Archives for April 2011

A Short Request for Help

james foley — James Foley, one of the four journalists

Hi guys. This post will be short, because your time is needed elsewhere. It’s a short request for help.

You may have seen me tweet or share the same message on Facebook, and thank you for your help there. I just wanted to expand a little bit.

My friend Deb Morello is trying to raise 5,000 signatures for a petition to lobby the Libyan government to release four freelance journalists currently being held against their will in Libya – James Foley, Clare Gillis, Manu Brabo and Anton Hammerl. The petition will also be sent to the U.S. State Department, as well as the Foreign Ministries of Spain and South Africa.

From reports so far, no-one is being allowed to see the journalists and concerns are obviously growing.

This isn’t an anti-war post; nor is it a post that states one side is right and the other is wrong. This is simply a post asking for your help to raise the 5,000 signatures needed by tomorrow, to try and make a difference in helping four people who have no military say in the current conflict.

Currently, the petition stands at just over 3,200 signatures – meaning we need approximately 1,800 more by tomorrow afternoon (Monday April 18). If we can all sign, and encourage just one other person to sign with us, it’ll only take 900 of us to make that difference. In the connected world we live in, surely that’s doable in the next 24 hours or so?

I try not to make this blog one where I ask you to be involved in personal stuff, as that’s not why you come here. But I’d really appreciate your help in this. You can add your details to the petition below. If the widget doesn’t load, you can sign directly on this link.

Please, if you can, sign, share and share again. Let’s see if we can show a small army can make a big difference.

Thanks guys.

Sunday Brunch – Improving Your Google Traffic

Julius Meinl coffee house in Southport, Chicago, is Gini's favourite Sunday Brunch place.

Welcome to a new episode of Sunday Brunch, where we talk about your questions on social media, marketing, business tips, entrepreneurship and more.

Today?s question is from Gini Dietrich, CEO of communications firm Arment Dietrich and owner of the popular Spin Sucks blog. Gini asks:

?Danny, when I saw you speak at PodCamp in Toronto, you said Google is your number one driver of traffic. Our number one driver is Twitter, then Facebook, then Networked Blogs, then Hootsuite, and THEN Google. We’d love to switch that around so Google is number one and the others follow suit. We use the SEO all-in-one-pack and SEO Scribe. We’re well ranked on Google and through the search engines, but we must be doing something wrong. Any insight??

Thanks for the question, Gini, and I hope the video helps.

If you have a question, you can send it in via the form below. There?s also a file upload option, if you want to send in a picture of your favourite Sunday Brunch place.

Cheers, and see you same time, same place next week for some more Sunday Brunch chats.

Resources:
As mentioned in the video, below is the Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion Tool that you might find useful:

Google Keyword Suggestion Tool.

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[gravityform id=6 name=SundayBrunch Question Form]

Immitation or Inspiration?

There’s a lot of buzz online at the minute about a video doing the rounds from U.K. online content specialists Purplefeather.

In the video (seen below), a blind beggar is struggling to get people to put money in his tin. They see him, but most walk by. Then a girl walks by, sees the man, looks at his sign and has a brainwave (I won’t spoil it in case you haven’t seen the video yet).

It’s this action, and the message behind it, that’s resulted in all the buzz about the video. Not surprising – it’s a powerful message.

But it’s not the original message.

Three years ago, Alonso Alvarez Barreda of Wama Films made a longer video. It was about a blind beggar who was struggling to get people to put money into his tin. A kindly passer-by sees this and… well, you get the picture.

Purplefeather’s video is great, and they mention on their YouTube channel that their video is a homage to Alonso’s video, and it’s always nice to see credit where credit’s due.

But part of me can’t help but wonder if a direct remake was needed over the original, or if a similar point could have been made with a different video. Or are we really out of original ideas, now? I’m also curious if Purplefeather paid the original director, since (to me) it’s more than just a homage (of course, that’s just my cynical business head coming through).

The videos are below (the new version is the first one). What’s your take – imitation or inspiration?

This post contains a video. If you can’t see it displayed properly in your feed, you can view it directly here.

Update: Thanks to Dukeo for the heads-up that the “original” video seems to be a copy itself. And the dearth of originality goes on…

The ROI of Employees

Over at his blog yesterday, Chris Brogan wrote about his admiration for Gary Vaynerchuk. The post sparked quite the discussion in the comments, a lot of it about ROI (return on investment).

This stemmed from a quip Gary had made to an event attendee who was asking a few times about the ROI of social media, to which Gary replied, “What’s the ROI of your mother?”

A throwaway quip, but one I thought was indicative of why so many people are confused (or afraid) when it comes to using social media for business. I said as much in the comments, and Chris Theisen raised an interesting point with his question: “Do companies actually measure whether each employee has a positive ROI on the company?”.

If they don’t, then they should.

What’s the point in running a business and employing the folks you need if you’re not measuring their impact? Questions you should be asking (and measuring) include:

Does John the sales guy bring in enough sales to cover his costs? Great, he may be bringing in $100,000 worth of sales, but if they’re to 100 different customers and I need to hire more customer service advisors to handle their queries, John’s value immediately diminishes.

Does Karen the customer service advisor upset my customers? She may be awesome in the office, but if she’s caused 10 customers to leave in the space of twelve months, and they each spend $5,000 per year, her salary of $30,000 per year is now actually $80,000 per year.

Does Peter the marketing guy piss off fellow team members and lower their morale because he thinks he’s “all that”? If so, does that stop them doing their job properly and cost me sales, or quality service for my customers? Does it make my employees want to leave, costing me more money to train new hires (not to mention losing the team spirit that had been fostered before Peter’s arrival)?

These are just three examples of where you could start looking, and measuring the impact each employee has on your business. There are many more, and some that are unique to individual businesses and industries – but they’re good starter points, and a pointer for a full organizational development analysis. This can then tell you how to make sure your employees feel as valued by you as they are valuable to you.

If you’re not already measuring the ROI of your employees, then are you really measuring the success of your business?

image: TruthOut.org

Introducing Bryan and The Shepherd Group

Over at Bonsai Interactive Marketing, we’re helping Toronto-based insurance broker The Shepherd Group (TSG) redefine the insurance industry.

Led by owner Neil Shepherd, TSG aims to be different from your usual run-of-the-mill insurance company.

Traditionally a very stuffy and old boys school industry, Neil wants TSG to lead insurance into a more modern approach.

This takes in buying insurance online (still a relative novelty in Canada) to how the insurance industry uses social media and online marketing, to connecting with the community and much more.

It’s a gradual process and one that we’re starting to see take shape now.

As part of the approach, we’ve introduced “Bryan” to The Shepherd Group – a gangly new employee with a heart of gold, but who often gets himself caught up in awkward moments.

This short video introduces Bryan to you. I’ll be sharing more videos, as well as a more in-depth look at how TSG is embracing “being different”, in future posts (either here or on the Bonsai blog).

In the meantime, hope you enjoy this introduction. Cheers!

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