Fresh Post at thingsidoformoney.com: Organic Marketing is Free Marketing
Remember the old saying Content is King? Well, nowhere is it more true than here on the Internet and in particular when it comes to a special kind on online marketing called Organic Marketing.
A few weeks back I posted an articled called What the hell is wrong with young people today? which was about the responses I received from a Kijiji ad for an Online Marketing Assistant. Truth be told, I filled the job via a personal referral from a friend that I trusted rather than go with the people who applied but today I received a fresh reply from somebody and (I swear to god) their application for the job was:
more info please
As if this position was some type of posting for a … I don’t even know what.
So here’s what I thought I’d do today because I’m in a writing mood and that one pissed me off a little bit (OK, I’m just in a bad mood because of something completely unrelated but today is honesty day), I’m going to tell you what I and countless other people do every time you apply for a job with us.
First, I Facebook you.
Yep, the very first thing I do before I even talk to you is I Facebook you using your name and email address. This lets me see:
Second, I Google you.
You’d be amazed how many totally useless things I find out about potential employees by searching the Internet. For example, I discovered the home address and telephone number of an applicant this weekend which led me to find out that they have a MySpace page which in turn led me to both their musical preference and nude photos of them. Now I’m not saying I would preclude people from a job because their topless tattoo shots are gracing the front of a website but it rarely helps.
Finally I Twitter you.
I’m still trying to figure this Twitter thing out but I think I’m getting the hang of it and what I’ve discovered is that a lot of people post a lot of stuff about their alcohol consumption levels and much like Facebooking, you should never do it drunk.
Why?
Maybe I’m a little damaged but I believe that an employee is an extension of the company and since I am the company, I think an employee is an extension of me and my reputation. With that in mind there are some pretty basic things that I think people should keep in mind with presenting themselves on the web:
btw, I read a great piece today called 8 Tips for Aspiring Entrepreneurs that had some really funny job related content and as a last minute edit I thought I’d share the link with you all.
OK so as most of you know, I’m no Twitter expert. In fact, I’m completely useless when it comes to Twitter but I have figured out a few things in the past couple weeks and here’s the big one that I’m going to share with you … if you want to lose followers quickly, spam them.
Don’t get me wrong, I have no issue with people making money online and promoting their businesses but you have to do it in moderation.
Take for example Canadian Affair (@CanadianAffair), pictured to the right. They’re an airline which flies directly from my little city of Fredericton New Brunswick to London and they do it really cheap, so I decided to start following them on Twitter but since following them all I ever get from them are sales pitches. Sure I signed up for them and they’re sending me something but not what I was hoping for, luckily Twitter lets me stop following them pretty easily as well.
So what would I recommend a company like this promote on Twitter to keep me happy and make money using Twitter? Actually it’s pretty simple, what I was hoping for was:
In short, the problem with following Canadian Affairs is that like many businesses they misunderstood the most basic element of online marketing, it’s about me … not them.
For the regulars around here, you know that I rarely (if ever) post things about the world outside SEO, WordPress and online marketing here but my brother-in-law sent me this from Somerset England and I simply had to share it with you.
The Mi-24 Hind helicopter pictured below is apparently serving with a Canadian unit in Afghanistan (I’ve had a couple people tell me this helicopter isn’t with the Canadians although there seems to be some debate as to who’s it with). If anybody can confirm (or deny) this and let me know who to credit for these great photos I would really appreciate it.
A shot of the bird in the air:
A close up of the artwork:
If anybody can provide me a link (or two) of who this pretty little bird belongs to, I’d love to credit the correct people. Thanks.
Since the new year I’ve been working with Mark Reese, a photographer based in Florida to build a new website portfolio for his work. Mark wanted his photo gallery to be easy to manage, fast for visitors and he wanted it to be something that he could maintain and manage himself.
I choose to use a very easy to use tool called WordPress as the content manager for his new website, it’s fast and easy to learn with a lot of great online documentation and a wonderfully supportive community. It also happens to be a tool that I know very well, so I felt comfortable offering it to Mark.
His photography website is designed to be used by photographers interested in displaying images, as opposed to running a photo business.
It’s an original, custom WordPress theme which doesn’t use any of the available gallery plugins to ensure compatibility. The website has a rich SEO base for organic online marketing, easy to use navigation and a very clean design used to highlight his pieces. As with most of my sites, it’s hosted with BlueHost.
What do you think? Do you know any photographers that you’d recommend me to? Are there other great photography websites built in WordPress you’d like to share?
Building a buzz about your website on the Internet is easy. In fact, if you look at how poorly most travel and tourism businesses understand basic online marketing, building your own popularity on the web should be your number one task over the coming months.
