Red Bull Whistler Peak 2 Peak Base Jump

Posted on January 12, 2009 by michelle.mack

Well thank you to Karl Woll for pointing out this vid to me:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56fgfetA4Qo

While it’s cool to watch because, well, it’s a base jumping video… and when is that not cool? It’s not as exciting as it could be. Quite obviously a sanctioned publicity jump by Red Bull with Whistler Blackcomb’s full permission. Is it going to go ‘viral’? Well, I’m writing about it. Will it be a “social media success”? Doubtful. Because it’s not authentic. No one else could repeat it.

What would have been cooler, though, would be to see someone manage to do it on the sly. Like this:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP0iSJQLfJ4

And while the Marc Ecko Air Force One tagging event is a fake… it received at least a million views and has been reposted and reposted to YouTube too many times to find all the versions out there.

Welcome Virgin 953 to Vancouver!

Posted on January 9, 2009 by michelle.mack

Radio is alive and well in Vancouver.

virgin-radio-party-naked-guy I had the opportunity to attend the Virgin 953 launch party last night at the Watermark. Virgin 953 is the former 95 Crave, which was my old favourite Z95.3. You can listen to Virgin 953 streaming live here.

Virgin 953 will continue to feature Nat & Drew in the mornings, and local tech star Buzz Bishop on The Rush from 3-6pm weekdays. The big news is the addition of Ryan Seacrest’s show weekdays from 6-9pm and then again on Sundays at 4pm for the American Top 40.

The party was a good time. Who doesn’t enjoy free drinks and people dressed as quasi-circus-freaks… or better, wearing nothing at all? Note to self: invite naked guy to all parties. Great conversation piece. I especially enjoyed watching women have conversations with him and trying desperately not to look down while chatting. That was good entertainment value right there.

tattoo-artist-Jay I got to meet the fabulous Buzz Bishop, whose tweets I love even if we sit on two ends of the political teeter totter. That was a treat. Hi Buzz Other party highlights included something about a guy being set on fire and running into the ocean, a tattoo artist doing real tattoos right there at the party… who just happened to be an old friend and the guy who designed and tattooed my arm band (Hi Jay!), a chick in lingerie with an enormous snake and, apparently, another lovely lady in very little providing some additional scenery in the men’s room.

I wasn’t going to go, to be honest. Social situations, particularly when I don’t know a soul there, make me very nervous. And being in marketing there is no shortage of people who would like to help me find ways to spend my advertising dollars, so sometimes I find going to industry events just sends me home with another list of people trying to sell me stuff.

chick-with-snake Radio, however, is one medium I seem to have a lingering curiosity about. I still listen to radio. A little. And Virgin is a super cool brand.

While I’m not sold on the value of paid on-air advertising alone, I still think there’s an edginess (is that a word?!) and authenticity to radio that isn’t found elsewhere. Radio still has the benefit of being real people running real shows and talking about real stuff. I know to some, the talking and the shows are the detriment. To others like me, it’s part of the experience and part of what makes radio entertaining.

Sometimes I’ll just listen to a playlist on my computer, but there are times – especially while I’m driving – I like to have the other personalities there. I like the insights and banter; it’s like having someone else in the room. I know the line between advertising and promo gets blurry, but regular radio listeners love and trust the personalities they are loyal to. Their opinions matter. In fact, radio personalities sort of parallel bloggers and social media on many levels.

If a reporter provides raw news and iTunes provides raw music, bloggers provide editorial insight and radio hosts provide musical insight. Truth be told, I’m not cool enough to know what’s trendy, so I need someone to tell me. What would I do without radio?

So while I’m currently not doing any radio advertising, I am curious to see what Virgin is going to do in Vancouver. Maybe there’s room for more radio advertising yet.

6 Easy SEO Tips I learned from Dave Taylor

Posted on January 7, 2009 by michelle.mack

Back in September I went to Blogworld & New Media Expo 2008 in Las Vegas.

The number one best thing about going to the conference was the connections I made there; I even got to rub shoulders with few blogging/social media/internet rockstars including Chris Brogan, Jason Falls, Darren Rowse, David Alston, Dave Taylor, Steve Hall, Lee Odden, Rohit Bhargava, Gary Vaynerchuk and local superstars Rebecca Bollwitt and Linda Bustos.

The next best thing was some of the useful tips I learned from one of the sessions: Dave Taylor’s “Ten Things You Need to Know About Search Engines & Findability”.

