Recent updates to how Google ranks its search listings has resulted in many SEO firms to re-evaluate.
To borrow a few wise words from , “regardless of the moral issue, dishonesty in advertising has proved very unprofitable.” Since Google’s 2011 Panda update, black hatters are suffering the repercussions of years of questionable practices, and ethical marketers are seeing their sites moving into the places they deserve.
Read more at AdAge.
Nice little article in the NYTimes about a recent failed milk campaign from the California Milk Processor Board (creators of the famous “Got Milk?” campaign). Great insights into how social media has changed the way companies handle poorly received advertisements (ala Groupon / Super Bowl).
The response “shows the power of social media as much as anything I’ve worked on,” Mr. Goodby said. “It’s a real tribute to the power of the Internet.”Goodby, Silverstein and the milk board introduced a similar campaign in 2005 that was meant to humorously present men as suffering when the women in their lives had PMS. That campaign also drew complaints that it was sexist and offensive, but it continued through its planned run.“It was a different world in 2005,” Mr. Goodby said.
via Milk Campaign Withdrawn Amid Charges of Sexism – NYTimes.com.
I’m taking a break from my normal photography or health posts today to write something that struck me as important to any person starting in a new field. Over at screenwriter John August’s blog, Justin Marks has a guest post predicated by his Tweets about the need for aspiring screenwriters to get a manager.
Protip: Get a manager. A great manager. The best manager. It’s the difference between having a career and having no career.
While my personal career goals no longer focus on screenwriting (something I was looking at five years ago when I was graduating from university), I think Justin has some great advice for anyone starting in a new profession or career field.
First is the idea of using the knowledge of someone in the field who has contacts and experience in your chosen industry. Commonsense advice, yes, but is it commonly used? Not from my experience. Here’s what Justin says:
I graduated from college, hustled out to Los Angeles, and for three years, I toiled away at a day job to pay the bills, while Adam read draft after draft of what must have been a dozen different ideas. I emailed him several times a week: what do you think of this? Could you read this new script? Is this a movie? He sent me copies of produced scripts, so I could read what the marketplace wanted. He told me stories of other writers and why they were successful and what I could learn from them. And he was one of the few people who believed in me, time and time again, as I built my career.
In my particular field, television and video production, I got my start with an internship at Iowa Public Television. From there, it was building contacts in the field where I wanted to work. I knew I wanted to end up staying in Des Moines, so I worked with my supervisor, a producer at IPTV, to contact other producers and decision-makers around the metro area. Eventually, I landed my current position at KSMQ Public Television as a Producer/Director.
Another of Justin’s important points is the idea of looking at examples of current, and more importantly, accepted pieces of work. What I mean by accepted is those pieces of work or projects that are commonly held up as exemplars of your chosen field.
He sent me copies of produced scripts, so I could read what the marketplace wanted. He told me stories of other writers and why they were successful and what I could learn from them.
Look at your industry awards and find examples of those works. In my field, that would be the Emmy’s, Oscars, or even smaller, regional awards.
The second part of that last bit of advice: critique your own work and don’t be afraid of others’ constructive criticism of your work.
…Adam read draft after draft of what must have been a dozen different ideas. I emailed him several times a week: what do you think of this? Could you read this new script? Is this a movie?
In my two internships, one in Washington, D.C. for a PBS show, and my second at IPTV, I quickly accepted the idea that my work would be critiqued. That was a hard idea to get my head around. While I was used to a grade on an assignment at school, it was rare that there was true criticism of how a piece was put together. My internships were my first experience of true constructive criticism that helped my career progress.
And the last piece of advice I pulled from Justin’s post was that you shouldn’t slack off when you get that first big paycheck or that first award.
It was an incredible day. I was beside myself, holding my WGA-minimum payment that was more money than I’d made in a year. I went out to a drive-in theatre and watched three bad movies on a loop, thrilled to know that I was closer than ever to having my name on one of those tattered screens.
And then, the following Monday, Adam hit me with the hard truth…
Our work had only just begun.
So, remember:
1) Get a Mentor. Get a Mentor. Get a Mentor. Someone in your chosen industry who knows the ropes, has contacts, and is willing to work with you.
