Now this is an awesome job application

I have often said to myself that “next time I am applying for a job I am going to cut out all the bullshit resume talk and do something that stands out”. Somehow, I never get around to it. I end up playing it safe.

Not Josh Mishell. This is a truly cool website/resume application to New Belgium Brewing for the the role of Strategic Marketing & Branding Director (I think, I don’t actually know the specific job but looking their site it would appear to be this one).

I retweeted Josh’s link and he seemed genuinely impressed it had made its way to Australia (the home of Cascade, one of his favourites). Whoops, update, I am told it is Cascade in Poland :(

Check it out by clicking on the image below. Would you like to get a a job application like this?

44 Content Ideas

Here is a list of 44 ideas for creating content for your blog or website.

I thought I saw a similar list somewhere once before but I can’t find it in my delicious bookmarks and none of the websites I guessed I might have seen it on had it.

So I scoured the net for ideas, and add some of my own, and now I have a list of 44 things that I can use to give people inspiration when I ask them to create content for me.

If you would like a word version so you can brand it yourself then shoot me an email at danieloyston [at] gmail.com and I’ll flick it over to you.

The list is primarily ideas for blog posts, so doesn’t include things like ‘Host an Event’ but maybe we should have a more rounded list? Leave any ideas for content in the comments and I will add them to the doc over time.

 

DOWNLOAD 44 CONTENT IDEAS >>

31% of people that have ‘liked’ a company on Facebook have actually ‘unliked’ it

ExactTarget and CoTweet have released research that provides us with insights into Facebook users and “liking” companies – or more specifically, what happens when fans decide they no longer like a company.

As with most research, you have to read the words very carefully to understand what they are saying.

For example, the report states that 55% of people have liked a brand but then later decided they no longer wanted to see posts from that brand. My gut tells me it is probably higher but it is the nature of how the question is asked that influences the answer (unfortunately we rarely get to see the questions). I recon the results would have been higher if people were asked “Do still like 100% of the companies you have liked on Facebook?”

The report goes on to say that of that group, only 57% actually seek out the unlike option of a particular company. In other words, 31% of people that have liked a company actually unliked it. Again, you might have liked 100 companies but because you didn't like one particular one, and maybe actually unliked it, you get counted.

Fair enough though, I don't want to sound negative about the results but you always have to take it with a grain of salt and consider how it applies to your situation. It is always useful because it gets you thinking.

So I started thinking … there are more than 500 million active users on Facebook with 50% of active users logging in on any given day. Of that, there are more than 250 million (50%) active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices and these people are twice as active on Facebook than non-mobile users (Official Facebook Stats)

But you can’t unlike something from your mobile – well, from the iPhone Facebook app anyway. Not that I can see. Facebook provides advice but it is only relevant if you are accessing Facebook through a browser as opposed to an app. Starts to make the figures above seem pretty murky to me. 

So I thought, what should Facebook do? The average punter probably couldn’t name all the companies that they have liked let alone all the ones they don’t like. Maybe Facebook should have a tab in our account settings that let’s us go in and view all the companies we have liked and let us uncheck those that we no longer like. They could send us an annual “like” review reminder so that we are prompted to keep our info up to date.

Surely this would strengthen their position and help them target ads better?

The competitive advantage of a “no assholes” policy

I read a great post today over at Brand Builder, by Olivier Blanchard, in which he argues that “The customer-facing organization with the least amount of assholes wins.”

Love it! Not only is it true, but asshole is such an apt description of some of the people we receive poor service (and a bad attitude) from.

I started writing a comment on the blog but my mind kept coming up with points to make so instead of leaving the world’s longest comment and I have decided to write a post (yes, yes, I know I have been sporadically posting but I have good intention to stick to posting more regularly … well I intend to anyway).

You should really head over and read the post here

Ok … you’re back … nice to have you.

It’s often argued that people expect good customer service from everyone these days. It’s a must, a gimmee, you can’t do without it. I agree to a point but people also expect to run into assholes in customer facing roles. It’s just that they don’t know when and where and what brand will provide them with an asshole.

Oliver gives some examples of how to asshole-proof your company – two of which result in assholes working for your competitors – a) Don’t hire assholes (this assumes they stay in the industry and thus work for a competitor) and b) give your current assholes the “opportunity” to go work for your fiercest competitor.

We all know that a competitive advantage is hard to maintain. The beauty of a “no assholes” policy, however, is that it IS a competitive advantage that you can maintain (assuming your competitor aren’t smart enough to read Oliver’s blog and thus do not know that their businesses are invested with assholes).

The further beauty is that time compounds the competitive advantage for you. The longer you ensure that you have no assholes, and the longer your competitors keep damaging their brand by employing assholes, and the longer customers are leaving them and coming to you, then the standard of customer service gap just keeps getting wider. Furthermore, your company will increasingly attract the good staff from competitors, further weakening their position, and new employees into the industry will also be attracted to your company.