For those unfamiliar with social media and blogging, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. In fact, blogging is often considered a great way to market your company website if, in fact, you have a passion and a plan for doing so.

Key takeaways from Dave Taylor’s blogging SEO session:

While Dave’s session focused on 10 things about SEO, the following 6 points stood out to me and are very simple to implement no matter what blog platform you use.

1. Write as often as you can
This tip didn’t come entirely from Dave Taylor’s session; it was addressed by Richard Jalichandra’s Keynote on Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere. The most popular blogs are written to 10 times a day or more. While you don’t need to write multiple times a day for your blog to be effective, you do need to write regularly to keep the search engines pinging your site. The more often Google pings you, the higher up you’re going in the search results for keywords contained within your writing. People will disagree on how often you need to write to produce results; I would suggest a bare minimum is 2-3 times a week if you’re going to bother blogging at all.

2. Write your keywords in to your content
It’s a good idea to be aware of the key words and phrases you want your site to rank for. Make sure you use those words and phrases whenever it is appropriate in your writing. It’s a balancing act between having your blogging sound natural and having it sound like it was written strictly for keyword density, but use your judgement. The more your keywords are located in your writing, the higher you will rank for those words. This is especially important if your goal is to draw traffic and customers to your primary business.

3. Link your keywords rather than meaningless words
This is probably one of the most important things I’ve learned: Link relevant keywords. Search engines read code. They see what has a link and look at the content of that link more closely than the other text within your site. So rather than say, “I found this great article on SEO for blogs on this website,” you should write “I found this great article on SEO for blogs I want to share with you.” In the first example, you will rank for the word “website”; in the second example, you will rank for “great article on SEO for blogs”, which is a way more useful phrase, and one that is much more likely to be searched. No one needs to rank higher for “click here” or “more”. No one.

4. Use header tags to emphasize sub-headings
I didn’t know this one at all. When you use header tags like <h1> and <h2> to highlight important sub titles within your posts, the search engines will also see that text as more important again, in the same way it sees links as important. See above where I titled this list “Key takeaways from Dave Taylor’s blogging SEO session”? That’s an <h2>tag and it sends a signal to the search engine’s little electronic brain centre says “oh this is a heading; this page must be about this topic.” Just simply bolding your headings won’t have the same effect.

5. Optimized photos
Photo file names and titles are also used by search engines. So rather than leaving your file names as whatever they were when they came off your digital camera… “IMG_2008-01-07_001.jpg” for instance, rename it. Name it with relevant keywords that people may search for. Be honest about it. What is the photo displaying? If you’re writing a blog entry on your trip to Disneyland and you take a picture of Mickey Mouse in front of the Disneyland castle, call your photo “mickey-mouse-disneyland-castle.jpg”. If you’re writing a blog entry on a restaurant you visited and you’re including a photo, name the photo “restaurant-name-city-styleoffood-dining.jpg”. Then, your images have their very own chance of getting ranked by Google.

6. Tag your posts
Tag your posts. All blogging software allows you to add relevant tags to your posts. If you’re writing about how to bake an angel food cake, you might tag it with the following keywords: baking, bake a cake, angel-food cake, cake, angel food, baking instructions, cake instructions. Think for a few minutes about what words someone might plug into a search engine if they were looking for exactly what you’re writing about. If you were looking for your post, what would you search for?

Protecting your Future: Privacy in Social Networking

Posted on January 6, 2009 by michelle.mack

Photo: ButterflySha on Flickr

Today, Mitch Joel from Twist Image posted some very frightening statistics from The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy about internet behaviour and the sharing of sexually explicit material among youth online. Among them:

“One in five teen girls (22%), nearly as many teen boys (18%) and one-third (33%) of young adults say they have electronically sent, or posted online, nude or semi-nude photographic or video images of themselves.”

That just freaks me out.

I know that these young digital natives don’t remember a world without internet connectivity, and to them, the internet has been around forever… for their forever, anyway. The problem is, it hasn’t been around forever. No one can accurately predict what kind of trouble this could bring to the future of these young people.

Even in instances where people believe they are sharing their photos and videos only with their friends, they may be unaware of the actual implications for posting this material online. Here is an excerpt from Facebook’s terms of use policy as an example:

By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.

So you’re basically giving Facebook the right to use anything you post on their servers for any purpose they see fit.

Please, please re-think it. Here are some things I recommend you NOT post online:

Naked photos of your kids
Naked photos of yourself
Video of your drunken escapades
Semi-nude photos such as flashing
Any video of a pornographic nature

These are just the biggies.