2) Part A: Look at examples of current and accepted work. A really good way to learn what will get you a job is look at the work currently being done.
2) Part B: Constructive Criticism. You should not only critique your own work, but find people to give you constructive criticism on the work you’ve done. This could be your mentor, or your boss, a previous professor, or other established industry players that you’ve built a relationship with.
3) Don’t slack off after you’ve made it. Your work has only just begun!
Thanks to John August and Justin Marks for the inspiration behind this post.
Found an amazing little tool from the creator of Vimeo. It’s called “Pummelvision“. It basically takes your pictures from Flickr or Facebook and makes a chronological movie with all of your photos. Take a look at the last few years of my life through Facebook:
And check what some people are saying about it on Twitter:
@gluemoon : 5 years of my photography in only 3 mins.http://youtu.be/ULl5AiSRKv0 Spot anything interesting? #Pummelvision
@itspaulkelly : 3 years, 6 months, 17 days in 2 minutes, 10 seconds :http://youtu.be/B6a123Cakj8#pummelvision #facebook
People want to be a part of something they are proud of. It’s human nature. If they are part of the team they won’t want to be the person who drops the ball. And if they are happy and invested in their job they are one of the best ambassadors your brand can have.
The Social Network Movie: Thoughts from Harvard Students - While I have yet to see “The Social Network”, I find some of the comments interesting.
Preventing childhood obesity – Great tips from “Need to Know” on PBS
College football teams prefer cyber silence – Great article from The Des Moines Register about college athletes and social media (Twitter especially). I think any combination of college athletes and social media should take the high road. The athletes are public figures and representatives of their universities and should represent themselves in public as such.
35mm SLR Camera Created from Scratch – Amazing! I would love to build my skills up to this level and be able to make my own 35mm SLR.
College: A right or a privilege? – Interesting opinions in the article and comments.
Even those that’s five links for the last five days, there’s been lots of interesting things going on this week. The new Verizon iPad is neat, and leads to a great (and depressing for me) hope that the iPhone is coming to Verizon. Have fun this weekend and enjoy the great weather in the Midwest!
Great little vid that makes me smile.
I’m posting a link to this article on Mashable about the Future of Social Media in Journalism. As the article says:
The future of social media in journalism will see the death of “social media.” That is, all media as we know it today will become social, and feature a social component to one extent or another. After all, much of the web experience, particularly in the way we consume content, is becoming social and personalized.But more importantly, these social tools are inspiring readers to become citizen journalists by enabling them to easily publish and share information on a greater scale. The future journalist will be more embedded with the community than ever, and news outlets will build their newsrooms to focus on utilizing the community and enabling its members to be enrolled as correspondents. Bloggers will no longer be just bloggers, but be relied upon as more credible sources.
I’m excited about seeing my old professors, meeting up with old friends, and hopefully gaining some new friends!
I’m getting excited to present at my alma mater, University of Northern Iowa, this Friday at the Fast Forward conference. As I’ve been fine-tuning my presentations, I realized that I should have a twitter hashtag so that students and others could follow what is going on at the conference. Maybe something like:
#fastforwarduni
I did some searches through Twitter, and couldn’t find any relevant material to the conference using “fast forward”. So, I added the UNI at the end of the hashtag.
So, if you’re attending the conference this Friday, make sure to use the hashtag so that other attendees can talk with you through Twitter!
I know a lot of people in the business of marketing, social media, and internet usage have seen this video, but I thought that it was worthwhile to post again here.
I continue to find it amazing how fast it seems the world is changing, and yet, we’re trying to do the same things our parents and grandparents did before us: connect with other people, try to convince people to buy products, and entertain or inform the populous. (There could be more, but that’s what comes to mind right now.)
I don’t think that anyone really outright dismisses social media as a way to make connections (business, personal, networking, etc), but I think that a lot of people don’t utilize social media to its fullest extent. Part of the problem is that people tend to self-identify on the Internet. We group ourselves together in like-minded groups, and as such, we dismiss a lot of information without any consideration of its merit. Social media has done one thing more me more than anything else, and that is to open myself up to new and exciting ideas or perspectives. I think without social media (Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc), I would be a lot more sheltered and exclusive in my media and information gathering.
