According to MSN Canada, British Columbia has been plugged into email longer than any other province. 36% of people in BC claim to have had email for over 10 years, versus the national average of 28%. Not only is that a significant difference, in theory, it could also mean that British Columbian’s require a higher standard when it comes to email marketing campaigns.
MSN Canada also reports that BC uses email more frequently than other provinces. 33% of BC residents have sent or received baby announcements via email, comparing to just 13% in Atlantic Canada.
And last but not least, 65% of Canadians perfer communicating via email over other methods according to Ipsos.
Email marketing still manages a better ROI than other marketing efforts, and should be a part of every businesses game plan, regardless of size. Learn more about StickyMail email marketing and how we can help your business get started or improve.
Twitter’s growth has been quite exceptional, and maybe you’re wondering what all the hype is about? To put some perspective on the attention Twitter is receiving, take a look at this comparison chart with Twitter.com and Foxsports.com, courtesy of Compete.
The video below is very simplistic, but it conveys the basics of Twitter quite well.
I used to be a huge fan of Digg – it was such a cool site to find unique, interesting news! When I speak in past tense regarding web properties, “I used to be a fan of Digg” means I was using it fairly regularly 2 years ago. As of today, I probably haven’t visited the site in over one year. So when I stumbled across this Digg article explaining that the Digg homepage is controlled by 50 websites, it confirms what everyone sensed was happening.
First we experienced Digg rings that would unify together to drive specific Digg articles to the front page. I didn’t have anything against this as long as it wasn’t a paid Digg ring and the news was appropriate. At the end of the day, Digg was still less “influenced” than the average television station anyways, so who are we to complain?
In my opinion, Digg was valuable for “digging” up the unique content and allowing it to gain exposure based on a good, old fashioned voting system. But I don’t see the point of Digg anymore if it’s simply regurgitating articles from mainsteam news sources. For Digg to save face, I propose they move their current Digg website to everydaynewss.com (lame I know, but hey, at least that domain is available) and drastically rethink their approach for Digg.com before they loose even more momentum.
A brandividual is a person that represents a company online through their own personal name. For example, Matt Cutts has built a brand for his own name. Anyone involved in web knows his name, you don’t have to say “you know, the guy from Google” to explain who he is. His Twitter account is #mattcutts, not #GoogleEngineer. David Armano of Critical Mass coined the term brandividual and in an AdAge article states:
“For some, the idea is scary — the melding of our personalities with the companies and brands we work for. Call it whatever you want; I believe we’ll see more of it.”
I think he’s right, it’s only going to become more common as social media plays a larger role in marketing. I see it in my own world working with Big White & Silver Star Ski Resorts. I started our Facebook groups a few years ago, and they’ve become a significant part of our web strategy. When there was a couple hundred members (and most were my personal friends anyways) sending mass messages from my personal account didn’t warrant a second thought. Now however, with our Facebook groups collectively sitting at over 5,300 people, when I send out a mass message my inbox is inundated with messages. I didn’t consider this as “building my brand”, so I created Facebook accounts for our resort mascotts (The Loose Moose & The Silver Fox) and now send the messages from those accounts.
It does make things a little more complicated when there’s turnaround within a company, but I also think it makes a company look more transparent and more friendly if they put a face and a name behind the communication.
With job cuts happening across North America, there are more people than ever looking for work. This technique from Pepsi should do the trick next time your put up against significant competition for a job!