It’s really important that everyone online thinks about the kind of electronic footprint they’re leaving. What does it look like when someone Google searches you? More and more prospective employers are using the internet to find out about candidates. Is your Facebook profile public or private? If it’s private, how private is it?

I once saw nude video of a young boy who is the son of a friend of mine. My friend commented on her friend’s video and thus the conversation showed up in my News Feed. I clicked the video and saw full frontal nudity of a ~3 year old boy. Now, thankfully I’m not a pedophile, but you never know how people use Facebook or who they’re connected with. Did you know that all applications (including the video app) default to public even if your profile is private? You have to go in and set your video app to private separately. I messaged the mom and let her know I could see the video. She told me to mind my own business; at least I warned her.

I’m not saying what you should or shouldn’t do. I’m just asking you to think about what it is that you’re doing and be sure you’re informed about the potential ramifications of your decisions. If Facebook decides to create a “Facebook Does Spring Break” video will your personal sexcapades be a part of it?

Private doesn’t mean private on the internet. Everything is copied, backed up and traceable.

Just think about it.

New Year’s Resolutions

Posted on December 30, 2008 by michelle.mack

Photo: paulwoolrich on Flickr

As much as I hate them, I make them: New Year’s Resolutions.

I guess I struggle with living in a once-I’ve-screwed-it-up-it-can-never-be-perfect-again state of mind… the downfall of all perfectionists. See, after starting a new project or launching into some new commitment, there’s a constant drive to keep up with it flawlessly until the inevitable moment of failure.

It’s at that moment of failure that we find out what we’re really made of. The failure part is inevitable.

Failure is good, in fact. If you ask the most successful people of this world if they’ve ever failed, they will undoubtedly say their biggest successes came from figuring out what happened with their biggest failures.

Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, only this time more wisely. [Henry Ford]

In that moment of failure, we have to look at what went wrong and learn from it. What is keeping us from achieving that goal? Why didn’t it work? What can we do differently to obtain a different, more successful, outcome?

So here are my New Year’s Resolutions:

1) I will be a more attentive wife and mother
I am going to deliberately make time for my husband and my son every day no matter how many ideas I have or how many things I want to achieve. No matter how many chores need doing and no matter how tired I am, my number one commitment is to my family. Morning cuddles come before Twitter and maybe even before coffee. Dinner conversation comes before blogging. Good bye kisses will be given with love and patience and not the stress that comes with being just a few minutes late.

2) I’m going to be more helpful
This applies to real life and my blogs. I want to spend more time focused on other people and their needs and how I can help. I want to make a point of stopping and helping when I see someone struggling with their groceries. I want to look for ways to encourage people I care about. I want to write more about business and my knowledge and wealth of experience in my field so small business owners can benefit. This requires me to dig in and look at ways in which I am, indeed, knowledgeable. I find it hard to see sometimes.

3) I’m going to treat my body well
Let’s face it: I’m not 20 anymore. When I don’t get enough sleep, don’t drink enough water, eat on the go and sit at the computer regularly, the only thing that suffers is my health. I love the overall sense of wellbeing I get from sports and exercise. I love the clarity and peace that comes when I eat healthy foods. I love sleeping too I don’t love drinking water but I do love that I’m less snippy when properly irrigated. I’m not going to put a specific goal to it, but I will live each day with the intention of drinking plenty of water, eating a colourful assortment of fruits & veggies, and moving a little more… even if it’s a round of hula hooping with the Wii Fit.

That’s it. Not so difficult, right? Wrong. I will, at some point, fail at each one. I will become angry and irritable with my family members. I will likely begin focusing too much on the things that would make me happy at the expense of the people around me. I will also likely eat at McDonald’s or drink Coca-cola during the year ahead. But this year, I’m going to keep moving towards the future with good intentions and a spirit of courage.

I want to be known as someone who runs a good race.

What are your New Year’s Resolutions and what will you do with your failures?

Web Conversation Etiquette and Direct Messages

Posted on December 6, 2008 by michelle.mack

Photo: David Boyle on Flickr

It seems that Robert Scoble aka @scobleizer decided to post a message this morning reiterating that he hates direct messages in twitter (DMs). This is not news; somehow it’s a well-known internet fact. A new post ensued: Ten Reasons Why Twitter Direct Messages Suck (And so do Facebook’s).

