Paul Valach.org

I recall wanting to record something many times, especially when I was not at home. I wanted to always be able to call my DVR and say record, that was it. But this is awesome …. Tweet and Record… Through a series of Tweets Direct TV will allow its subscribers to record their TV show they are missing. Way cool if you ask me, and about time. I have given up on the DVR, especially since I don’t have cable and no plans on restoring it. NetFlix and Hulu+ seem to take care of things, and the summer reruns will do the rest. What I miss with all that combined, probably means more free time to do other things….still.. Tweet and Record…I Like it!!

Recording TV Shows With a Tweet

Everyone likes to hear a story, especially if it is a good one. Way back in high school I took a class in Children’s Story Writing. That’s where I learned that the best story somehow always had the child’s name in that the story was being told to. (yes Maggie was the little girl’s name I used, it was the teacher’s name who taught the class, he read them all to her). So it is surprise that when we send out emails to customers we don’t just say “Dear Most Valued Customer”, but “Dear Mary Jane” or “Dear jack”. We have been able to do that for a while now thank’s to mail merge, but all of that is old had. Today we create mailing with graphics and pictures of products that are on sale, specials that are only for this week, and sometimes even a video. So why not tell that story specifically for that customer that the email is for. All the date should be at your fingertips, if it is not then we need to talk about keeping relevant data on your client.

A recent article in MarketingLand gives three examples of how such an email would look. Everything from “how are you enjoying your ______” with photo, to a cool invitation from LinkedIN, to suggesting travel to your favorite team this season. There is much more and well worth the read. The tools that were used for these are not rocket science either. We have listed many here on the blog and continue to find new ones all the time, and most are plug and create.

Apple did a great job on this one.. Enjoy… RIP Steve.. you changed the world! You changed the paradigm for many. You redefined many words and environments. You made MY World!

This should attract some attention. Found this TED talk in a round about way, brings in the video and sex and social way we all look at these topics. Lots of truth to the way we depict things on the TV or the big screen. Cindy Gallop does a great job in shocking the audience but in a humorous way. Make love, not porn what a concept. Enjoy the video, her site is even better…

Here is the link
(http://blog.ted.com/2009/12/02/cindy_gallop_ma/)

Looks like ad revenue is up when it comes to Twitter. The story link is below with the details. This also goes along with the percentage of Twitter users in the Social Media Universe, which is 16% of online users. But that’s another story. Twitter tends to get bashed a bit here and there, but if used correctly sure can bring about results to a company’s bottom line.

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1009344

Ah Pinterest… what do you know about this brand new, well maybe not so brand new search engine/social media/dierctory… you get the idea. You may notice there is a Pinterest Board just to the right of this story. In fact it is on the right side of all the pages on this site. I am actually looking to see how to put different boards on different pages. I wanted to put one into an article but was not sure how updates to it worked.

Pinterest is very interesting in that it is really kind of a Google Image search, except that someone has set some categories and then plopped images in at their own selective process. You can say that image belongs somewhere else, but can’t really do much about it. You can like images, you can even repin images to your own boards. You can also include or pin videos, I have a few What’s My Line show guests pinned. Its quite interesting the growth of this site, and perhaps more is that an overwhelming number of the members are women. Nothing wrong with, just curious the attraction to all of this. Some say its a form of scrap booking which has traditionally been a female endeavor. Either way, some of the boards I have come across have a great amount content, variety and sheer number of images.

My boards are at http://pinterest.com/paulvalach/. enjoy, I add new images a few times a week…and generally will go on an add binge. And every now and then I add a new board, but now have a goal to have a set number of images on every board… or get rid of it. More on the management of Pinterest later…as there is definitely an art to this…and a way to market…..more later. #Pinterest #photograpny #social media.

I have been playing with an iPad I for an entire semester, and now for the past two months or so the iPad II. Wow is this thin cool. I use it every day, several times in fact. I have found an tremendous amount of great tools for photography, animation, note taking, and more. I will start an App review here, and then look at moving it perhaps to its own site. Many of these Apps fall into several categories so keeping all that straight will be a slight chore, but then again so is defining Social Media these days. That said … I need to write the first review….. #ipad #apple