socialADDICT

Photo Courtesy of freshpeel.com/2007/03/

I am really getting sick of the term “pitch”. So many times people ask me to write a pitch for a press or new release and I just cringe at the thought. It sounds so sales-y and impersonal to me. Not to mention it sounds like “bitch” and nobody likes that either. My philosophy & strategy has always been about creating authentic conversation (if you didn’t get that from my blog already) and to avoid crappy pitches (by the way they don’t work on me either).

So to further solidify my position I did some research and personally asked a few top-notch traditional marketing bloggers how they like to be approached about product launches, web app launches, etc. and what really ticks them off about being approached. Here are their answers:

Steve Rubel (PR, Micropersuasion Blog): “Ultimately it’s about the blogger themselves – what’s in it for them. Figure out their mo and how to achieve win-win. Take a look at a post I linked to 4 Rules to Understand What Makes People Tick: http://tinyurl.com/24akk9”

Seth Godin (Author, Entrepreneur, Blog): “pr doesn’t work on me, or press releases. my readers have my ear, not marketers.”

Kevin Dugan (Strategic Public Relations, prBlog): “it’s always going to go back to my audience. consumer vs business, young vs old. a lot of factors to consider with who before I worry about the what. they all have their place. there is sadly no silver bullet. in my day job we use direct marketing and PR more than anything else. not trying to be vague. It’s true!”

My takeaway is just to develop relationships and really nurture them. And with that being said don’t be fake or superficial because it will backlash. Be who you are and stay authentic and for the love of God please stop calling it a “pitch”! Or I’ll bitch slap you.

Maybe I’m just easily entertained (and frightened) but I thought Cloverfield was a seriously bad ass movie! I went in a bit skeptical but left wanting more and a bit fearful to plan a trip to NYC. I thought Cloverfield was clever in a few ways:

1) No mainstream actors - means you have NO clue who’s going to get killed off first leaving you curious and concerned for each character

2) First person storyline - the movie made me feel like I was a part of it, all scenes were at ground zero, and emotionally I became attached to the tight-knit group of friends because the movie was focused solely on their experiences/humor/friendships

3) The movie was short and didn’t bore us with a scientific explanation of how, when, why - means I want MORE!!

For those of you who haven’t seen Cloverfield I would definitely recommend it. I know there are mixed reviews of the flick but I was left gripping my chair arms and sweating throughout its entirety. The theater was completely silent as the credits rolled and I had to sit and take a breather before I left…seriously! Maybe I am a bit easily entertained but why don’t you go see it yourself and prove me wrong?

The Crunchies 2007 are tonight! With 110,872 votes cast for the finalists, the competition is steep and the winners will leave there glorified! Bummer I’m not going to be up in San Francisco to attend but I’m still going to keep on top of the winners and list them here as soon as I find out! I was talking to Zivity CEO, Jeffrey Wescott who asked me if I was attending the awards - dammit I’m not! However I did vote - and I’m hoping my choice for Best Overall will kick ass!

GO TWITTER!!!

Thursday nights are my TV night - Ugly Betty on at 8pm and Grey’s Anatomy on at 9. However for whatever reasons I can never remember (derrr!) if the shows are new or not.

So naturally I check out abc.com to find out if I can look forward to a new episode each week. Once I get to the site I click on Primetime, scroll through the list of shows and click on Ugly Betty (it’s been more exciting this season than Grey’s so I definitely don’t want to miss it). I’m at the page and looking for some kind of new episode text, promotion, picture. Where’s the big flashing button that distinguishes between “NEW” or “REPEAT”? Hmm scrolling down, reading across the page, clicking on a few links - I get nowhere. Half way down the page there’s an episode   description…ok reading…nope doesn’t sound familiar so it must be new, right?

After spending 10-15 minutes on the site I (hopefully) know the episode for the night is new. It shouldn’t be that hard for a visitor to see if an episode is new or not on a specific night. What a waste of time and unnecessary frustration!

Bringing back another blog post I wrote for dt back in November 07. How & when to take statistics with a grain of salt…

We are constantly bombarded with statistics all day long. 65% of Americans are overweight, 91% of Americans believe sending text messages while driving is as dangerous as driving drunk (even though 57% of them say they still text while driving), 41% of men snore regularly, and the list goes on. The thing we have to be suspicious about is that statistics are not only generalized they are often skewed (and it all depends on the surveyor).

Just an example, I read a MarketingVox article earlier this week about how consumers would be willing to change the brands they buy or their consumption habits to make tomorrow a better place. Ya, I agree with the premise of consumer change and advocacy and I thought the article sounded pretty impressive until I started reading the stats. So I just want to point out that even with a topic like social consciousness, sometimes the numbers can be misleading.

