who is YOUR Mickey Mouse?

Ask Me To Donate To Your Little Schmooze A Thon

While I have no interest in writing checks to support people getting sweaty in spandex for their pet charity, I am absolutely interested in writing checks in order to attend fundraiser-things with do-gooders and their yuppie friends!  So here’s a shout-out to some fabulous folks who help make that happen.

Pictured above are my friends Em, Nus, and Gene making it happen at a CARE fundraiser earlier this year. From Patrick Cole’s “Young Patrons Hit Web to Tap Yalies, Wall St. Pals for Charity” in Bloomberg:

When young Yale graduates need to hit up other alumni for charity, they tap the Old Boy and Girl Internetwork.

Eugene Bang, a credit trader, used Facebook to send invitations for his charity’s event to more than 300 friends in finance, law and media. Emily Bell and Yale Law grad Nusrat Choudhury, the organization’s co-directors, got the word out to 1,000 people by posting it on the group’s Facebook page and electronic mailing lists for Yale and Princeton.

The Yalies were looking to better the $16,000 they raised last year for Young Professionals for CARE, which supports the Atlanta-based humanitarian organization.

The May 1 event at Manhattan’s Pink Elephant Club drew 425 attendees and more than $45,000, almost double the group’s $25,000 target.

“I give to CARE because it serves desperate people who need help in their fight for survival, a need that is persistent regardless of where we are in the economic cycle,” said Bang, 31, of Xaraf Management LLC, a hedge fund in Greenwich, Connecticut, who donated more than the $55 ticket price to the organization.

Looking for the next fun donate-n-schmooze event to attend?  Here are some ideas:

• The Resilience Advocacy Project helps end intergenerational poverty by using legal education and advocacy to empower at-risk low-income youth.  Tomorrow they’re hosting a $25 cocktail hour.
• The Touch Foundation trains Tanzanian doctors, nurses, and other health professionals in the fight against AIDS.  On July 20th they’re hosting a $40 entry, cash bar rooftop fundraiser.
• Big Brothers Big Sisters’ October Ball will be held on October 3rd at the Museum of Modern Art.  Tickets start at $135.

Holla!

Spotted on Park Ave. So. between 29/30

Abandoned white crocs

What was the owner thinking?

“Like dumbass, I look.”

Content Syndication: A Peek

For the fraction of my 508 monthly visitors that are not marketer-types, here’s a li’l peek at content syndication in action.  First, some FAQs:

• What is content syndication? Content syndication is when the property that creates the content lets their stuff appear somewhere else.
• Why would you syndicate your content? You might syndicate your content for appropriate credits if you’re trying to build your name as an expert in a particular area.  Or, you might be doing it for SEO.  However, most entities syndicate their stuff because they’re getting a percentage of ad dollars generated by their “shown elsewhere” content.
• Why would you put syndicated content on your website? Well, let’s say you have advertisers who want eyeballs that are interested in topic X.  You might have eyeballs, and you might have eyeballs interested in topic X, but you might not be an expert in topic X in particular.  What to do?  Find a content provider that knows topic X and ask if they’ll syndicate their content onto your website.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to make content syndication engine Mochila work for any of my li’l ideas but haven’t yet figured this one out yet.  So since I can’t show you within my own media empire … of 508 monthlies … how content syndication works, take a gander:

• Visit PR Landmines to Avoid as posted at WomenEntrepreneur.com
• Visit PR Landmines to Avoid as syndicated to Fox Biz’s Women In Biz channel

I’m guessing that

• WomenEntrepreneur gets a cut of ad impressions their syndicated content generates
• Fox Biz gets to save money by not hiring their own in-house women in biz writer
• Fox Biz can tell advertisers, “Oh, you want to reach the women demo?  Here are some content channels that reach that audience …”

Anyone have any other examples of content syndication that they’d like to show and tell?

Memo To Fresh Air Fund

I beg you to stop asking me to blog nice things about you.

From their fourth email in less than three weeks to me:

Hi again Anittah

I wanted to reach out one more time as there is only a week and a half left in The Fresh Air Fund’s dollar-for-dollar gift matching program. We are so excited that this is happening and thought you could help by posting a mention, tweet, or by putting up one of our new banners on Anittah Patrick. Your efforts in the past have helped to generate awareness about our organization and we are so thankful for that. If you can help again, please feel free to use any of the images, logos, etc from our microsite…

Their overly pesky insistence on me blogging about them is especially Asperger-like given that I skewered their first attempt to get me to drive traffic their way.  Good gravy!

Fresh Air Fund:  your blogger outreach strategy is so ham-fisted that I now have a bad taste in my mouth about your organization and will never, ever donate to you ever again, let alone blog about you.  Hiring someone who is clearly not a marketing expert* to help with your marketing has resulted in possibly hurting your long-term marketing efforts rather than helping.

FAIL.

