A New Religion

Here's two things I've recently heard myself saying in regards to Twitter...

+ After a few months you have a light bulb moment and Twitter just makes sense.
+ The correct terminology is "you tweeted" not "you twittered".

And after saying these things on the Gen Y Marketing Podcast last week, the boys characterised them into two categories...

+ A moment where outsiders are "spoken to", from a "higher being", where they then become insiders.
+ Language loading, where commonplace words such as "tweet" are given new meanings unique to that culture.

They followed this by saying these two features are some of the common characteristics of a cult.

G&T And BadNews

My last post about the marketing trade press caused quite the stir. I suppose you could call this the sequal.

Dear Tim Addington and Matt Porter,

I am subscribed to both your magazines, B&T and AdNews respectively. And I have a problem, I sincerely hope you can help.

But before we get started; Timbo, I must admit I was disappointed you failed to reply to my last letter. Matt, I hope you see this as an opportunity to one up yourself on your rival by dropping a comment below. And just so you don't feel left out Kylie Flavell, I have no complains about Marketing Magazine today.

Anyway bros, included in my subscription to your magazines, I receive a daily email updating me on what's what in the industry. This is how the daily routine usually goes...

4.41pm B&T Daily Update arrives in my Inbox.
4.42pm AdNews Daily Update arrives in my Inbox.
4.43pm I delete both without reading either of them.

If I'm really interested in something from that day I will normally choose AdNews over B&T for reasons already discussed on this blog but the problem is you both practically send out the exact same thing. Let's take a look at the two editions side by side from yesterday...

Not only is nearly every article on the same topic but some of them have almost the exact same headlines. There are more similarities in the "bonus material" too. How exactly is it that you guys differentiate from one another?

Because if you don't find a way before my subscription runs out, I'm probably going to ditch one or both of you. Just giving you the heads up.

Zac Martin

Poke Zach Martin

A month ago I changed my name officially on Facebook from Zac Martin to Zach Martin. I tried to change it to Sir Zac Martin but they wouldn't let me. Interestingly, just one day after I changed it I found this article about a girl who had changed it and Facebook wouldn't let her revert it. So yeah... should have some fun changing it back.

Anyway, the response was mixed. People who I would consider better friends in real life were, for the most part, the ones who picked up on it most. Others, who I'd only met after joining Facebook and those who I didn't know extremely well, didn't recognise the change. On more than a few occasions, these people even commented using my name as Zach.

And perhaps the best story, someone attempted to email me at zachmartin@pigsdontfly.com. Classic.

Just another example of how heavily we rely on Facebook.

Rarely Seen Service

When I first started this blog almost two years ago, I decided to not enable subscription by email, only RSS. I'm not sure why, but I think that's what all the kids were using at the time so I should too.

But it turns out some ridiculously small figure like only 5% of people actually know what RSS is, let alone actually use a Reader. So three months ago, I turned on email subscriptions. And in that time I've had 15 people subscribe using that service. May not seem like many, but that's 15 people who I wouldn't have had otherwise. Not bad for less than five minutes work setting it up.

And the best part is, everything is much more customisable with email subscribers, and you can actually see the list of people subscribed.

So some advice, bloggers of young and old, turn on your email subscription service.

Your Research Is Wrong

Here's why the research stats you constantly pull out are flawed.

Chatting yesterday, myself and two mates realised that the three of us had all signed up to participate on a number of market research websites. This included online surveys, attending focus groups, taste tests and being sent free products. Remuneration has taken place in the way of money, vouchers and of course free stuff.

It doesn't matter that all three of us are studying marketing which is something you're meant to declare at the start of every survey. It also doesn't matter that I'm now at a point where I know how to manipulate a survey to ensure I fit the criteria and am therefore selected. It also doesn't matter that once passed being selected, I know how to answer the questions to make the survey end as fast as possible and receive payment.

My other two mates were the same, and I imagine we're not the only three people doing it. In fact as we sat there, they were fabricating a story to report back in order to be sent another free bottle of alcohol.

I'm a poor uni student, that's my excuse anyway. Now I haven't written this post for you to lecture me on how I shouldn't be doing blah blah immoral blah blah ethics, but rather so you realise your expensive research is probably not that accurate. Thanks for the free shit though.

Don't Expect A Blue Tweeting Bird

I received an anonymous series of comments the other day on my post questioning the mainstream media's portrayal of Twitter, part of which included, "I followed you thinking your Twitter account was an offshoot of this blog", which they then stated was not at all the case.