It’s beautiful in it’s simplicity and all the while your competitive advantage is becoming easier to maintain (and your organisation a nicer place to work)

The customers are not guilt free in this problem though. It’s not just management’s fault that assholes continue to prosper. The fact that customers can’t stick up for themselves only encourages assholes. Just like a bully.

Now, I don’t mean yelling and carrying on like a goose. I mean put them in their place.I guarantee that saying, in the right tone, calm, but with purpose … “Excuse me, I would appreciate it if you didn’t speak to me like that” or “Excuse me, please do not talk over the top of me. I let you have your say and now I would like you to afford me the same courtesy. May I continue?”

It will make the asshole feel like a child and it will  a long way to helping them keep their heads pulled in. It doesn’t need to be rude, just stern. Don’t be an asshole yourself.

4 Awesome Posts/Links You Probably Missed

I have been a bit busy playing football for a week and then being best man at my mate’s wedding. So, time for a bit of a lazy post. Lazy for me anyway but for you its awesome! Here is a collection of awesome links/posts that you probably missed over the last week or so. You can thank me by standing up at your desk and clapping loudly.

Buyer Personas: Where (and How!) to Start

Aligning your content to your target audience is essential. But how do you know who your audience is and what makes them tick. Buying persona’s help solidify, in your mind, your audience and are particularly useful if you ask a guest blogger or other staff members to produce content. In this post, Jeremy Victor, answers the questions that are most likely top of mind for you when it comes to buyer personas. Check it out >>

3 Marketing Lessons From Drug Dealers

In this post Mike Volpe recounts a presentation he attended from John Moore of Brand Autopsy. John’s talk was an analogy that drew heavily on two ‘drug’ denizens – Frank Lucas, the purveyor of ‘Blue Magic’ heroin in the 70s as depicted in the movie American Gangster, and Starbucks, our own nation’s top retailer of caffeinated energy in a cup. Though only one of these substances is illegal, both organizations used product and marketing to develop a uniquely loyal following. Great stuff! Check it out >>

5 Totally Awesome Social Media Infographics

Gary Thomas provides some stats and interesting tidbits on just how many people are using the internet to share, research, and network with one another. Check it out >>

Relevance is Not an Option

Ardath Albee outlines what happens when people don’t find your companies messages relevant. She goes on to outline that part of what causes messages to become irrelevant is that companies make assumptions about what customers want via a relationship on social media. A new study by IBM found that the perception gap is likely wider than you think. This is deffintley one of my favourite graphics … ever. Very powerful. Pull your head out of the sand! Check it out >>

 

What Is The Future Of Your Product?

Today I was sent a video – “A Day Made of Glass... Made possible by Corning”. Super cool.

Personally I love these ads that take a current brand or the product it produces and shows what the company envisages it will be in the future. Some may argue that they aren’t ads because they aren’t really selling anything. Maybe they are more promotional videos? Semantics I suppose but for me they are ads that are working in a brand sense.

So many companies spend their marketing budget on the here and now trying to change behaviour or elicit a response (someone buying something). For me, companies that project themselves into the future are subtly saying “hey, we’re gonna be here for a long time”. It creates buzz that these companies are working on bigger and better things and not just shifting current product.

Done correctly, the video can go viral. In fact, I tweeted a link to the glass video and got an @mention from Trending Tube (@TTube_) that the video it was #38 on the most viewed videos for the day. In fact, the video has had just under 9 million views in a month! I bet not too many of those 9 million had heard of Corning before. They have now.

The Corning video and the idea of sharing your vision borrows loosely from a common sales technique called “projecting”. I used to use it all the time when I was selling gym memberships back in the day of my European adventures (HT Trent Jakubowski). Instead of simply saying “here is a spa that is open until 10pm” I would instead project the potential member to a time when they would use the spa e.g. “When you finish you workout on a Thursday evening you can sit and enjoy this spa up until 10pm”. Real Estate agents also use it when they suggest you de-clutter your house before selling it so that people can "imagine” (project) themselves to a time when they would live there and how it would look with their stuff in it.

I know we don’t all have big budgets to spend on these types of ads/videos. But companies should still consider how they can produce compelling content that gets people excited about the companies vision of the future and what its products would be like. Consider a round table podcast discussing products in 20 years time. Ask customers what they would like to see. Write a blog post. PROJECT!

          

3 Awesome Posts You Probably Missed

I am going to start following the lead from a few other bloggers and start sharing some of the better pieces of content I come across each week. It won’t be in lieu of something more thought provoking or analytical, which I will try and still do each week, but gives me a chance to pump something quick and useful out to you each week regardless.