Side note about the power of social media: Immediately following the twitter exchange, “DMs” and “DM’s” made it to #3 and #6 on Twitter Search

This got me thinking about general web conversation etiquette.

I’ve read a number of blogs about twitter etiquette – including ones that seem to have missed the mark, perhaps (judging by the comment backlash) – the twitter 10 commandments (though I disagree with #9 – please take your “thank you new followers” tweets to a DM!), blog etiquette, and spent copius amounts of time following people like Chris Brogan and Gary Vaynerchuk who are serious advocates for returning every email, @message, blog comment, DM and the like. I completely understand the value in ensuring that comments people put out there are encouraged and continue to carry the conversation.

I have, at times, felt like the person who ends the conversation… it was like this when I was a teen, too (there’s likely some kind of deep issue here; I’ll be sure to bring it up in therapy some day). I would say something and everyone would stop talking. Awkward silence.

So the point of responding to emails, DM’s, Facebook messages and blog comments (especially when you’re a new blogger only getting a handful fo comments anyway) is clear: don’t leave an awkward silence in your online conversation. Thank people for their insight, or even just for visiting your blog. Someone has taken the time to say something to you – would you just simply look at them and receive that message then walk away in real life?

I sure hope not. Even those important enough to be jerks would do well to curb that instinct.

Sometimes I do have a giggle while wondering where to stop? If you’re not careful, you could go back and forth with people spouting random pleasantries just so you can say you’ve answered every one – sort of like a few conversations I’ve had at conventions or trade shows (you know the ones).

Sometimes I find I just don’t have anything interesting to say. What do you do then? The funniest response I saw to this question came from Marc Meyer’s comment on Chris Brogan’s Be Sexier In Person:

When I have nothing else to say, I just say, “that’s all I got”. And the conversation ends right there, no harm no foul.. and we’re all satisfied, and we walk away.

And on that note… that’s all I got.

It may not be sexy, but it’s what sells…

Posted on December 2, 2008 by michelle.mack

Photo: Laffy4k on Flickr

Amber Naslund, over at Altitude Branding, blogged yesterday about “Real Work Isn’t Sexy.” Oh how true that is.

I just finished my first outside-my-day-job consulting project. It was more of a testing ground for me to figure out some new tools, find out what challenges I may face when selling myself as a consultant and building a portfolio of case studies to present to future clients.

The first thing I noticed was that almost everything that needed doing on an immediate basis was implementation.

First, I had to help my friend get his business current, digitally speaking. He needed a new website and he needed to digitize his contact list (think written address book); he needed a way for people to sign up to receive information from him via email. He needed to ensure people can watch his videos online without having to download a 50+MB file to their machine to do so. After all, he sells entertainment. That is his business. If people can’t preview it, he’s got nothing.

It is only now that all of that is in place, however quickly and inexpensively it was done, that he is ready to have me help him look at future strategy, customization, driving awareness etc. But just getting him current took real dirty, non-sexy implementation work.

Even a new site on a free wordpress.com theme took copying all his existing web content over to the new platform. It took setting up his URL and DNS and it took formatting images and video. It took uploading mp3 files and linking them up. It took revisions to his graphics in the creation of a new banner and wordmark, and it took setting up the widgets ordering the pages.

Digitizing his contact list was an even more arduous process. Manually populating excel spreadsheets with the required data is not on my list of favourite evening activities. While someone else did that initial data entry work, when it came time to uploading the files to his newly implemented email management tool I found the “name” was all one field vs. first name and last name, so I manually separated them… another hour or two. But that hour or two was quicker for me to just go ahead and get it done rather than look for someone who wanted a couple hours of admin work yada yada.

Having a well rounded skill set as a social media marketer is a good idea. Even as a marketer in the general sense, it’s a good idea to be able to manipulate graphic files, layouts, web pages etc. Experience with Adobe Creative Suite, html coding, Office suite, and any other software packages you can get to know will only serve you well.

You don’t want a conversation to go like this:

Client: So I need a new website, can you build it?

You: No, but I can hire someone to do it for you and I can help with managing the build from a best-practices perspective. There’s the guy I know who is fantastic and has an awesome client list. I’ll set up a meeting with him.

Client: Oh, okay. I’d also like it to look different than it does now… like a new identity, sort of. Maybe a new logo and colour scheme… Can you do that?

You: No. You need a graphic designer, but I know a really good one. Hey, I also think you should optimize all your photos so they don’t take so long to load on your site.

Client: Oh yeah, that’s a great idea. Can you do that?

You: Um, no.

