Insights

The 12for12k 12-Hour Twitter Tweet-a-Thon

This post is a little different from normal and is for the 12for12k Challenge, the charity project I founded for 2009.

It’s to tell you about the special 12for12k Tweet-a-Thon, which takes place on Twitter between 10.00am and 10.00pm Eastern on Thursday March 19 (today). This is the unique 12-hour Tweet event to raise money for this month’s charity, Share Our Strength, which combats child hunger in the US. The Tweet-a-Thon is Scott Stratten (@unmarketing) ‘s baby.

It’s very simple – $12 gets you entry into the draw for the prizes on this page.

Simply make your donation using the ChipIn widget either in the sidebar or at the bottom of this page. You’ll get a tax receipt from Share Our Strength as well as an automatic entry into the draw. We’ll do the rest for you.

All you need to do is follow the #12for12k hashtag on Twitter to keep up with what’s happening, as there will also be special flash giveaways every time we break a $1,000 threshold.

Now, in his own inimitable way, I’ll let Scott tell you all about it and his special offer for anyone donating $120. Thanks for your support, and let’s feed some hungry kids together.

Prizes

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Donated by Tweep: TaliGillette

Sterling Mama Necklace ($250)

TaliGillette.com

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Donated by Tweep: sexythinker

iPod Touch ($229)

iPod Touch

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Donated by Tweep: MSchechter

HONORA Sterling Silver. 9+mm ringed freshwater pearl necklace, 17″ ($140)

Honora

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Donated by Tweep: MSchechter

HONORA 9+mm ringed freshwater cultured pearl bracelets, set of 3 ($140)

Honora

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Donated by Tweep: JenGroover

Butler Bag, Hybrid – 2009 collection ($165)

Butler Bag

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Donated by Tweep: Anonymous Donor

Kindle2 eBook reader. Valued at $359

Kindle2

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Donated by Tweep: RedHotCopy

She Factor Marketing System (DVD’s, CD’s & Workbook) (value $697)

Red Hot Copy

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Donated by Tweep: ergotron

Neo-Flex? Notebook WorkBase Perfect for extensive laptop computing ($99)

Ergotron

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Donated by Tweep: RossBeckham

Flip Video Ultra Series Camcorder, 60 Minutes (Orange) ($149)

Flip Video

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Donated by Tweep: webspreads

$AU250.00 Amazon Gift Card (Australian Dollars)

Amazon

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Donated by Tweep: daimanuel

P90X complete fitness program. Value $119.

FitnessTown.ca

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Donated by Tweep: Anonymous Donor

$500 worth of free reservationless conferencing (Toll Free Conference Calls and/or Web Conferencing)

AccuConference

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Donated by Tweep: jonathanfields

Signed copy of the book “Career Renegade” and a 1-hour, private phone marketing/strategy/brainstorming consult (normally $500 value) CareerRenegade

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Donated by Tweep: mjleonard

Wii Fit is a combination of fitness and fun, designed for everyone, young and old. By playing Wii Fit a little every day, you, your friends, and your family can work towards personal goals of better health and fitness. ($90)

Wii Fit

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Donated by Tweep: johnmorgan

Internet Fuse 6-Month Marketing Bootcamp Enrollment (date TBA) ($1800)

InternetFuse.com

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Donated by Tweep: jasontryfon

Custom Epic Twitter background like mine that you see on my profile ($150)

MassiveSocialMedia.com

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Donated by Tweep: VPG_Printing

1000 Full Color Biz Cards from

Vertical Printing

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Incremental Marketing, Pizzaville Style

Pizzaville. My wife and I ordered pizza delivery at the weekend from Pizzaville, one of the leading pizza fast-food franchises across Ontario, Canada.

When our order arrived, we noticed we got a free pack of playing cards. While at first this seemed an odd choice, thinking about it sees it make more sense.

Consider some of the most popular connections to pizza delivery – watching DVD’s, playing videogames and playing cards with your buddies. Now think about that tie-in again – “thanks for ordering your pizza from us, have a free deck of cards (on orders over $15)”.

It offers relevance and value – two key factors in customer loyalty.

Thinking about it, there are a ton of incremental marketing techniques that can be used elsewhere. For example, we have the Beer Store in Ontario. What goes perfect with beer? Pizza. So how about tying up a coupon deal with someone like Pizzaville?