How to Optimize your Company’s LinkedIn Profile

Are you aware of the recent changes that LinkedIn has made to enhance the Company Profile part of it’s site? There is some pretty cool stuff in there where you can now add video, picture carousels and add specific product/service pages. Adam Kleinberg has a nice post on it however a fair few of us were confused when we tried to have a play on our company profiles. In response, Adam has posted a helpful follow-up blog LinkedIn Companies Questions. Check it out >>

 

Five Point Social Media Idea Checklist

My man Julian Cole provides a few questions to ask yourself before going ahead with that Digital/Social idea. Very handy in keeping you on the straight and narrow. Check it out >>

 

Passionate About Your Product: What Brands Can Learn From Unofficial Bloggers

Leigh Duncan-Durst over at Marketing Profs catches up with Melody Overton, who writes a popular unofficial Starbucks blog. It is pretty interesting to get inside the head of a brand fan and even find out more about how Starbucks handles/manages her activity. Check it out >>

 

Product Placement Law – Opportunities for Brands

I was reading one of Stan Lee’s most excellent posts today on how the UK has just introduced a product placement law.

I left a comment but as is so often the case with me I feel inspired to leave a comment but then decide that the comment could be turned into an actual blog post (rather than clog up Stan’s comments section with 500 words or so).

Stan writes that the “logo only has to appear for 3 seconds at the start and end of a show” and that “it has to appear in a corner of the screen and be the same size as any network logo or watermark”.

No doubt we all agree this is pretty lame and a complete waste of tax payers money. I shudder to think how much they spent on this exercise while they cut public services in the UK following the GFC.

For me, I think the real winner are the products/brands. I think there is a real opportunity for brands to leverage this. Why even pretend to hide in shows anymore?

Imagine this …

Logo shows up at the start of the show and the brand uses is social channels, or maybe even buys paid space before or during the show, to alert fans/customers that the product will be in the show and that they are running a competition around when people see the product placement. Product bingo if you like.

This situation would strengthen ties with existing fans/customers and would probably end up attracting more as they tweeted or facebook status updated their spotting of the product. It could create a hell of a lot of buzz and engagement.

I can see that opportunity for products but do you think his will take away the focus on the show as people look more intently for the product placement instead of paying attention to the content?

Or can you see other opportunities for the brands?

What Makes A Good Hashtag?

It was  Friday night and I was on the lounge watching the cricket. I had moved from Tooheys Old to red wine and was regularly picking up my iPhone to check what people were up to on Twitter and Facebook.

I saw a tweet from @SeanCallanan, of Sports Geek with the hashtag #madeupbaseballfact. Sean was retweeting some of the made up baseball facts that people were tweeting. They were pretty funny.

I Just Came Up With It

“I just came up with the idea to generate some connection” Sean says. “The next night, @SportzfanRadio were calling the final game of the Melbourne Aces for the season. Baseball commentary is all about statistics & telling great stories while the action continues out of the diamond. So I thought that a fun way to get people involved would be for them to tweet made up baseball facts that we could use during the broadcast.” Sean also used the Sports Geek blog to promote it here.

Making Stuff Up

I started following the hashtag and even though I don’t know much about or follow baseball I decided to participate. I figured I was as good as making stuff up as anyone else. I mean, I once told someone, after they told me they didn’t have a middle name, that the reason they didn’t have a middle name was because their parents were poor. “What?” they asked. “Yeah, they were poor. You see, it costs $10 a letter on your birth certificate for your name and your parents obviously couldn’t afford it”. They believed me. I still feel a little bad. Just a little.

 

So I tweeted …

@SeanCallanan it used 2 b a baseball rhombus but was revised to a diamond cause groundsmen didn't know WTF a rhombus was #madeupbaseballfact
@SeanCallanan #madeupbaseballfact Jesus Christ, pitching 4 Jerusalem, pitched the perfect game 10 times in a row #devineinterventionscandal

Apart from my own comic genius tweets, there were a few crackers but this was one of my favs,

@downesy Prior to the advent of the "cup", a batter was awarded 1st base only if struck in the testicles. Hence "a base on balls" #madeupbaseballfact
The Power of the Hashtag

One of Sean’s favourite tweets was @adamajacoby: 7th inning stretch introduced in 1959 to give fans an opportunity to move car and avoid parking fines #madeupbaseballfact

What struck me was the power of the hashtag to get someone to join in when they weren’t really part of the baseball community. Normally when I see a hashtag it is simply about being able to follow a conversation rather than generate one. In fact, often I see them in a tweet and have no idea what they are referencing.

Successful or Not?

“It was definitely successful” Sean says. “I wasn’t really sure how it would go. Sometimes things work, sometimes they don’t. I didn’t have any real expectations but we ended up getting 134 tweets using the hash tag on the night. That gave us a reach of about 30 000 to 40 000 people. About 20 of those Tweets reached over 20 000 people. Interestingly, the radio station that we were broadcasting for, 88.3 Southern FM, had an increase in listeners on the Saturday night of about 1000%”

“The hashtag also started trending in Melbourne and then after a couple of hour it eventually started trending in Australia. So I think all in all it was successful” Sean added.

