Brand Central Station

It seems like about half the PR-related tweets on Twitter are about … you guessed it, Twitter.  Well, Twitter and social media.

But just like bloggers like to write about blogging, it seems Twitterers like to micro-blog about Twitter.  Not that there  isn’t some interesting things to note about the service or those who use it.  Just from today’s traffic, I found the following articles of interest:

Who uses Twitter?  According to this page in Quantcast, 53% of the Tweeps out there are female and more than 70% of them are between the ages of 18 and 49.  Eight in ten Twitter users are white and three out of four make in excess of $30k a year.

Twitter currently ranks in the top 250 sites on the ‘net and reaches over 6.1 million people (uniques) every month who visit an average of eight times per month.

Social Media At Work reports that Twitter has now passed the New York Times in traffic.

And while Google’s mantra is to do good (or at leat not to do evil), there are apparenty a few folks who don’t carry that standard over to their Twitter usage – judging from the subject of this page on DiGorno’s plans to deliver pizzas to influential Tweeps.  As blogger Matt Rhodes points out, it’s a little weird that the “not delivery” pizza is planning on delivering pizza to catch a buzz on Twitter. 

Talk about half-baked.

And finally, there’s this broad look at social media (in general) and Twitter specifically defined as the “best”in social media marketing.  This is an informative article, well worth the read.  And the sites it links to are worth bookmarking in your browser for future use.

Enjoy the weekend.

Ragan.com just published a very user-friendly post about Twitter for those who are intimidated by it.

I’ve also been talking to some self-professed “Twitter experts” who have offered to answer your questions here at Brand Central Station, so if you have a Twitter question, send it to me and we’ll post the answers every Friday.

And don’t forget you can follow Brand Central Station on twitter by clicking our Twitter Feed in the right hand column and adding it to your RSS reader.

Keep on Tweetin’

You have to give the Association of National Advertisers credit, it’s not like they’re not trying.

But no matter what they seem to say or do, American advertisers don’t seem to understand the importance of minority markets to their brands’ success or profitability. There seems to be only one answer to sum up the majority of the obstacles cited by ANA members in a recent survey which attempted to divine the rationale for the dearth of marketing initiatives aimed at including minorities.

Ignorance.

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Oh well, from a rant on the need for multicultural to this little gem exploiting the US’s first African-American President a full sixty days before he’s even sworn into office.  We all know a person’s right to privacy flies out the window when he’s voted to be the next “most powerful dude on the planet” – but seriously, shouldn’t there be a law about this kind of hucksterism?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWN1Au4HNFY]

Well, at least it’s not real money.  I guess it could have been worse.  In Bermuda, monetary officials are having to explain why they allowed their engraver to change the bill of the White-tailed Tropicbird to more closely resemble that of a Red-billed Tropicbird instead.  Huh?

So they now have a “mashup” of two birds to create some kind of hybrid, megabird for their $50 bill. Next thing you know, they’ll put a Pushmi-pullyu on the $100.  Hugh Lofting would be proud.

(Bet you never thought you’d get a D.D. allusion in a marketing blog, did you?)

Hat tip to the “Make the Logo Bigger” blog for the tv spot.

Peter Shankman (in one of his more vulnerable moments ... and there aren't that many!)

HARO (Help A Reporter Out) is a relatively new editorial inquiry service developed and managed by the ever-ingenious Peter Shankman.  Peter (who started The Geek Factory and travel companion site Airtroductions – now TripLife.com) is a brilliant PR flack, social networker and modern-day, bon vivant of technology.

So, what’s the big deal about HARO?

There are a few services that help put journalists in need of knowledgable sources and information in touch with the experts and PR flacks who represent them.  Most of them come with some kinds of strings attached (usually in the form of subscription fees).  But HARO is different because it is free.  Shankman’s revenue comes from the ad sold at the head of each bulletin (issued three times a day).

The model seems to be working.  HARO now boasts a circulation of over 36,000.  Multiply that number by Peter’s stated ad rates (as per this article in AdWeek) and we’re talking a tidy sum … all of it earned. 

HARO’s system of circulating reporter inquiries to sources is quick and efficient and works because of a level of integrity enforced by Peter, himself.  When you receive HARO e-mails, you get the distinct impression that Peter’s watching what’s going on and who’s responding.  It’s an impression he reinforces with his own sense of urgency and candid honesty:

These requests only come from reporters directly to me. I never take queries from that other service, I never SPAM, and I’m not going to do anything with your email other than send you these reporter requests when they arrive in my in-box.

