blogging - SCORCH Agency

I was definitely excited at the response to my first Favorite Tweets (and Blog Posts) post and have taken some of the things that I wish I could have done better, or differently, into account this time around. This is a fun opportunity to try some different things with the Scorch blog and to use that trial-and-error to further develop the format of this post series.

Ironically, the best feedback that I received on the initial post was via Facebook, about a week later.

Well Allison, I have taken part of your advice for now. This installment includes some of my favorite tweets and blog posts, by people other than just social media folks, and is geared more around great uses of the protocol(s) for starting the conversation. Any conversation that is!

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(1) The #needWaffle campaign. A Twitter conversation between @michaeltomko and @NadozCafe.

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/michaeltomko/status/16073819259"]

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/NadozCafe/status/16074046792"]

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/michaeltomko/status/16076527995"]

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/michaeltomko/status/16087172760"]

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/NadozCafe/status/16113310678"]

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/michaeltomko/status/16113928562"]

[note: The word "touché" is not being correctly displayed in the above tweet. Thank you Blackbird Pie]

I’ll admit, I was most definitely baiting Nadoz Café to figure out a way to respond to the gauntlet that I had publicly thrown down. In my mind I was going to see 1 of 3 possible “reactions”.

They wouldn’t respond to the bait.
They’d go all Nestle on me.
They’d come back with something either witty, creative or both.

In all honesty, Nadoz Café far exceeded my expectations and came back with something not only witty and creative, but also quite worthy of me publicizing via word-of-mouth, social media and now this blog post. This is a fantastic example of a small business using social media to create empowered, and localized, advocates of their brand. And the other very important thing to realize here is that I haven’t even been in to eat their food yet and I’m already evangelizing how impressed I am with them. Thank you Nadoz for showing me the person(s) behind the curtain and responding to my bait like a real person would. I will be in very soon to claim my waffle.

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(2) “Google Rolls Out Local Business Tags Nationwide, Soon on Mobile Too” via @SEOPRO4U

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/SEOPRO4U/status/16013557425"]

A quick post by Arnold Zafra at the Search Engine Journal documenting a cool and inexpensive new way to get yours, or your clients’, businesses to stand out in search.

If you’re running a local business and you have placed listings on Google.com or Google Maps, you can enhance your listing with yellow tag emphasizing specific information about your business such as coupon, video, website, menu, reservations, photos and even custom messages. Getting this yellow tag to appear on your Google listings is not free though. You would have to pay a flat monthly fee of $25. The tags will not affect your listings’ rank and Google will clearly indicated which parts of the search results are sponsored when you’re local business is displayed.

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(3) “Products That Are Earth-and-Profit Friendly” via @sarahfelts

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/sarahfelts/status/16008077342"]

A lengthy article by Sindya N. Bhanoo at The New York Times that goes in-depth into the growing trend of businesses making a concerted effort to incorporate sustainability into their products. Great read!

As the world’s greatest soccer players take to the fields at the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, many are wearing jerseys made almost entirely from plastic bottles rescued from landfills in Japan and Taiwan.

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(4) “Farewell to Globe Drug Store on Cherokee” via @jcohen111

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/jcohen111/status/15900627501"]

This blog entry from B.E.L.T. really hits home for me. As a fellow Cherokee Street resident, I’ve frequented Globe Drugs for awhile now. It is really sad to see it go as it was one of the few remaining landmarks on Cherokee still in operation.

The Cherokee Street News broke the news that the venerable Globe Drug store had closed its doors, and got the sentiment right in the headline: 1939-2010. It does feel like a friend has died.

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(5) “Cassette Lamp” via @emilyfitzhugh

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/emilyfitzhugh/status/15630133169"]

Do I really have to tell you how cool this is? I need one of these for my desk!

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(6) “Trying To Make A Right Out of Two Wrongs Or Why We Started Our ‘Sprockets’ Program” via @spoke_marketing

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/spoke_marketing/status/15498453505"]

Spoke Marketing is doing the St. Louis marketing community proud with their Sprockets Program. As someone who has helped coach and place interns before, I have had to have the conversation many times about paying ones dues. The analogy I often use is that if a you pass an empty coffee pot, it doesn’t matter if you are the gopher or the owner, you start a fresh pot. That said, interns are all too often abused and treated as if they are only worthy of scrubbing the toilet. The rule of thumb should be that if the owner of the company isn’t willing to do the work, then it isn’t fair to make an intern do it either.

