How the SEO Rapper gets people talking

I love it when a brand (company, organisation or individual) really pushes the boundaries in its marketing.

In the video below, Chuck Lewis – aka The SEO Rapper combines his love of hip hop with a business message around his other speciality – search engine optimisation. And guess what, people in their thousands are watching this (and other) SEO Rapper videos, commenting on them and passing them along.

Clever stuff!

The success of The SEO Rapper’s videos, especially Page Rank (below) has brought a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) MC competitor out in the open. Now, an enterprising third party has set up a site to promote The Ultimate SEO PPC Rap Battle!

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It’s hot, and it’s all for you, baby!

We live in a world where all too often the ‘bland leads the bland’ and consequently, in a hyper-cluttered commercial environment, not many brands truly stand out.

Sure, big companies with massive advertising spends may cut through the clutter occasionally as a result of incessant ‘carpet-bombing’ of their messages, but even that doesn’t guarantee their story will be heard by – or even resonate with – the intended audience.

Which is why these two sassy ladies leapt out of the computer at me.

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Lessons from Tom DeLonge, rock star marketer

GUEST POST: Michael Halligan | Founder & Chief Marketer | Engage Marketing

I’m going to tell you the story of a man that went from leading one of the biggest bands in the world to finding it all fall apart. What he did next would fill most marketers with envy.

Tom DeLonge was a founding member of Blink 182, an American pop-punk band that shaped the genre and sold over 35 million albums. In 2005 the band split up and DeLonge started a new band that would bring out his entrepreneurial spirit and true marketing genius.

Even in the early days of Blink 182, DeLonge demonstrated a knack for recognising opportunity by creating two clothing brands which the band wore in virtually all of their public appearances. ‘Atticus’ and ‘Macbeth’ are both still going strong today.

Photo source: 182 Online

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Connection > conversation > humility > passion > transparency > fun

For decades marketing has been all about interrupting people’s lives with unremitting one-way broadcasting of brand messages:

BUY THIS PRODUCT!

USE THIS SERVICE!

ATTEND THIS EVENT!

VOTE FOR THIS PERSON!

It’s been based on tightly held notions that you spend lots of money buying airtime and print media space to promote your wares, and if that didn’t work, buy more airtime and print media space!

Yet the world has undergone deep-seated change – technology has fundamentally transformed the way we are communicating with each other, the way we are connecting and collaborating as individuals and society as a whole.

In turn this has paved the way for a new way of doing business – a better and smarter way to communicate your brand in today’s highly personalized networked marketplace.

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Does your brand have its own TV network?

I love the fact every brand (personal or organizational) can now own and operate its own TV network (or radio station or online newspaper or magazine).

It’s a pretty powerful opportunity we all have at our fingertips. The smart set are all over it. What about you?

Gary Vaynerchuk is a shining example of someone who went from zero to hero via his enthusiastic and savvy use of social media, especially his online Wine Library TV webcast which proved to be a game-changer for the Russian-born entrepreneur who has since become a bona fide is a New York Times bestselling author.

But we can also learn a lot from someone who went the other way – pop legend Daryl Hall (the ‘Hall’ in Hall & Oates, one of the biggest-selling recording duos of all time), who has reinvented himself with his popular web show Live From Daryl’s House.

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Celebrating the ‘anti-sell’ with Pinboard

Prior to Christmas, the social web was abuzz with the news that Yahoo was ditching the popular Delicious bookmarking site.

Within no time people started investigating alternatives to Delicious, including Springpad, Diigo and Pinboard.

Pinboard was one site that caught my eye initially, then I heard an interesting and frank interview with its founder Maciej Ceglowski on Net @ Nite with Amber Mac and Leo Laporte and decided to check it out further.

I like the way Pinboard describes itself as the “antisocial bookmarking site” that’s ideal for “introverts” who don’t necessarily want to share their bookmarks with the rest of the world.

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What Santa Claus can teach brands about creating social movements

GUEST POST: Brains On Fire book review (with a Christmas touch!) by David Scott (@dascottonline)

As your grandparents, children and Oxfam Unwrapped emails will tell you, Christmas is a time for giving.

We give, sometimes because we have to, but often because we want to. We like the feeling that we’ve helped others, and it’s a creed the Brains on Fire team obviously lives by.

Robbin Phillips, Greg Cordell and Geno Church have written a book that gives and gives and gives.

It gives ideas of how to engage sustainable word-of-mouth social movements for business or action group. It gives the blueprint for how this can be achieved, and the real world case studies of where it’s been successful.

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