=====

* Need more data points?  Straight from the official bio of the “genius” behind the Fresh Air Fund debacle:

He is also an associate of Joseph Jaffe’s New York based new media marketing company, crayon LLC.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!  Joseph Jaffe?!  That guy?!  Sorry, but, the most interesting part of the time I chatted with him at an industry luncheon was me realizing two things:

• Basically anyone can land a book deal
• Idiot Americans assume that if you have a British or Aussie accent, you’re smart

Oh, man.  The marketing industry is oh-so-teeming with non-great, unwashed drivel.  It’s no wonder most people assume that marketers are idiots; most marketers are idiots.

Click here to understand why I think it’s okay to be such a biznatchee about this.

Five Common Twitter Mistakes That Companies Make

Seems everyone is tweeting these days, and as with most things that are enjoyed by the middle of the standard normal distribution, there are a lot of companies whose twitter and Facebook presences are godawful.

Here are the five most common errors I’ve seen that companies are making with respect to Facebook and twitter.  Note that they are not discrete:

1. They tweet too often. Before coming up with a twitter execution plan, a brand needs to ask itself, “How often do my followers expect to hear from me?”  Just as pounding your email list too frequently will drive unsubscribes, so too will too-frequent tweets.  There’s no reason, for example, for any one brand to appear on my twitter front page more than twice, especially since I’m following 67 people.  Tweeting too often has additional negative implications; I unsubscribed from dictionary.com’s “Word of the day” email list because I started following them on twitter [link].  But they tweet 250% more often than once a day.  So I stopped following them.  And now, because of a poorly-executed twitter presence, dictionary.com has no relationship with me whatsoever anymore.  FAIL.
2. They update their Facebook status message too often. Same problem as with twitter.  I have 734 friends on Facebook.  There’s no reason that any one brand should appear more than once on my front page feed.  Goodbye, Newsweek.  And sorry, but, once you finally do find and hire a community manager for your Facebook and twitter presences, it’ll be too late; I’m never going to follow you ever again.  You’ve lost my trust.  FAIL.
3. They hire a 22 year old to be their community manager. Bad idea jeans.  22 year olds have a very different “This is an acceptable communication frequency” baseline vs. 32 year olds.  Who’s your company’s most valuable segment?  How often do they want to receive status updates?  If you have a rock solid social media strategy and operational execution plan, then sure, you can hire a social media analyst to execute for you.  But don’t go thinking that just because some Strattera’d out kid blogs, tweets, flickrs, and YouTubes 24/7/365 that they’re qualified to be a community manager.  At the core of effective social media is intellligent marketing, and just because someone has memorized their A B Cs does not mean they’ve got what it takes to craft beautiful prose. Tactical fluency is the former; comprehensive and intelligent social media is the latter.
4. They don’t ground their efforts into a comprehensive strategic marketing plan. If you are nodding your head right now, then I’m preaching to the choir.  If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then it’s going to be difficult for me to convince you that I’m right.  So I’m not going to try.  But to the head-nodders, as you know, illuminating MARKETING FAIL to the inexpert is akin to getting someone who is color blind to see that their socks don’t match.  (By the way; I like your shirt!)
5. Their status updates are off-brand. Sorry, but, you’ve got to be mindful about the characters you plop into a status update box.  And with notta lotta characters, each one becomes that much more important when it comes to brand stewardship.  So hire a top notch public relations or strategic communications guru and get them to help you figure out your content strategy and guidelines for your status updates.  Because, sorry Dictionary.com and Newsweek, but your status updates make you sound like a 22 year old moron.  UNSUBSCRIBE.

If you’re interested in hiring CATEGORY:OTHER to help you architect and/or execute your social media strategy, call me at (212) 360 2363.  Otherwise, may I recommend any one of the following:

• Brooklyn-based Vital Communications ghostwrites blogs for C-levels and brands
• Denver’s Brevard Neely provides exceptional strategic copywriting solutions
• Chicago’s Natiiv crafts social media strategies for bands and artists

And no, you can’t follow me on twitter unless we met in person and are friends (as opposed to colleagues) … because I tweet too often and generally the content is inconsistent with my “thinking/writing/marketing/speaking” brand.  Plus, you can’t delete out your “on second thought” tweets, and when you’re tweeting from a cell phone …

Please don’t be the brand with the amateur-hour tweets.  Get professional help!  You can do it!  Go team!

Weak Beatz Killa

Shout out to Champaign-Urbana native Jan Lo a.k.a. DJ Lomang for killing it in Beijing this past Saturday.  For those who do not know:

Jan Lo (aka DJ Lomang) has been dropping that unadulterated booty-jiggling music on dancefloors across the US since 1998.

Yes, yes that was his Gangsta Moose Mix that I put into the rotation for my ten year reunion’s Friday night playlist.

And yes, yes this is a picture from Saturday night in Beijing.  And yes, that is Ghostface Killah.  And yes, he did tell his manager afterwards, “Yo fuck that. We ain’t performing in Shanghai unless DJ Lomang comes! For real. He needs his own room in our hotel. All the same shit! Otherwise fuck Shanghai. We going straight to New Zealand…”

And yes, this is a picture of me and my slightly-excited armpizzle (Bree; am I wearing one of your shirts here?  Or was this a shirt from my lil sis?) with none other than the DJ himself back in the ‘07 when he was still killin’ it stateside.

Congrats, Jan!!