The Secret To Marketing Success On Facebook? Advertise Like Your Grandfather A new study by Facebook brings some big news that, curiously, at first blush might not seem like much news at all. It's this: If you want to create successful ads for the social network, just do the same thing you would do if you were advertising on TV. Or in magazines. Or on the radio. But here's the thing: Until now, Sean Bruich, head of measurement at Facebook, tells Fast Company, marketers have been unsure about how, exactly, to advertise on the social network. And as a result, some advertisers have thrown out the book on how to create a great campaigns in the hopes of unearthing some new formula that works uniquely well on the new medium. "Marketers were asking us, 'Are the fundamentals of advertising on Facebook the same as the fundamentals elsewhere?'" Bruich is presenting the results of the study in a paper called "What Traditional Principles Matter When Designing Social" at the Advertising Research Foundation's Audience Measurement 7.0 conference today.
How to Moderate a Brainstorming Session and Get Results Ah yes, ye old brainstorming session. We’ve all been there, and have had varying degrees of success with the process. But what makes for a great brainstorming session, and more importantly, what drives a session to produce some truly great results? I wish I could say that there’s a single, bullet proof formula for outstanding brainstorming sessions, however, unfortunately, there is none. When effectively organized, a brainstorming session can bring some previously unheard/unthought-of ideas to life, sparking further creativity. Conversely, when poorly organized and not well directed, a brainstorming session can rapidly deteriorate into a colossal waste of everyone’s time. So how do you end up with the former, and avoid the latter? Prep Cook As the moderator, one of your most important functions of the entire process is to be well versed in the topic(s) to be discussed and have the bigger picture in mind at all times. The Right Players House Rules Space, check. Moderate It The Shotgun.
presents Future of Retail Report 2012 5 Traps You Have To Avoid When Pitching Bold Ideas Innovation is not a science. Much of it has the elusive qualities of art, dressed up as useful things. But business leaders continue to try and invest in innovation as if it were a science. And too often, the designers they employ as consultants engage with these leaders not only as if it were an art but also as if their clients understood how to speak in “creative” terms. So we find these two parties speaking different languages, in need of a translator. My experience leading Frog, a 1,000-person global creative organization, for 18 years, has left me with a few key insights about how the creative industry needs to improve its communication with its corporate clients. Here are five reasons why creatives need to improve how we interface with executives. Seeing the Problem Through the Client’s Eyes A group of young designers in a workshop recently came to me and complained that their clients were treating them as vendors. Finding the Lens Your Client Is Looking Through
E-Commerce Is Head Over Heels for Pinterest, and for Good Reason - Tricia Duryee - Commerce No one knows for sure what social commerce will be in the future, but it’s starting to look a lot like Pinterest. Based on a report shared exclusively with AllThingsD, Pinterest is on pace to become the most significant driver of social traffic to e-commerce sites by the end of the year — besting more mature networks like Facebook or Twitter. “If you aren’t doing it, you are falling behind, and you need to do it as quickly as possible,” said Kurt Heinemann, the chief marketing officer for Monetate, referring to Pinterest. ”It is absolutely justified.” The report was compiled by Monetate, which helps its clients — including Best Buy, Urban Outfitters, Aeropostale, The Sports Authority, OfficeMax and others — maximize their marketing strategies. While the report comes from a single source, Monetate can get a good sense of overall trends because of its large client base. Heinemann said all of the attention and hype around the company is entirely justified, especially for retailers.
Excellence Now by Tom Peters Making Innovation a Natural Act In the creative economy, innovation is more important than ever. Innovation is the only insurance against irrelevance. It’s the only antidote to margin-crushing competition, the only hope for out-performing a dismal economy, and the only way to truly amaze your customers. We all get it: innovation is the lifeblood of every organization. Fact is, most companies aren’t very good at game-changing innovation. For industry incumbents, the problem isn’t a lack of resources or a shortage of human creativity, but a dearth of pro-innovation values, processes and practices—and when innovation programs do get launched, like an internal venture fund or an idea wiki, they tend to either be organizationally isolated or easily marginalized. Through the years, we’ve spoken to hundreds of individuals who’ve struggled to make their organizations more innovative—and most seem to end up deeply frustrated. Ultimately, every management process must be a catalyst for innovation. So . . . over to you!
