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Be The Face of About.me… On A Billboard in Times Square!
Maria Sass | August 26th, 2011
Custom profile startup About.me, which is owned by AOL, is looking for the new ‘face of About.me’ and is kicking off a contest to find that face.
If you’re not familiar with About.me, well, you should be. If you don’t have a personal website with your name as the domain, About.me is the next best thing. About.me offers people free profile pages, which can include your name, bio and links to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare, YouTube, and other sites that you have at one point signed up with (cough Formspring cough). Users can also upload high-resolution photos to the site, making profiles look fairly professional with minimal effort, or skill.
The company is about to launch on a huge advertising initiative, and is trying to find the faces of the campaign from existing new users. New and existing About.me users will be asked to opt in to the contest once they log-in on their profile; once opted-in, any visitor to that profile can vote on any About.me page to be featured in the campaign. Three lucky About.me users who gain the most votes will be featured in the Fall campaign, which includes a billboard in New York City’s Times Square, as well as other OOH (out-of-home, for you non-advertising industry peeps) ads, in taxis and in-flight advertisements. Winners will also be flown to the city that never sleeps, along with a friend to attend the launch event for this new campaign. Seven runners-up will also be featured in the billboard and other ads.
Posted in Internet News | No Comments
On This Day in Facebook
Dom | August 18th, 2011
Not many words are needed to express the awesomeness of the new “On This Day” rotating feature on Facebook, so I’ll keep this short. Basically, when you are on a Like page, or another Facebook page which isn’t your own, Facebook will rotate through a section on the right hand side of the page titled “On This Day.” This section shows the logged in account what they posted “On this day” in a particular year. As of now I have only noticed an “On This Day” post from a year ago, but they may go further back. Take a look at the “On This Day in 2010″ post I viewed today!
The new feature can be both a comedic blessing, and a tragic curse. Finding an “On This Day” like the one I found today brought back some nice memories and added a smile to my face, but I can think of a few posts I am dreading to see.
…and they are:
Posted in facebook, Internet News, Social Media | 1 Comment
Back-To-School Shopping… Because You’re Worth It
Maria Sass | August 16th, 2011
I was talking with my mother the other evening, when I asked what her weekend plans were, and she replied with “back-to-school shopping” with my younger sister. Back-to what? Oh that’s right… I (almost) forgot there was a time in my life when I would use school as an “excuse” to spruce up my wardrobe. Attending private schooling from kindergarten through high school, where a uniform or strict dress code was required, there was not much room for creativity in your own wardrobe. Each fall however, I was determined to add as much personal style to the uniform as possible. Some items they could not control, were shoes, jackets, and handbags, and you best believe that is where my friends and I would stretch the uniform policy to its farthest limit.
Although I can no longer use higher education as the excuse, I do have something that I did not turn to when going back-to-school shopping with my mother as an adolescent: the internet. With every designer, brand, and store having an eCommerce site, we now have no reason not to shop. If you still need to justify some new purchases, apply L’Oreal’s tagline to your shopping needs. This phrase was drilled in my head at a young age by Claudia and supermodels alike. You know how the saying goes… “because you’re worth it.”
My grandmother always told me you could judge a person based on their shoes. I realize that might sound a bit pretentious… and I personally won’t go as far as judging someone by their shoes, however the women does have (somewhat of) a point. I do believe that if you should splurge on one item, it should be shoes. Shoes are much more versatile than another wardrobe piece, and, can dress up an outfit alone. I suggest the classic black platform pump by Miu Miu, as found on Barneys.com. What I also love about Barneys is “The Window.” The Window is Barneys site on “All Things Fashion”- featuring people, places, and events all within the fashion industry. It’s nice to be on an eCommerce site where you can take a shopping breather, and educate yourself a bit.
Posted in Random!, SEO Bombshell | 3 Comments
Wprovide: Giving Chances, Making Change
Maria Sass | August 12th, 2011
#1 Ranked Integrated Search Firm? Check. Four-Time Inc. 500 Honoree? Check. 2010 Deloitte Technology Fast 500? Check. #6 Best Place to work in LA by Los Angeles Business Journal? Check! We have rightfully earned, and are proud of these awards and accolades, however just as significant are the charitable projects we have been involved with over the years.