The goal of Sprockets is to solve these two problems by letting our interns work on pro bono projects for nonprofits, and early stage start-ups. The clients get free marketing help, and the interns get a meaningful experience, a portfolio, and case studies to show future employers.

Don’t worry…we don’t just throw our interns to the wolves. We work with them on each of the projects, point them in the right direction, ask the right questions, and help them make the right decisions. But, at the end of the day (summer), the decisions are theirs, the work is theirs, and the success is theirs.

They might learn that they hate marketing, and that they should go to dental school. But at least they won’t learn it basking in the glow of a copy machine.

Well done guys. This is a great program.

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(7) “Dear Honda Lawnmower” via @amveats

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/amveats/status/15497139168"]

Schlafly Summer Lager now comes in a can. That’s all you need to know.

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If you want to get your tweet featured here A) follow me and B) write better tweets! As always, your feedback is much appreciated. Until next week…

With my preferred, and most used, Twitter client being Tweetie 2 (I kind of refuse to call it Twitter for iPhone), I actually do most of my personal and business tweeting with two thumbs.

And due to the small size of the screen, and an even smaller amount of patience for 3G, I frequently just mark tweets as “favorites” so that I can read them later on my laptop. Being that I now find myself with hundreds of favorites on Twitter, I thought that each week it would be good to compile a few of the ones that were actually worth reading, once I finally got around to them.

And so the story goes…

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(1) “Taylor Momsen Did Not Write This Headline” via @BlakTwigPR
[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/BlackTwigPR/status/15419687304"]

A well written article by David Carr in The New York Times about the use of popular and seemingly unrelated search terms in web headlines to boost blog traffic.

People who worry that Web headlines dumb down public discourse are probably right. But some of the classics would still work. Remember “Headless Body in Topless Bar,” perhaps the most memorable New York Post headline ever? It’s direct, it’s descriptive, and it’s oh-so-search-engine-friendly.

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(2) “Facebook Advertising: 10 Laws Every Marketer Needs To Know” via @lisackeller
[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/lisackeller/status/15434622648"]

Fantastic insights from Nick O’Neill at All Facebook on how to advertise on Facebook effectively.

If you’ve come to Facebook looking for instantaneous sales than you’ve come to the wrong place. Facebook presents businesses with the opportunity to reach their target market throughout the entire marketing cycle. While a small percentage of users are ready to purchase while they’re browsing Facebook, a much larger percentage of users are going to make a purchase in the future if not now.

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(3) “50 Ways To Optimize Your Blog” via @heidithorne
[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/heidithorne/status/15387142198"]

A solid and comprehensive list of ways to blog better by Jeff Bullas. While obviously there are some no brainers on here, the fact that they are all in one compilation is pretty awesome.

3. Customer’s Pain Points – Write posts that provide solutions for your customers problems

4. Customer’s successes – Write up a case study about a clients successful project, they will often let you publish their name

5. What not to do – highlighting where something hasn’t worked (the names shall remain anonymous of course)

6. Create a video blog post by interviewing a successful client – this can a powerful providing authentic evidence of authority and credibility for both you and the client

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(4) “Social CRM is Just the Beginning: Looking Beyond Customers” via @briansolis
[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/briansolis/status/15249866176"]

It’s no secret that Brian Solis is a social media visionary and this post is yet another gem. Oh, and I very much appreciate his relentless use of infographics!

Customer service, combined with participation and engagement, forms a powerful foundation of marketing without blatant marketing. And, as the socialization of our business is introduced through open leadership, engagement brings into focus the fifth “P” of the marketing mix – people.

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(5) http://thetwitcleaner.com/ via @STLBeds
[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/STLBeds/status/15410717728"]

An interesting new tool to help you manage your Twitter followers. Will need to play with this a little more to see if it will actually prove useful, but I am always in search of applications help maintain the integrity of our clients’ Twitter networks.

Q. What does Twit Cleaner do?

A. It analyses the profiles & tweets of every single person that you follow, looking for certain patterns of behaviour (people not talking, being over repetitive, common spam tactics, posting the same links repeatedly, etc).

It’s then up to you to decide who to save & who to unfollow.

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I would love to hear how others are using the Twitter favorites function. To me, it is the perfect way to bookmark those useful, funny or cool tweets that you either don’t want to forget or simply can’t fully enjoy right at the moment.