Client: So, you do what, exactly?

Awkward.

I think it’s important to remember that it’s the doing that clients need. Especially when it comes to small business. Larger companies probably have some resources to handle some of the doing, and maybe that’s where you want to focus your efforts entirely. In fact, that may be where there is more money available anyway. Small business, on the other hand, needs someone to help with realistic implementations that will drive leads and sales. Bottom line.

Even the longer term strategy of this current project will require even more doing: a custom theme, adwords, blog tagging and editing for SEO (and teaching him to do this himself), monitoring…

If you’re like me, and you have a heart for small businesses having equal opportunity for harnessing the power of the internet in their marketing efforts, a little hands-on skill goes a long way… even if it means an hour or two of data entry every now and again.

The Pursuit of Passion: grousepark.com

Posted on November 22, 2008 by michelle.mack

I’ve been so busy as of late I haven’t had much of a chance to write anything here. One of the most exciting projects I’ve been working on is the new Grouse Park Sessions blog and the search for the next great snow industry bloggers who also happen to ride right here in Vancouver.

Have you ever thought about a future in the Snow Sports industry? Ever wondered what it would be like to work for EXPN, Transworld Snowboarding, Newschoolers, Snowboard Canada or SBC Skier? Do you want to build skills that will help get you on the road to where you want to go?

We’re looking for 5 great park riders – snowboarders or skiers, guys or girls – to hone their skills as Grouse Park Blogospondents and network with the best in the industry. [grousepark.com]

This idea came out of my trip to BlogWorld in Vegas in September. Last year’s Build Your Own Parks opened the door to having those conversations in public and really answering for our choices to a group of very passionate and vocal individuals. This new blog will give local riders an opportunity to voice their opinions in an even more detailed way than through surveys.

But for me this project brings me back around to the post I wrote about young people and their ability to change the world… I recognize that influencing some terrain park features isn’t changing the world, but these young people who ski and ride here have that potential and I like the idea of nurturing it and helping them to find their drive to do something great.

When I was a kid I had no idea what I wanted to do. I always felt like I was sort of average at everything – I wasn’t the best musician, I wasn’t a socialite, I wasn’t a stellar athlete and I wasn’t brilliant… well, except for in physics when I scored 100% on my final exam for advanced physics taught in French, but that was just weird. But I digress. I didn’t excel in acting class or writing; I didn’t like English literature; I barely understood calculus and chemistry was a complete unknown for me.

While I knew all these things I wasn’t good at, I never really figured out what I was good at.

There are great young minds out there who are struggling with those same thoughts… “What do I want to do with my life?”… “What could I do?”… “What are the options?”… “How can I turn something I’m passionate about into a career?”… just like Sean Aiken from One Week Job, and I’m hoping that Grouse Park Sessions will be an avenue for even one of these passionate idividuals to find their outlet and a passageway into the snow sports industry and a career they can embrace and enjoy.

So grousepark.com just went live on Thursday and received over 500 visits within 24 hours. By end of day Friday I’d received the first blogger applications. I find my work so incredibly rewarding in so many ways and this is just another example of why I want to share in the reward and help people find what drives them.

Now if only it would snow.

Motrin outrages mothers with latest ad campaign

Posted on November 15, 2008 by michelle.mack

Oh it’s going to be a bad day in the office for the folks at Motrin brand on Monday. Whoever thought their latest ad would be a good idea may have seriously done some damage.

I don’t know exactly when this new homepage video went live, but it’s 10pm pacific on Saturday evening and moms all over Twitter are outraged about it… so much so that #motrinmoms has jumped to #2 trending topic on Twitter Search.

I don’t consider myself an attachment parenting advocate, but I sure did use a sling to carry around my son. It’s convenient, and good for baby. Motrin has probably managed to offend just about any mom who chooses to watch this video or who has ever used a carrier of any type citing baby wearing “makes me look like an official mom”… what?!

Here you can see the full transcript of the audio.

Here you can see screen shots from Motrin’s home page.

Or, you can watch this video response from Instinctparenting:

Or read this blog about it.

I don’t suspect the ad will be there much longer, but this just goes to show how terribly wrong marketing can go and how social media can take it there.

The people have a voice; and the collective can be louder than we ever dreamed.

EDIT/ADDITION (November 16th):
Now you can watch the video on YouTube (for when it gets pulled from the Motrin home page):

im.seeking.balance

The Life of Michelle Mackintosh | Faith, Family & Fulfillment

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