Last month a new initiative was started at Wpromote, aptly named, Wprovide. With the mantra of “Giving Chances, Making Changes”, through Wprovide employees will work together to dedicate at least one day each month to host or partake in a philanthropic event.
To kick-off Wprovide, Wpromote partnered with local 501 (c)(3) non-profit, Heal The Bay. Heal The Bay passionately works to make SoCal’s coastal waters and watersheds safe, healthy, and clean. Last Thursday, 40 Wpromote employees devoted their afternoon to cleaning the beaches of El Porto in Manhattan Beach. As Wpromote employee (and Wprovide committee member) Braydon Holtzinger stated, “Good people, good cause, and sunshine… couldn’t ask for more.”
Experimenting With Social Media, Social Meals & Group Dining
Christian Vuong | August 8th, 2011
A decade ago, having your cell phone out at a restaurant would have been viewed as rude. Today, while still frowned upon, it’s becoming more commonplace for people to check-in when at a restaurant, tag their friends, or snap photos of food and immediately post them onto Facebook.
The Lardon Bacon Food Truck
In the recent years we’ve seen the rise of gourmet food trucks such as Kogi BBQ, lardon (bacon truck) , and The Shrimp Pimp Truck. We’ve also seen how social buying web sites such as Groupon have shaken up how far businesses and restaurants are willing to discount (for better or for worst), and how the big boys, Google and Facebook are jumping the game as well.
This year feels a little different though. While food trucks and social deal web sites are still very hot, it seems like social meals and group dining have picked-up legs. Anyone that knows me, knows that I have a habit of checking into restaurants that I eat at. It’s not so much that I’m obsessed, which I might be, but more that I’m curious to see what other patrons are recommending and how restaurants are embracing social media. With many people now more comfortable than ever checking in and broadcasting to the world their locations via apps such as 4sq, Yelp, and Facebook, meeting up and eating with strangers from the Internet doesn’t seem as scary or creepy as it would have a decade ago.
Posted in Social Media | 1 Comment
Creativity in Digital Advertising? Eat My Shorts Don Draper!
Ryan Farrell | August 2nd, 2011
In a perfect world of advertising, each and every single solitary piece of digital marketing content that somebody has uploaded to the internet would pass through a Don Draper like filter, conceived from that wondrous moment of introspection that leads to the perfect tagline, that super bowl half-time show stopping commercial, or that perfect piece of Billboard copy that causes bumper to bumper traffic on the 405.
Lucky for those of us that work in online advertising…the world does not demand that level of perfection. Yes, it’s a glass half full industry out there: one filled with 5 dollar blog posts, 10 dollar web banners, 8 dollars sliders and spelling mistakes galore…the world of digital advertising is a world of : “eh…it’s fine…post it” The bar is set gloriously low when businesses are more concerned about how many people are viewing their advertisements rather than whether their advertisements are actually worth seeing in the first place. In a great many cases…the bar doesn’t even exist at all.
And therein lies the conundrum: All business owners who are considering a digital marketing campaign must one day sit down and ask themselves honestly “Do I budget for web traffic? Or do I concentrate on conversion?” and for the small but potent minority of online marketing professionals who actually take a vested interest in the quality of content that they unleash upon the internet, the answer is simple: you plan for both. Contrary to popular belief, it is still possible to get people to visit your website without having to blast your subscribers email inboxes, or spamming random forums with bot software…I know…unbelievable huh?
Digital marketing deserves a good practice, in fact…it deserves the best of practices. Digital marketing deserves to rise above the ashes of the sub-standard spam practitioners who have long tried to “salt the clouds and ruin the picnic”. Digital marketing deserves an ethos, nay…it deserves an artform. For those of you out there who still hold onto a romantic heart, the prospect of finding something truly human online must seem like a dead and gone dream. But dreams are meant to come true.
Posted in Online Advertising | 3 Comments