This is really the only thing I ask: By joining this list, just promise me and yourself that you’ll ask yourself before you send a response: Is this response really on target? Is this response really going to help the journalist, or is this just a BS way for me to get my client in front of the reporter? If you have to think for more than three seconds, chances are, you shouldn’t send the response.

In the end, we could probably all stand to do this a bit more, huh?

As a friend of Peter’s for some time, I can tell you this IS quintessential Peter Shankman.  And because he is who he is – generous nearly to a fault and ingenious to the point of near exasperation, you don’t dare let him down by breaking the rules.

HARO is a must for publicists and marketing pros.  Check it out and sign up today!

With apologies to the Baha Men … a new viral video for JC Penney from Satchi & Satchi.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F2md4uGmMU]

Hilarious.

Note to self: 

     Things to get the wife for Christmas -

• Abdomisizer
• Dual Bag Vacuum Cleaner
• Extra Ram for her Computer
• New Bathing Suit for Hottie Mother-In-Law
• Mustache Waxer

Man, the Holidays are tough.

Are you Mary or Rhoda? 
Jan or Marsha?
Jeannie or Samantha?
Romey or Michelle?

I suppose the real question should be: Are you “Sales” or “Marketing”?  Check out our handy guide below and find out for yourself.

Hat tip to the Funnelholic blog.

In every social order there are those at the top and then there are the rest of us a few rungs down the ladder (some a few more rungs than others).  That’s even true in the Twitterverse where there are some folks who are bound to attract more “followers” than others.

Hey, movie stars Tweet, recording artists Tweet, politicos Tweet, journos Tweet.  In a land where no one can utter more than 140-letter tomes at a time, it’s amazing who you can find, follow and friend.

But just who should you really be following?  In a service with over 2 million subscribers (some claim there are more than 3 million), it’s tough to know which conversations are worth dropping in on. 

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Plenty of media sources reported server crashes for some retailers hoping to cash in on a “Cyber Monday” sales bounce to kick off the holiday shopping season.  But while 404 messages were as common as slip-and-fall incidents in the parking lot of your local mall, the damage to concerned retailers (i.e. Victoria’s Secret, The Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, Borders, Comp.USA and Home Depot to name a few) could be significant.

Here’s why:

This holiday season is brewing up a “perfect storm” for a financial disaster when it comes to Q4 sales for retailers.  Not only is 2008′s holiday shopping season five days shorter (thanks to the floating Thanksgiving holiday and leap year), it also has one fewer weekends than last year.  Add to that the fact that we’ve all just learned that the US has been in a financial recession since last December (still not clear as to what took so damn long to figure that one out) and a majority of consumers are saying they’re tightening their spending belt this year.

The result: it looks like the first few days of the holiday shopping season will be the only chance any retailer stands for making a “silk purse” out of the sow’s ear that is 2008.

Prelminary reports on Black Friday and the following weekend were that sales figures were up marginally over 2007 (+3%) – but none of the pundits are expecting that positive margin to hold.

Monday was a bad time to have your server go down.

I’m sure we’ll get plenty of explanations as to “why” things happened the way they did.  Let’s hope these retailers are around next year to put the lessons they’ve learned to good use.

Here’s a pretty funny little video about the birth and development of a new idea at your typical ad agency. 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoUntrhdfOU]

I pulled this off the NE Creative Blog but I’m not sure where it originated from.  If anyone has any information, please pass it along and I’ll update my post so folks are credited accordingly.

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Bon Secours St. Francis Health System recently launched a new web site – and along with it, a new approach to the residents of Greenville, SC.  The site, aptly named happyingreenville.com, allows users to explore the city of Greenville as well as the health system – learning more about both along the way.

The site, developed by Greenville-based Brains on Fire, along with Grow Interactive, provides a very user-friendly interface for users who may be intimidated by the typical health system home page which offers dozens of links to oceans of information.  By contrast, Happy in Greenville makes it easy to find a doctor, learn more about specific services and indirectly experience how deep BSFHS’s roots go into the community.

Very clever.  Very clean.  Very good.

Special thanks to AdRants for bringing this to our attention.

Sure, JibJab produced Office Max’s new “Elf Yourself” viral (at no charge, according to trade reports), but it’s been done.  The new fun holiday viral comes from the folks at McDonald’s: the coffee ring snowflake.  Users can create their own snowflakes (see the one I made over Thanksgiving) and then have them posted to an online gallery.

Have a great holiday weekend!