Happy Holidays and Go ElfYourself
Ever wanted to look like an Elf and dance around in your own little elf music video? You could buy an elf costume and recruit your friends to film you dancing around town like a fool, or you could just ElfYourself in a holiday-themed OfficeMax social media marketing campaign. The end result is certainly hilarious—I laughed for an eternity —but what’s the payoff for OfficeMax?
What’s the Point?
Why did OfficeMax go to all the trouble of creating ElfYourself when the campaign itself doesn’t seem to be selling anything related to office supplies or targeting the enterprise office supply gatekeepers? Yes, you can buy and/or download the custom movie for $4.99 or buy mugs and other memorabilia with your elf-self, but I doubt that’s going to result in big holiday business for OfficeMax.
With all the social options made available to ElfYourself creators, is OfficeMax simply trying to increase brand awareness and make us laugh, combining positive brand associations with the viral nature of the web? That could be it, it’s certainly a lower cost, more personalized alternative than an ad buy on a large television network. It’s also positioned to be seen by a larger audience if the gimmicky social media marketing initiative wins the hearts and minds of the web savvy and attention-loving Me Generation.
As a participant in online memes, I love it. As a consumer and holiday shopper, I’m not sure what to think of the whole thing. It certainly seems to be the wrong type of word-of-mouth marketing for a company like OfficeMax. It’s not like I’m telling all my friends and readers that OfficeMax is the place to satisfy the office supply whore in you.
So I’m puzzled.
Maybe at the end of the day they just want want my email address so they can market to me later? What do you think? What does OfficeMax get out of this equation?
I do make one fine little dancing elf though. 
Augmented Reality, Where Your Real World Intersects with the Virtual World
I first learned about Augumented Reality (AR) when a friend of mine gave me a sneak peak at his AR startup VC-ready presentation. I was, at first, totally overwhelmed by the entire concept of AR, but once it was broken down for me, I started to realize that AR will truly shape the future of how we see the world. Wikipedia has a pretty simplistic, albeit rather bland, definition of AR…
Augmented reality (AR) is a field of computer research which deals with the combination of real-world and computer-generated data (virtual reality), where computer graphics objects are blended into real footage in real time.
A First Glimpse at What is to Come
In a recent piece I wrote for Mashable, I blogged about how to make the most out of Google Maps. In doing research for mobile tools, I found the first application that actually has me jealous of Android phones—Wikitude AR Travel Guide, an AR mobile app for Android.
It’s dead simple and yet oh so powerful. Phones with the Android OS can use their camera as a lens to see beyond the surface of the real-wold view. When you point your camera in any direction, you’ll see the actual view with a layer of Wikipedia location-based content specific to your view of the world. The video below demonstrates just how cool (and powerful) the app really is.
This is Going to be Huge
This is just the beginning for AR. As more AR-ready devices are released to the public, you’ll begin to see a whole new view of the world—virtual data in actual life. Just image having your camera, camera phone, video device, or AR enabled sunglasses (that would be kinda neat) combine the actual world with a custom view of your already established online presence. You could be walking around seeing your social graph as an added visual layer to the phsyical world you already know and love. At the very least, AR could solve the relativley new problem of never being able to remember someone’s Twitter name. Think SecondLife, but substitute your real physical world—a true merging of your online and offline identities. Exciting…and a tad scary.
Would You Advertise Yourself on MyCityFaces.com?
Dan Caplan from MyCityFaces.com sent me the following email pitch. I wasn’t impressed at first glance, but when I started to think about the purpose of the site—self-promotion—I thought it was at least an interesting enough idea to put out there for your feedback. Read the email (there’s a lot of unnecessary marketing jargon to sift through), check out the site, and let me and/or Dan know what you think.
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Jennifer,
I have been reading your blog and I really enjoy your articles, and that is why I am writing you. We have recently launched a self marketing webesite that is free for users in the sales and service industry.
Have you ever needed that perfect some one for a certain job and didn’t know where to start looking for them? You may ask around, but if no one can refer you to someone then you usually end up opening up the phonebook or going online, you end up just looking at lists and lists of businesses. How do you choose that Insurance guy or that Realtor? Throw darts at your computer? Choose a cool sounding name? This is where MyCityFaces.com comes in!
MyCityFaces.com is a service industry networking and advertising site allowing people to post profiles for free, offering products they sell or a service they perform by including photos, videos, contact info and an about me section. It also allows consumers to go to their local city, choose a category, and peruse the profiles and find someone that is qualified and understands their wants and desires.
MyCityFaces.com was started out of the need for everyday people to advertise themselves in a personable and professional manner, and for others to find the right person for everyday needs. To help, we’ve built the premier Web service for bringing people together…Face to Face!
This fresh approach has not been over done, chewed up and spit out!. We are not another business networking site or a traditional directory site, we are the must “have a profile” self advertising site on the Internet today! Think of us as LinkedIn meets Myspace. We feel the service industry is often ignored and people resort to advertising themselves on social networking sites, which is not the most professional medium, and often obscures that line between business and personal. On MyCityFaces.com people can in a respectable and classy adult way, have a profile, tell about what they do, recommend others on the site and post photos, coupons, and videos. Think of it as an Internet billboard and an electronic business card. MyCityFaces.com will replace the “other” sites as the premier service industry advertising site!