5 Keys To Building A Business That Doesn't Bury The Humans At Its Core As business leaders speak of the “Human Age” and claim that capitalism is being replaced by “talentism”--defined as access to talent as a key resource and differentiator--many companies have embarked on initiatives to “unleash their human potential.” Those are big words and noble ambitions, and naturally they seem worth striving for. But as one of the hosts of a hackathon in San Francisco this weekend, which invites developers, designers, and other creative minds to “reinvent business,” I have been wondering: What is a “human” business, anyway? You might argue that the notion of a human business is a category error. And yet, companies are made up of people who are loving, caring, generous, forgiving, and wildly creative at their best, and incoherent, inconsistent, moody, selfish, arrogant, aggressive--and yes, even violent at their worst (not coincidentally, the corporation, when contextualized as a “person,” has been diagnosed a psychopath in a popular 2004 documentary film). Empathy
Bad career advice: Do what you love One of the worst pieces of career advice that I bet each of you has not only gotten but given is to “do what you love.” Forget that. It’s absurd. I have been writing since before I even knew how to write – when I was a preschooler I dictated my writing to my dad. And you might not be in preschool, but if you are in touch with who you are, you are doing what you love, no matter what, because you love it. So it’s preposterous that we need to get paid to do what we love because we do that stuff anyway. I am a writer, but I love sex more than I love writing. So how could you possibly pick one thing you love to do? The world reveals to you all that you love by what you spend time on. Often, the thing we should do for our career is something we would only do if we were getting a reward. The pressure we feel to find a perfect career is insane. Here’s some practical advice: Do not what you love; do what you are. Relationships make your life great, not jobs. A job can save your life, though.
Welcome to the Virtual Crash Course in Design Thinking Welcome to the d.school’s Virtual Crash Course resource page! We know not everyone can make a trip to the d.school to experience how we teach design thinking. So, we created this online version of one of our most frequently sought after learning tools. Using the video, handouts, and facilitation tips below, we will take you step by step through the process of hosting or participating in a 90 minute design challenge. If you choose to participate, in 90 minutes you will be taken through a full design cycle by participating in The Gift-Giving Project. This is a fast-paced project where participants pair up to interview each other, identify real needs, and develop a solution to “redesign the gift-giving experience” for their partner. Through this experience we hope you will take away some of the basic principles of Design Thinking and start to adapt them into your personal and professional routines. Below, you will find three sections: Gear Up!
Veduca | Assuntos Calculating The True Economic Benefit Of Green Buildings Humans are shortsighted by nature, and humans in the U.S. may be more shortsighted than most, at least when it comes to environmental issues. We have an economic system that is often more driven by quick return on investment than any other developed nation, and as a result, longer-term investments like green buildings don’t get the attention they deserve. A group of green building professionals are aiming to change that with a project called The Economics of Change (PDF). When complete, it will provide a new investment model for green building that actually makes sense to the ROI-driven business world. The big problem right now lies in a lack of data. Many of the non-tangible attributes of living, green buildings can be measured and inputted into traditional real estate valuations--it just takes a little ingenuity. As convincing as the numbers may be, it will still be nearly impossible to gain traction without policy change on the local, state, and federal level.
How To Get 100,000 Facebook Likes For Your Blog Fan Page Editor’s note: James Altucher is an investor, programmer, author, and entrepreneur. He is Managing Director of Formula Capital and has written ten books. His latest books are I Was Blind But Now I See and 40 Alternatives to College. You can follow him on Twitter @jaltucher. I wanted to have 100,000 Facebook fans for my blog. We have entered the “Choose Yourself” era. [See also: "Self-publishing your own book is the new business card"] Now, if you want to spread the truths of your brand, of your ideas, of your products, of your message, you have to create your own platform, you have to spread it across all media, and then you have to manage each medium differently. For each medium, you have to ask: why this medium? BUT, on Facebook, as opposed to any other medium (other than twitter) you pay ONCE and then forever after you can market to that Fan for free. So here’s what I did. It basically took about 30 days to get 100,000 fans. Using this approach got me to the first 50,000 Fans.
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