I never really considered Twitter an extension of this blog. Although the main topic of conversation I tweet about is marketing and social media, it's definitely far more personal and at times completely random. Some people say I tweet too much, especially about completely irrelevant stuff. And I say, well, you're welcome to unfollow me.

That's the kind of stuff I love about Twitter. Some of my favourite peeps on Twitter are a bunch of girls who talk about how stoned their house mate is or informing the world about what ever random adventure they're on instead of writing their thesis. Far more interesting and comedic than mine or any other marketing wanker's ramblings.

So to those of you who are expecting insightful and stimulating content from my Twitter account... too bad. But what about you guys, are your blog and Twitter account on the same page? And do you think this is it a problem if they're not?

PowerPointing The Finger

For those of you unfamiliar with SlideShare, people can upload their slides from PowerPoint they used in a presentation. And I don't get it.

I have a fetish for good presentations. Likewise for good PowerPoint slide design. And I believe you shouldn't have to rely on your slides to communicate a message in a presentation. Ever.

Therefore to put up your slides without any context is pointless. And any meaning people take away from them would be a misinterpretation.

University Fandom

It's about this time each year that Year 12 students start attending open days across the country to determine which university they'll attend next year. Of course the course they get offered plays a big part in this, but I know that the student life on campus is something many consider. It's the reason I chose Caulfield over Clayton for those of you playing at home.

Year 12's attend open day, but all the universities look good at open day. They ask their older enrolled friends, but probably get mixed results. And the websites are all the same with way too much generic information. So where does today's Year 12 student turn to? I know if I was about to graduate high school one of the things I'd do is check out the university's Fan Page on Facebook.

Here's some of the more popular universities' Fan Pages...

+ University of Sydney - 5,403 fans
+ La Trobe University - 4,345 fans
+ RMIT University - 4,070 fans
+ University of Melbourne - 1,554 fans
+ Griffith University - 1,321 fans
+ Monash University - 1,022 fans
+ Queensland University of Technology - 1,022 fans
+ Swinburne University - 916 fans
+ Deakin University - 112 fans

Not suggesting it's definitive, but maybe it's worth some of these universities pushing their Fan Pages a little more. I realise social media is not all about numbers, but I wonder what objectives each of these universities have set for their Fan Page or if they just jumped on the bandwagon.

Recycle A Blog Post Day

I love a good Twitter trend, and #rabpday is no exception. Recycle A Blog Post Day is just that and as such I've spent the last few hours going through some of my older posts.

I'm surprised at how ignorant, arrogant and down right stupid I've been (although many would argue I still am) with some of my posts. But I'm also surprised at how insightful, humorous and engaging I was with others. I'm not actually going to recycle a post or pointpoint out anything in particular, but you can find them all on the right hand side of this page. It's certainly interesting to see how much things have changed over the years I've been blogging, gotta love a good session of reflection.

Also, I've finally come to my senses and will no longer be posting pointlessly linking to articles hosted externally. Or at least the regularly appearing ones anyway, especially if I'm not adding value here. ;]

Jacqui Bunting Is The Moron

For a gay old time check out Jacqui Bunting's article on how Twitter is only for morons. Yet another commentary from the mainstream media bagging this shit out of Twitter. How many times have you read something similar? Or heard similar comments on shows like Good News Week?

Blah blah blah, why don't you mention something about someone updating their status with what they ate for lunch again. We've heard it. Unfortunately you don't seem to realise Twitter actually has far more uses than that. Of course you're far too naive to print otherwise. Maybe because concepts like Twitter will see the end of you lot.

Either way, whatever John Smith had for lunch is lot more interesting than The Age's very own use of Twitter.

And for fuck's sake, the thing you post is called a tweet, not a twitter.

Wicked Sick Creativity

I love this video...

I think I'm gonna try and repeat this experiment. Kind of reminds me of the 3 Wolves 1 Moon tee story. These kind of examples are by far my favourite aspect of social media. I suppose one would call it good story telling.

Your Next Intern

Here's a list of undergradute bloggers who write about something marketing related. Some are active, others not so much, but there's definitely some insight in each of them.

Canadian University Marketing - Morgan Coudray
Gruen Transfer - Michael Lanyon
How Good You Want To Be - Katherine Liew
I Hate Ads - Rick Clarke
Liquid Caper - Josh O'Halloran
Pigs Don't Fly - Zac Martin
Simon Says - Simon Oboler
The Forrest Through The Trees - Marek Wolski

Should you or anyone else be on this list? Drop me a comment.