Posted on

Only a Few Hours Left to Get Your Year of Opportunity

BritishAirways

I’ve been procrastinating. I’ve known about this opportunity for a while, but neglected to blog about it. Funny how deadlines sneak up on you when you’re not paying attention. British Airways is running a contest where you can win a Business Opportunity Grant. There is space for more than 1 winner as British Airways is giving away 100 of these grants. The problem is that there is only a short time left to enter (13 hours from the writing of this post), so you’ll have to hurry!

The grant consists of a year of Business Class travel and a suite of valuable business services to help increase face-to-face meetings and exponentially grow your business. Networking online with potential customers and other businesses is all fine and good, but it limits your growth. If you take a look at the social media community, it’s easy to see who ends up on top. It’s those who not only build a following online, but who also take things offline and meet people face-to-face. This is how you make quality connections.

To enter the contest, simply apply by telling BA about your company and answering a few short questions about your objectives for 2010. Make sure you explain how a grant would help grow your business. If your company wins, you will have all of 2010 to turn your grant into new business opportunities. Whether you’re a small business, innovator, or an entrepreneur, this is definitely a contest worth entering.
Click Here

Post?slot_id=60242&url=http%3a%2f%2fsocialspark

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
Posted on

Why You Should Be Using Foursquare For Your Business

4sq_mayor_nearbyA few days ago on Black Web 2.0, I covered the reasons why you should be using Foursquare for your business and briefly touched on the specific strategies involved. In addition to reading that post (linked below), you should take a look at this awesome slideshare presentation by Chris Breikss (President of 6S Marketing Inc.) I’ve embedded it below.

The key to leveraging Foursquare for your business lies in the way it promotes and advertises your business. A user visiting your venue on a regular basis can earn a Mayor badge for visiting more than other users. This is where the competition comes in and is only one example of the types of badges available. Not only is the user’s location broadcast on Foursquare, but users can link up both Twitter and Facebook. This increases the visibility of your business across the web.

via Why Should Your Business Be Using Foursquare? | Black Web 2.0 .

Foursquare For Businesses

View more presentations from 6S Marketing.
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
Posted on

Hulu Adds Continuous Play So I Can Watch ALL of Naruto

There is one feature that I’ve always expected to see on Hulu, but finally figured out that it didn’t exist. Let’s say you want to watch Naruto Shippunden, but you don’t want to just watch a couple of episodes. You want to watch all of it. From episode 1 season 1 to episode 126 season 4. You had to add each individual episode to your queue in order. That’s 126 clicks! More if you count scrolling through episodes and seasons. I’m no UI expert, but I’m pretty sure that’s bad design. Where is the “Select All” button at?!

Well, it looks like Hulu was aware of this flaw and has recently fixed it. Continuous play makes it simple to watch sequential episodes of any show on Hulu. No need to add each episode to your queue. Just find the show you like and click turn Continuous Play on. You can click “Show Playlist” so see what episodes are included, hover “Next Video to see what’s coming next, and (when the credits start rolling) click “Next Video” to skip to the next video.

NarutoHuluContinuous

Now on every video player on our site, you’ll see a new Continuous Play bar under the video player. On the far right is a dropdown that shows what playlist of videos Continuous Play is working from. For now, there are three primary types of playlists. One is Your Queue, mentioned earlier. The next class is Collections, which have always been part of our site, but which now play continuously. The last type of playlist is more of whichever title you’re watching. If you’re watching a bit from Saturday Night Live, the playlist will be “Saturday Night Live” and will play more sketches from SNL in sequential order. If you’re watching an episode of 30 Rock, Continuous Play will play more episodes of 30 Rock in sequential order.

This feature will make it even easier to waste hours of your life. You click play once and disappear for as long as you like.

What do you think about Continuous Play? Were you craving it as much as I was? Leave a comment.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
Posted on

Never Listen To Marketers About Social Media

BrickArms Army, Attention!

There is a serious scam going on in the social media world and I’m tired of seeing people get got. Marketing has come a long way, changed a lot, and still remained the same. The problem is that the pillars of the MLM community are fooling you with a false narrative. They want you to think that you will become a marketing powerhouse in social media with thousands of customers running after you, wallets out and purses open,  by simply following the steps in their latest e-book or whatever info product they’re slinging.

Don’t get me wrong, there are marketers out there that know what they’re talking about. You can tell they know what they’re talking about because the tech world recognizes them as equals. Not only are they skilled marketers, but their circles intersect with the people who help build and promote these new media tools.

It goes back to the question of , “Can you be a social media expert without being in social media?” The answer is, “Hell No!” If you aren’t in the trenches building your community and interacting with people, you cannot claim to know how to use this stuff.

The reason these MLM and Network Marketing gurus get such huge followings on all these social networking sites is that they already had huge followings to begin with. Look at how long some of these guys (and gals) have been around. Their tribe was built a long time ago. All they’ve done is leverage that tribe. A simple call to action to their existing mailing list and they’ve suddenly got 30,000 followers on Twitter. It’s that simple…for them.

You will never be able to duplicate this. There is nothing in anyone’s e-book or video series that changes that reality. You don’t have a standing army of customers. You are starting from scratch and you will have to put in the work to build your own community from the ground up. Anyone offering a magic shortcut to this end is blatantly lying you will waste a lot of time failing really slow if you buy into their crap.

Don’t believe me? Try and prove me wrong. I’ll wait…

…on second thought, I won’t. I’ve got better things to do.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
Posted on

Are You The Crazy Person On The Train?

souljagirl1
image via WorldIsCrazy.com

A little while ago, I had a job interview downtown and decided to take the train. As I sat there looking out the window and listening to Day 26 on my iPod, I caught some erratic movement from the corner of my eye.

It was some poor soul who may have been begging for change, but was definitely making a lot of noise and carrying a pretty strong scent about him. I couldn’t really understand what he was saying as I promptly turned up my music, but I did notice how everyone else reacted.

Many people took a sudden interest in the stained and somewhat tattered carpeting. Others, forgetting this was the route they took daily, began staring out of the nearest window as if the train had suddenly taken flight into the stratosphere.

This man’s appearance immediately made me think of how some people treat social media. I’m sure that if any of these people could have immediately unfollowed this man and silenced his babbling, they would have. You can’t unfollow people in real life, though. This man had interrupted the normal flow of things. It made people feel uncomfortable and those he approached probably felt violated.

How many people have you seen on Twitter that produce just such a reaction from others? How often have you been scanning your Twitter stream and noticed an update that just stood out from the others? Maybe even one that made you wrinkle your nose in disgust and start hunting for the UNFOLLOW button. Maybe you’ve never noticed a tweet like that.

Maybe the crazy person on the train is You.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
Posted on

Two Books Everyone Needs To Read Right Now

Personal development is the key to getting the things you want out of life. You will never reach your goals if you have emotional baggage dragging you backwards. You can’t learn to shrug off that baggage until you enrich your mind and learn how to think differently. To that end, I recommend these two books as a start (or an addition) to your library. They helped me understand and change a lot regarding my interactions with others and taught me how to recognize when I was wrong, even though I was right.