Brand Central Station

In the last installment of our series on where your business should be connecting to the social web, we take a look at job sites.  After all, Web 2.0 is all about people – not technology.  And by finding the best people, you’ll position your company for growth and future success.

If you want to secure high-quality talent, you have to know where to look.

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Carol Davis, one of the innovators at FletcherKnight, has written an interesting piece on how women are taking a different approach to health and beauty.  It’s the new age of trial and experimentation for women.

Carol’s experience includes management stints at P&G, Bath and Body Works, the Lancaster Group and Kane, Bortree & Associates.

You’ll find her insights into the 50+ market after the jump.

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The Associated Press reports that Warner Brothers has announced its intentions to move up the opening of the next Harry Potter movie (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) to Wednesday, July 15 – two days earlier than its previous release date.

Rumors are also circulating that Paramount intends to break the new Star Trek movie on Thursday, May 7th at 7pm rather than holding out for a midnight premier in the wee hours of the 8th.

The moves are seen as last-minute positioning tactics to try and eek out extra box office dollars during the first weekend of what is shaping up to be a very hotly contested summer at the movie theater.  Unlike previous years, no “blockbuster” is expected to last more than two weeks at the top of the box office charts, although the premature release of the new Wolverine Origins movie (leaked to the Internet a few weeks ago) may help Trek’s second and third week draws.

For marketers, all of this increased churn in the movie theater will, in all likelihood, accelerate the “depreciation” of movie-related promotions in stores and online.

(Company press release)
After music industry vet Liza Lowenberg moved to the burbs and became a stay-at-home mom it was difficult to keep up with new releases.   She went from being “in the know” to surfing online to find out who sings what.  Realizing that there was a huge void in marketing towards stay-at-home, Miles Of Marketing was born.

Utilizing the “street team” concept with suburban moms put this realization to the test.

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Leveraging your business’ and employees’ experience via the Social Web is another strategy for increasing your brand’s online “footprint”.  In part four of our series of important social web sites your business should connect to, we provide a list of general, informational sites that in many cases serve as the “front line” of online research.

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Who is Susan Boyle?  Not many of us in the US watch ITV’s “Britain’s Got Talent” television show on a regular basis.  But nearly 20 million of us have caught Susan Boyle’s performance on YouTube.

Susan is a frumpy, 47 year-old spinster who has never married and has spent the last two years of her life taking care of her ailing mother (who has since passed away).  When she walked out on stage as a contestant last week, everyone in the audience – from the judges to the fans – expected to watch a classic “reality TV moment” when an unattractive, somewhat abrasive boob goes down in flames in front of the entire country on live television.

Ms. Boyle told Simon Cowell (yes, the same obnoxious know-it-all from American Idol) that she wanted to be a singer but had never had a chance to perform in front of a big audience until that night.  She was obviously flummoxed by the size of the 4,000-strong crowd and had problems recalling details about her home town (Blackburn, West Lothian in Scotland).

There were sniggers and eye-rolls and nervous coughs.  The music started and we all (even those of us watching at home or on-line) were ready for disaster.

Boy, were we all wrong.

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So, what use is Twitter?  It’s been labeled a chronic time-waster.  And for some, it certainly is.

I use Twitter to keep track of marketing trends and business news.  But you can do more.  Thanks to Arnold Zafra for his post earlier this week to the RotorBlog, here are 44 Twitter-related applications.  Some will enhance your productivity.  Then again, some may not.

They’re definitely worth checking out.

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The marketing news site ADOTAS caught my eye with this article on the growth of local news sites earlier this week.  While dozens of companies have been trying to develop the sites to tap into local ad dollars, there are some problems.

The lure of billions of advertising dollars (an estimated $32B will be spent by 2013, ADOTAS reports) is attracting developers but the big problem is content.  Will these local sites be able to afford the reporters, et al, neccessary to provide relevant (and readable) content local news consumers will want?

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From the folks at the MIT Media Lab, here’s a very interesting take on the future of technology – specifically wearable technology.

Think Minority Report, only much cooler …

Thanks to Jeff Johnson from The Team (Ozark, Missouri’s largest marketing firm) for the link to the video!

As part of our week-long series of important social media sites for your business, today we’ll list a number of niche sites that will help you stay on top of important news and trends in a variety of areas.  These sites can be very important for small and mid-sized companies that don’t have the large training budgets or funds available to participate in industry events or conventions.

Although we only have eight niche sites listed below, we’re open to other suggestions as well.  Just email us and let us know.

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From Smashing Magazine – a great site for creative inspiration, innovation and information. 

Here’s a look at forty powerful depictions of human emotion.

So why should we link to this?  For the simple reason that communication that motivates consumers, employees and business partners need to find a way to tap into their hearts and minds.  Every bit of advertising, every story you tell, every presentation you make needs to make an emotional connection in order to unseat the preconceived notions held about your product and your competitors’ brands.

Not only that, but these pictures are awesome.

In the second part of our listing of important social media sites for businesses (especially yours), we’ll look at professional networking sites that can make a difference.  These sites are intended to help business people find colleagues, employees, employers and sales prospects.  

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