Adam Williams

How to use Pinterest’s user behavior to improve all of your social media content

on September 10, 2013 9:55 AM

As a brand or business, making the decision to become active on yet another social network is a big one. You have to be prepared to create a strategic approach, create frequent content, put paid media behind it, etc. So it doesn’t always make sense to enter every emerging channel such as Pinterest. Yet, you can still learn from what’s working on Pinterest and apply it to Facebook, Twitter or wherever you might be currently playing.

Here are a few examples of how you can make your content more relevant by observing Pinterest usage.

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Advertisements Marketing

3 Reasons Beneful’s Dog Goldberg Machine video went viral

By Adam Williams

on August 31, 2013 10:35 PM

With nearly 2 million views on YouTube after just two weeks, Beneful’s Dog Goldberg Machine video caught a lot of media attention (including a piece on CNN) and social media traction. Before explaining why it worked so well, I want to illustrate just how big the impact was.

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Advertisements Marketing

Learn content marketing from Jose Cuervo’s “Have a story”

By Adam Williams

on August 21, 2013 11:24 PM

Jose Cuervo recently released “Have a Story“ with Kiefer Sutherland. After the Jack Bauer fan in me calmed down, the commercial struck me as a near perfect outline for content marketing success.

In the 30 second spot, Kiefer describes five actions all culminating in the instruction to “have a story” (a key to marketing success).

Here’s the breakdown.

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Marketing

Does firm-created word of mouth or user-generated content drive purchase intent?

By Adam Williams

on August 5, 2013 1:26 PM

A team from the University of Basel in Switzerland released a paper in 2012 discussing research they had conducted on the impact of firm-created word of mouth communications versus user-generated social media content. The objective was to determine which type of content has the greater effect on consumers’ attitude towards brands and purchase intent. In other words, what’s driving your sales? The content that you create or the content that consumers create?

The research was based on 20 best-selling brands from the tourism, telecommunications and pharmaceuticals industries and also considered the role of traditional advertising such as television.

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Entrepreneurship

5 Books that will make you a better entrepreneur

By Adam Williams

on July 23, 2013 7:00 AM

Before I get to the list of books about entrepreneurship, let me be very clear about what a startup is. I’m stealing this definition directly from The Lean Startup by Eric Reis (one of the books I’m going to recommend you read).

A startup is an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom.

Therefore, whether you are starting a new organization or working within an organization, you can be an entrepreneur. Companies such as Intuit (market cap of $19.2B) consider themselves start-ups and actively endeavor to create entrepreneurs throughout the organization.

If you are seeking to be an entrepreneur, intrapreneur, change agent, etc, then this is a must read list for you.

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How to build a brand through online marketing pranks

By Adam Williams

on July 17, 2013 10:53 PM

This is a guest post from Joe Errington. Learn more about him at the end of the post.

The Department of Transport has always relied on shock tactics to deliver hard-hitting messages. Television adverts for their ‘Think!’ campaign have changed over the years but fear has always been the key trigger. Not happy with keeping this fear and shock on the TV, they decided to give it a 3D makeover.

A hidden camera was set up in the men’s room of a pub and a fake mirror was installed above the sinks. As unsuspecting men washed their hands, a bloodied human mannequin was then smashed through the glass, replicating a body hitting the windshield.

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American Express Carrie Brownstein commercial mocks its cardholders

By Adam Williams

on June 24, 2013 10:18 PM

American Express recently released a commercial featuring sketch comedian Carrie Brownstein, star of Portlandia, that is basically mocking cardholders.

The ad goes through a serious of “humorous” situations where Carrie is supposed to be showing the viewer how she gets to be whomever she wants to be. As a viewer, we are supposed to understand that by using American Express, we can be whomever we want to be just like Carrie.

But here’s the problem: each character that Carrie role plays is a mockery of real people.

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