How to use Hashtags more Effectively

So, should we be using hashtags more often for more than just merely tagging a conversation or to simply track how often we have something retweeted? I figured that if a hashtag like this one could get me engaged then surely it would be even easier for those communities/topics/brands that I was actually interested in to get me involved.

My advice would to use a hashtag like the old blog tip “finish with a question” so as to invite people to join in. Sure it might not be a question but don’t make it a meaningless hashtag unless you simply want to track tweets. It should start a conversation where people feel compelled to add to it. Something that seems like a question or an invitation will do the trick perfectly.

Further Hashtag Education

If you want another great example of a hashtag people feel they can just join in with and contribute content, as opposed to just using it to organise tweets, then check out the post What Makes a Good Hashtag? It’s Not Science by Mathew Ingram over at GigaOM  which looks at the hashtag #lessambitiousfilms

More on Sports Geek

Sean was a great sport (pardon the pun) in giving me some time on the phone to pester him about the hashtag exercise so be sure to check out all the cool stuff he is doing at Sport Geek and follow them on

• @SeanCallanan – want to talk sports & tech with Sean then follow here.
• @SportsGeekHQ – the company account – news, blog posts, articles.
• @SportzfanRadio – weekly radio show Sean appears on follow for show reminders and in-show tweets

More madeupbaseballfact#

My New Job as a Knowledge Sharing Community Manager

Today I resigned from my role as Strategic Marketing & Sales Manager at Tanner James Management Consultants.

It always feels weird, but also nice, resigning from a job when you aren’t leaving because you are unhappy. It feels weird because there is nothing wrong with the role, I enjoy it. It isn’t like I hate it and can’t wait to get out. It also feels nice because it is a career move and not one made in unhappiness. It means that I can leave with good relationships intact. The bosses are genuinely happy for me.

It has been almost 3 years since I joined Tanner James and I have learnt plenty. I haven’t just learnt things about business but also things about myself and I am very very grateful for the opportunity John Howarth and Ian McDermott, the Directors, have provided me.

Mrs Oyster and I have some family goals which we need to fund so a move or asking for a raise was always on the cards but I wasn’t going to worry about it for a while. It wasn’t like I was unhappy!

But then I got a Seek job alert on the email which was a little different. It wasn’t the usual “we are a leading IT company blah blah selling software/blue cable/boring stuff to the government”. That’s most or the “marketing” jobs in Canberra. Instead, as I read it I thought “now that is the kinda job description I would write for myself if I could create my own role”.

So I went for an interview and got offered the job and in a month’s time I will be the Community Manager at Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute.

The Institute is a not-for-profit entity which  brings together the public and private sectors to build and share the know-how and expertise necessary to ensure that carbon capture and storage (CCS) can make a significant impact on reducing the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

CCS can reduce some 20 per cent of the total greenhouse gas emission reductions necessary between now and 2050. At the moment CCS can be done although it hasn’t been implemented on a commercially viable level and doesn't have widespread adoption. As such, the Institute is focussed on supporting projects and sharing their knowledge to assist more than 3,000 projects which need to get off the ground over the next four decades.

Should be awesome working on something that can have a global impact. It is excellent that an organisation realises the importance of this type of role and that the emphasis for knowledge sharing through communities is coming from the top down. I think one of the advantages is that it is not an old organisation and so they aren’t trying to retrospectively fit social media and a knowledge sharing approach.

One of the things that drew me to the role was a quote I have stuck on my office wall from a Fast Company interview with Alex Bogusky,

So, I have to ask," I start. "Is there any notion of a midlife crisis in this? You do happen to be 46." Cradling a cup of chamomile tea, Bogusky releases a quiet laugh. "Yeah, just happen to be," he smiles. "You know, I'm not completely unaware that that's what this could be." He pauses, looking off to the Rockies.

"I'm trying to think ... midlife crises occur generally because we fear death, right? And I'm pretty sure I don't fear death. So maybe, what do I fear?" He pauses again.

"What I fear -- actually, I'll tell you what it is -- what I fear is, I fear" -- his eyes start to pink around the rims, his voice cracks -- "I fear a moment when my children are older, and they look at me and say, 'What did you do? The world is like a spiralling cesspool. You were an adult, you needed to do something, I was just a kid. What did you do?' I want to be able to say, I did this, this, and this. And did my best. Yeah, that's it. It is a midlife crisis, and it's not my death. It's the fear of not being able to say that you tried, in all sincerity. I think it's a new kind of midlife crisis."

As Community Manager, I will be facilitating the sharing of that knowledge in the CCS community and working towards making a difference in the world.