It Starts With Facebook

Building your networks online can be a lot of fun, once you understand how some network platforms and communities work. I've been avoiding one of the BIG ones for quite some time now... and today, I decided to take the plunge.

You probably rightfully guessed by the headline of this mini post that I'm referring to Facebook.

At first, I found it a bit confusing... not quite sure how to find friends through this medium. However, once I discovered the Find Friends feature where you can upload a contact list and/or load your email address book, things went far smoother.

Within 2 short days I had my profile set up, sent out invites to those not yet on Facebook, connected with some people I hadn't "seen" in a VERY long time and loaded three photo albums.

Hint -- I didn't publish 2 of the albums.

Why?

For the sake of having "new" content when I don't have time to go and put anything on, I simply saved the albums without publishing. I'll be building about 6 more albums the same way... Then, when I don't have a lot to say, I'll just publish one of the albums.

There is an important reason I'm "getting involved" with Facebook now.

I'll explain more when I tie it into some important networking/SEO techniques that I will be building on in future PowerTips.

For now, I recommend if you haven't already grabbed your own free Facebook account, you might want to do it today. You will quickly see how it applies to massive marketing and SEO boosting.

Until then, see you soon!

Have You Seen Google Wave?

An awesome development in Google Apps has been announced this past week ...and it has website developers and online entrepreneurs equally excited. Even more important -- it is open source -- free for developers to grab, develop and create their own mashups.

Check out this Google Wave demo video for a sneak peek.

I can already picture the multitude of ways this powerful development in online communications will be applied.

It's mainly in demo mode right now... and I gotta tell 'ya... way ahead of the curve!

High five's to the Engineering team at Google.

I can't wait to see what happens next!

Get On The News

Did you know there are writers and reporters looking for great sources pertaining to specific subjects all the time?

Of course you did.

But, what you might not know about is a great FREE source you can tap into to find out what writers/reporters/casting agents are searching for. Find out from where some of them are getting their sources...

Check out this resource.

In addition to the website, here's a twitter address you might want to follow:

http://twitter.com/SteveMcCullah

I'll be back soon with some great fill-in-the-blank "pitch" formulas that can work wonders when contacting reporters about your story/business/product/etc.

Until then, I hope these two new resources will serve you well!

What's Your Commercial?

Back in my younger days (translated: a long time ago when the earth was green) when I worked evenings and weekends in a recording studio writing "lyrics" and "slogans" for jingles, I was fortunate to learn from some of the best in the market.

One of the best features of a great slogan &/or jingle was, and still is: BRIEF.

In fact, the shorter the better.

When working with multi-media - audio/visual - you have a slight advantage. Combining visual with a short, memorable and catchy phrase can stick in people's minds far longer.

Here's a fun example VISA used for the 2008 Olympics. Note the brevity in words:



But when working strictly with words, I think the shortest slogan (ever) used only ONE word, repeated THREE times.

Can you guess which word it was, and which car company used it?

I'll tell you in a second.

First, here are a few great, short, snappy slogans that either sum up their products in as few words as possible or that they've managed to marry well to their brand to paint a picture in your mind -- without using the actual brand name in the slogan. See if you recognize the product brands for each:

- Reach out and touch someone
- Plop, plop; fizz, fizz; oh what a relief it is.
- How do you spell relief?
- Finger lickin' good.
- M'm M'm Good
- Snap, Crackle, Pop
- They're G-r-reat!
- Let your fingers do the walking.
- The beer that made Milwaukee famous.
- The King of beers.
- Don't leave home without it
- The Greatest Show on Earth
- Good to the last drop
- Put a Tiger in Your Tank
- Oh what a feeling
- A little dab'll do ya

(Above, in order... AT&T, Alcaceltzer, Rolaids, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Campbell's Condensed Soup, Rice Krispies, Kellogg's Sugar Frosted Flakes, Yellow Pages, Schlitz Beer, Budweiser Beer, American Express Card, Barnum & Bailey Circus, Maxwell House Coffee, Esso, Toyota, Brylcreem.)