Let’s take the first sentence (and “stat”): “85% of consumers worldwide are willing to change the brands they buy or their consumption habits to make tomorrow a better place.”

The first figure is astounding to me – 85% of consumers in the world? The world population is roughly 6.6 billion. I know that not every single person can be considered a consumer given their age and other variables so I subtracted out the age groups too young to have their own established purchasing power. My consumer population is 4.8 billion. Ok, so 85% of that is roughly 4 billion. So, 4 billion consumers would be willing to change brands or consumption habits to better the world? I wonder if 50% of the world population even knows what social responsibility means.

So I did a little more digging…

This survey was conducted in only nine countries and in sample sizes of no larger than 1,000 – that speaks validity error right there. And the survey was carried out by goodpurpose – a company who brings consumers and brands together to take action and effect positive social change (a company of the Edelman global PR firm). Edelman invites brands to make a difference by discovering Edelman’s consultancy…sounds like a sales pitch (with very impressive statistics) to me.

My point is, is that you have to take stats with a grain of salt. Sometimes such figures are pointed in a certain light to meet a particular agenda – like that of Edelman global PR firm. I think what they’re doing with social cause is great don’t get me wrong. I hope that more brands and consumers unite to make the world a better place – but just be aware of the numbers firms push out to you. What is their objective? Where did those numbers come from? Who sponsored the research?

And remember: 65% of all statistics are erroneous anyway…or so I’ve read.

It was only day 2 of Macworld 2008 and already they’re knocking the socks off of attendees. Macbook Air is one of the products launched and it’s ridiculously thin and light.

Some Specs on the Macbook Air: The computer has a 13.3-inch LED-backlit widescreen display that has a 1280 x 800 pixel resolution, weighs about 3 pounds, and sports a thickness of 0.16-0.76 inches. It’s 12.8 inches wide and 8.95 inches deep. Refer to the Macworld site for more info.

Wow - I can’t wait to see what else comes out of Macworld!

Damn! I have been playing Wii tennis (I used to be an avid REAL tennis player back in the day) and I am almost at a 2000 point score! But shit, I can’t seem to get past Sarah and Elisa (their tennis scores are 2000 and 1900) and I’m getting pissed.

So I did a little Google search to find out who is killing it in Wii Tennis and what the tricks of the trade are to get over this annoying hump (well TWO annoying humps) in my tennis game. First one I find is Wii Sports Blog - wow what a unique name! I read the article “Tennis Tips & Trick” and it’s interesting but nothing I don’t already know from playing the game for hours at a time (I swear I do have a day job).

A quick scroll through my first page of results and I came across Highest Nintendo Wii Tennis Score 2400. A bit skeptical, yes but after reading through this guy’s story I was completely baffled not only by overcoming Miis, Elisa & Sarah, nor was I astounded by the calculations he made for each game he played (probability and all), but the thing that shocked me most were the hours he played to rack up his score. My favorite part of his story:

“Believing I would gain less than 0.010 of a point per perfect win, I proceeded to play between 8 and 12 hours a night, or until I won 250 games. This gave me an estimated time to reach my goal of 10000 wins and 20000 wins (figuring each win to earn between 0.00005 and 0.0001 of a point). With this in mind, I set out to get a 2400 skill level in as little as 40 days (80 days being my pessimistic high).”

Well, I guess I have a long way to go before I hurdle the 2000 point mark on Wii Tennis. But hey, at least I can feel better about my Mii when I play my boyfriend who only holds a 500 point score.

Every once in awhile I’m going to post some of my blogs from dt onto here (if they’re worth of some extra coverage that is). I think this web app deserves some extra glances.

GENOCO launched an iPhone/iPod Touch application that allows users to order and purchase Starbucks drinks from your device and ridding yourself of the Starbucks line. Hmm, quite intelligent and seemingly irresistible to a Starbucks lover. The program looks pretty sick with a very sleek interface and QuickPay transaction system - so you don’t need to fumble through your wallet for dolla dolla billz yo (Ok, please cut me off from the coffee now).

I think it’s pretty sweet. I just want to know how the no-line function works. Do you order when you’re in the store and then it magically appears at the Barista bar? I’m sure you still have to wait in line to actually pick up your drink, but at least you only have to wait in one line! I haven’t downloaded the app yet to my iPod Touch but if you’ve tried it at a Starbucks store I would love to get some insight of your experience.

Here are a few links to screen shots of the app - looking Apple-sexy as usual.