Today there are tens of thousands of people in any city in any given occupation, we bring a personable side to finding that Handy Man, or that new Hairstylists. Finally a way to test drive before you call!
MyCityFaces.com is for the individual people to advertise themselves, we focus on the people that make up a business first! You can go to the site and find a hairstylists that fits your needs and you can learn a little about them before you schedule that appt. You can see what there qualifications are or just find out if you are going to see eye to eye with them. What if you are the conservative type or want a funky style you would get a lot of info from their profile. Also how many times have you found that perfect stylists only to find out they left the salon and you have no way of contacting them, and since the salon they were just at wont tell you where they went you can now return to their updated profile. They can keep a profile on mycityfaces.com and just update it with the new salons name. The same goes with any service.
By creating a profile with photos of you, your product, your place of business, and offering coupons, discounts, an about me section and even video, you become a real person to someone looking for your service. It’s more than just a name on an ever growing list.
While we are new to the San Diego market, I think your readers would benefit highly from this free self advertising platform in this challenging economy.
Check out http://phoenix.mycityfaces.com for an example city.
Ask Twitter, the Best Way to Find Great Answers
Ask and You Shall Receive
Got a nagging question? Experiencing technical difficulty with your phone? Yeah you could visit the Help and FAQ sections for your device, or check out Yahoo Answers, but the best way to find what your looking for is to ask the Twitter community for help. Chances are one of your connections either knows the answer, or knows where you can find it. It’s a painless, search-free way to finding what you need.
Don’t believe me? I ask for help ALL the time and I’ve yet to be disappointed. Here are two recent examples of Q&A tweets.
Q. Where can I find a Wii?
Problem: Yesterday was my brother’s birthday (he turned 24), and my mother wanted to buy him a Wii. She turned to me because she expects me to have a pulse on technology and consumer products. I, however, turned to Twitter, my web/tech cheat sheet. You guys, all of you out there who have purchased a Wii, know better than me where I can find one and where I can save a few bucks.
Total Tweets in Response: 18
Solution: I called my mom, passed along the knowledge that was passed on to me, and let her do the rest of the dirty work.
Q. What blogs should I read?
Problem: I’m bored. I read the same blogs everyday and I need a little variety. Instead of searching for new blogs, I turned to you. You happen to have more interesting and diverse tastes than me, so I assumed that you’d be happy to share them with me.
Total Tweets in Response: 15
Solution: My Saturday morning was salvaged from mundane blog reading, I have few new additions to the reader, and I really feel like my eyes have been opened to newer and better realms of the blogosphere.
Test it out yourself. Ask a question and see what happens. Chances are that if you have a smaller audience, you may not get as many responses, but you can always direct your question (with an @reply) to someone with a larger audience to see if they can point you in the right direction or retweet the question to their Twitter network.
iwearyourshirt, Social Media Marketing Starting at $1
It’s a genius idea. In a nutshell…
The perks of having Jason wear your shirt include:
- The price – it’s a pretty cheap price to pay for the exposure he’s offering online and off
- Daily video on YouTube and Ustream
- Daily photos on the blog and Flickr
- Daily posts on the blog and Twitter
- Company logo on the calendar
When I discovered the site (iwearyourshirt started following me on Twitter), I was so impressed by the ingenuity of the idea that I asked Jason Sadler, the man behind the shirt, to chat with me via Skype so I could get the real scoop.
Here’s what I found out…
Jason’s been working in the web space for 10 years, and he has hands-on experience with social media and various online marketing initiatives. The iwearyourshirt idea came to him at the end of the October, he got the website up a week later, and started promoting his idea via Facebook, Twitter, and email. Just a few short weeks later, Jason’s garnered a ton of interest with all of January and February already sold out, and widely celebrated days like New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day selling out as well.
I asked Jason how he planned to provide the same quantity and quality of exposure for each t-shirt purchaser given that some days are more inherent to exposure than others. Jason says that he doesn’t expect any forseable obstacles to making sure each t-shirt is promoted both online and off; he’s fully prepared to livestream everything from his everyday activities to family gatherings and opening presents on Christmas day.
Jason isn’t alone in his ground breaking marketing initiative, there’s also Girl in Your Shirt who was covered by TechCrunch and certainly has the cute girl factor working in her favor. But Jason seems pretty confidant that he’s got a large enough network to compete, and he asserts that he’s no copycat—iwearyourshirt was launched before Girl in Your Shirt. Something tells me that both entreprenuers will do just fine. Given our economy, there’s a huge opportunity for startups and small businesses to reach a broad audience at a super cheap price.
I’d really love to hear your thoughts on this. Are you considering using Jason’s upper half to promote your business? What day would you buy and why? Personally, I’m contemplating purchasing my birthday and forcing Jason to wear one of my tiny sleeveless @jbruin tees, but that would just be cruel.