Next, here are a few great, short, snappy slogans that use the actual brand name:

- You're in good hands with Allstate (Allstate Insurance)
- Doesn't your dog deserve ALPO? (Alpo Dog Food)
- Bayer works wonders (Bayer Aspirin)
- Flick your Bic (Bic Lighters)
- Burger King - the home of the Whopper (Burger King)
- Raid kills bugs dead (Raid Insecticide/Repellent)
- Come to Marlboro Country (Marlboro Cigarettes)
- Yahoo! Mountain Dew (Mountain Dew Soda)
- Tetley make tea-bags make tea (Tetley's tea)
- If it's got to be clean, it's got to be Tide (Tide Laundry Powder Soap)
- You're not fully clean until you're Zestfully clean (Zest Soap)
- Built Ford Tough (Ford Trucks)
- See the USA in a Chevrolet (Chevrolet)
- Cooks who know trust Crisco (Crisco Vegetable Shortening)

To state the obvious, the slogans above either describe their product (such as for Raid) or convey an emotion the advertisers want you to associate with their product (such as "trust" for Crisco).

Here is a fun exercise.

Describe your product, or an emotion you want people to associate with your product, in one paragraph. Then melt that paragraph down to a single sentence. Then melt it down even further to a short handful of words.

Fun, right?

Now, for the shortest slogan (ever) that used only ONE word, repeated THREE times, which was also a musical jingle...

"Zoom. Zoom. Zoom."

Kindle Upgrades to Kindle2 the Year WWW Turns 20 and There is a Connection

Last Friday, March 13, 2009, the World Wide Web turned 20... not the Internet, but the World Wide Web.

Twenty years ago, Tim Berners-Lee authored "Information Management: A Proposal" which is described, in his own words, as follows:

This document was an attempt to persuade CERN management that a global hypertext system was in CERN's interests. Note that the only name I had for it at this time was "Mesh" -- I decided on "World Wide Web" when writing the code in 1990. [Link to Original Proposal by Tim Berners-Lee]

When you take a look at how far we've come, and how fast, it truly is one of the most breathtaking leaps forward that mankind has ever taken, agreed?

The hypertext mark-up language (HTML code) was young when I entered the online environment back in 1995... still near it's first basic version (HTML 2.0). Most of what I learned about HTML was self-taught by taking an excellent online tutorial course put on the World Wide Web by a student with Case Western University.

The free tutorial for HTML 2.0 is still available here.

It's a wonderful, step-by-step tutorial complete with Q & A "self-testing" interactive questionnaires at the end of each section to make sure you understand the content before moving on.

In all my years online, the above tutorial is the ONE THING that changed my life the most!

On the above site, you'll note that the HTML/XHTML and CCS (Cascading Style Sheets) in use today are different than the original HTML 2.0 ...but believe it or not, I still go back to basic HTML 2.0 when creating some sales pages, email templates and more for clients.

HTML 2.0 is clean, easily read by all browsers and fast-loading.

When you see so many adding little things like BOLD and COLOR and EMPHASIS to their web interactions (like in forums and elsewhere that HTML is accepted), having an understanding of the basics can go a long way to creating the look you want to achieve.

My Power Tip Today

I bring this up today, because of the Kindle 2: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device (Latest Generation).

You see, raw HTML files are converted into Kindle format... BUT certain CCS and modern HTML/DHTML/XHTML files cannot always be converted/don't always work for the Kindle. Yes, you can also convert pdf documents into Kindle format but they don't always turn out perfectly.

Don't underestimate the popularity of the Kindle.

Most people who have tried it - ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT - both for it's quick portability of e-books, magazines, news, blogs and more - and also for it's convenience of being able to quickly download Kindle books via the Internet from the Kindle Store.

The Kindle utilizes Amazon Whispernet to provide U.S wireless coverage via Sprint's 3G high-speed data network for FREE downloads from the Internet if you are within range. (They have a coverage map available through the Kindle 2 product page.)

If you've been considering creating/offering ebooks (or reports, or news, or more) online, you might want to consider offering a Kindle format in addition to other portable formats. It could turn out to be very profitable for your online venture!

And with that said, it might be helpful to know a bit about the original HTML that got us to where we are today.

Hope this helps! Stay tuned for more Power Tips coming soon...