Or have a joint promotion with the local grocery store. Buy a 24-pack and get free chips when you buy dip (or vice versa) via a redeemable voucher. The grocery store gets more customers; the Beer Store gets more customers; Pizzaville gets more customers. Pretty much everybody wins (including us, the customer).

These are just examples of how three interlinked businesses could grow their sales.

What companies and businesses are you interlinked with? Could you work together to grow each other’s customer base?

photo credit: hfabulous

Personal Superheroes

Subterranean Mutants Are you a hero to someone? Do you make your business superheroes to every one of your customers, or treat them as heroes? Going that extra mile can make all the difference.

I found that out last week when two people who I already respected immensely joined the ranks of superheroes.

Michael Schechter, someone I’ve connected with through Twitter yet never met personally, is a superhero. As some of you might know, I recently won a tagline competition where the prize was a Nintendo Wii. I thought it’d be a nice idea to donate it to the local sick kids hospital when it arrives later this week.

Michael knew what I was doing, so he sent me some of his own Wii games that were gathering dust at his home. As an additional gesture, he also included three pearl bracelets and a pearl necklace for my wife as a thank you for me helping him out on his blog earlier this year. (Michael is Director of Retail Marketing at Honora Pearls).

He didn’t have to; I was happy to help. But his gesture made him an instant superhero.

John Haydon is another guy I’ve connected with on Twitter, through the 12for12k charity challenge. John has come onboard and used his non-profit experience and networks to gather bloggers that have written amazing posts for our charities. His help has been a Godsend at helping to spread the word.

Last week, I received a little Thank You card from John in the mail, thanking me for getting him involved with 12for12k. Even though it’s me that should be thanking him for all he’s doing. And he also mentioned to say Hi to my wife and hoped she was well. John is a superhero.

Even though I know both Michael and John already, that kind of thinking would immediately make me keen to recommend them to anyone. Michael didn’t need to offer games and he certainly didn’t need to send my wife pearls, and John didn’t need to offer that personal touch.

But the fact they did makes me confident anyone using either of them will always receive amazing service.

How’s your superhero status? Do you wear your cape with pride or does it need some new threads?

photo credit: Zeetz Jones

Introduce Yourself

23,29-duoprism stereographic closeup One of the things I’ve always said about this blog is that it’s as much yours as it is mine – community is everything.

I may be the bus driver, but you’re the passengers that make the journey so enjoyable.

So, just to cement our community that little bit more, I’d like to get to know you better. For the community to get to know you better. So here’s the deal:

If you had to choose one blog post to offer everyone a view of who you are, what would it be?
Why this post?
If you don’t blog, where else can we find you online? Do you mind sharing and connecting?
Tell us one thing about you that might surprise us.

That’s it. But here’s another quick favour to ask. If someone shares a blog with us, let’s make sure we visit it. And if we like it, let’s make sure we subscribe. After all, isn’t that what our community is all about?

Over to you – the comments are yours. Tell us about yourself. I’m going to get comfortable so I can enjoy getting to know you.

photo credit: Ethan Hein

One Way Streets

The way ahead Recently David Henderson was kind enough to invite me on his blog to offer my views on traditional media and its relationship with social media. I’m really grateful to David for allowing me his space – he’s an incredibly smart person so giving up some of his real estate for my ramblings was particularly appreciated.

Like any view, there will be some that agree and disagree.

And, as I mentioned in the post itself, I’m far from an expert in any of the areas I was discussing – I was just starting the conversation.

Michelle Belaski disagreed with my view and instead of taking up too much space in David’s comments section, decided to write what she disagreed about on her blog. Fair enough. She was also kind enough to let me know about this post via Twitter. Great – I read it and had a few points I wished to clarify on the post.

But I can’t. Nor can you (if you wished to).

If you check Michelle’s blog, there isn’t a comments section. There’s a little voting section that allows you to say whether the article is “funny”, “interesting” or “cool”. But no comments area.

This is a shame. I can’t respond to Michelle’s views (some of which are incorrect from a factual point of view) so instead of offering a chance for some discussion, it’s simply Michelle’s point of view that’s on show. Which, fair enough, it’s Michelle’s blog and she can run it how she feels best.

But isn’t she missing an opportunity here? Don’t points of view benefit from the debate they can open up? What’s your take – do you prefer discussion or just one way streets?

photo credit: Incessant Flux