Help Bring Noor and Ramsay Home

August 22, 2010 By 2 Comments

colin-noor-ramsay

Imagine that you went to pick your children up one day and they weren’t there. Shortly after, you received a phone call threatening that you would never see your children again if you reported them missing. The phone number traces back to Egypt and the male caller spoke with an English accent. You realize that your children have been kidnapped. You suspect they have been taken to Egypt. This suspicion is then confirmed when you find out that their mother (and your ex-wife) used falsified Egyptian passports to kidnap the children and take them thousands and thousands of miles away from your home. In your search to find them you travel that long journey 5 times over the course of a year in hopes of finding any clue that will lead you to be reunited with your children.

Sound like a script for a new movie or book? Sound like your worse possible nightmare?

Unfortunately, it is neither a movie or a book. It is a nightmare but one that is being lived in reality and not in a dream state.

It is the story of the past year for my friend and colleague, Colin Bower.  You can watch Colin talk about his situation in a recent interview that was done with the Boston-based ABC affiliate.

For those wondering why this is the first they’re hearing about it, Colin has worked through the legal system for the past year and chosen not to make his struggle public. There has been a US federal warrant issued for the arrest of Colin’s ex-wife, Mirvat el Nady on charges of kidnapping and there is also an outstanding international Interpol red notice which has been issued. There has been an Egyptian court order also issued ordering Colin the right to visit with his children, Noor, aged 8 and Ramsay, aged 6. There is still much work being done by the US government to help bring Noor and Ramsay home safely. But, now, Colin is turning to the community for help in bringing awareness to the situation.

Are you willing to help raise awareness so that Colin can be reunited with his children? There are multiple ways that you can help bring Noor and Ramsay home:

  1. Head over to the Facebook Page that has been set up and “like” the page.
  2. Contact the Egyptian government and urge them to help: embassy@egyptembassy.net
  3. Create a video, photo, or message and upload to the Facebook Page, YouTube, Vimeo and/or your blog. Tag it “noorramsay” so that it can be found easily.
  4. Thank Senator John Kerry for his support thus far: support@johnkerry.com
  5. Share the Facebook Page with your friends, family and colleagues encouraging them to also “like” the page and carry it forward.
  6. Show your support on Twitter and encourage your network to help Noor and Ramsay by using the hashtag #noorramsay

Thank you for the help and everything you do from here. You have the power to make a difference in this very difficult situation.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to receive future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Filed Under: Announcements, Personal Tagged With: , ,

Facebook Marketing: Now Available!

June 24, 2010 By 34 Comments
I’m proud to announce that my first book, Facebook Marketing: Designing Your Next Marketing Campaign (affiliate link), is now available for purchase.  It has been a 12-month process from the time that we originally started talking about writing this book to it hitting bookshelves.  I’m proud of the work that I put into it and hope that you’ll find it helpful.
facebookmarketingbook
Below I have put together an overview for you to assess whether or not you think there will be value in spending a few dollars and buying the book.

What is Facebook Marketing About?

Facebook Marketing is a deep dive into how Facebook can be leveraged by your company starting TODAY.  This book is not just a Facebook-is-cool-and-you-should-join type book.  This book provides you with actionable information that you can begin implementing into your business.  It gives you the ammunition you need to convince your boss, your board, your IT team, or your employees why they should be investing time and money on “just another social network.”

Who Should Buy This Book

Simply put: This book is designed for professionals who want to understand how Facebook can be integrated into their business.  This includes anyone from the CEO to the CMO to PR, communications, and marketing.  Besides gaining an understanding of how you can use Facebook within your business, you can also gain an understanding of how YOU can use Facebook professionally as part of your own personal/professional branding.

Where You Can Pick Up a Copy

Does all of this sound good and you are itching to grab a copy or 50 for you and your closest friends? Well, first of all, thank you. It means a lot.  You can grab your copy from one of these awesome retailers:

Facebook Marketing – Amazon

Facebook Marketing – Barnes & Noble

Facebook Marketing – Borders

Facebook Marketing – 800CEORead

Facebook Marketing – Books-a-Million

Note: There is a Kindle edition available but not iBooks or audio versions, as of yet.

How Facebook Marketing is Organized

Facebook Marketing is organized into 11 chapters:

Chapter 1, “From Dorm Room to Boardroom: The Growth of Social Networks,” takes you from the beginning of Facebook in the founders’ dorm rooms at Harvard University all the way to their corporate headquarters in San Francisco, California.  This chapter provides an introduction to the phenomenon known as Facebook including major milestones such as opening the platform to everyone, going mainstream, and the major growth data points.

Chapter 2, “Getting Around Facebook: The Basics,” deals with getting you around Facebook by taking a stroll through the basics.  This includes a summary and detailed description of the basic profile options, notes, photos, videos, comments, likes, friends lists, Facebook Chat, and many other features.  This chapter provides you with a foundation for going deeper into the platform and understanding how it can be integrated into your business.

In Chapter 3, “Establishing a Corporate Presence,” you explore establishing a corporate presence including a deep dive into Facebook Pages and Groups.  You gain an understanding of how to set up each of these features for your business, how they can be used, and which ones you should select based on your needs.

Chapter 4, “Extending Facebook into the Interwebs: The Power and Reach of Facebook Connect,” breaks out of the framework of Facebook and discusses extending Facebook into the interwebs through the use of tools such as Facebook Connect.  You learn how this major feature has been integrated into websites and how you can use it for your needs.

In Chapter 5, “Facebook Advertising: How and Why You Should Be Using It,” you can learn about the Facebook advertising platform and why you should use it.  You learn about creating an ad, setting a budget, selecting cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-impressions (CPM), discovering your target audience, and using Facebook Insights (analytics).

To gain a full experience while using Facebook, you need to extend its capabilities with Facebook Apps.  In Chapter 6, “Extending the Experience with Facebook Apps,” I discus plug-ins such as flickr, Delicious, StumbleUpon, and several other applications that can help you to connect with your prospects, customers, and fans.

One of the most addressed issues throughout Facebook’s history has been privacy.  Chapter 7, “Addressing Privacy Concerns,” reviews the changes of Facebook’s privacy policy, whether you should have a personal AND professional Facebook account or if you need a single profile, and several other issues as it deals with your privacy, your customers’ privacy, and the privacy of your company.

By the time you make it to Chapter 8, “Developing a Facebook Marketing Strategy,” you will have developed a deeper understanding of Facebook and how you can use it as another part of your marketing toolbox.  Chapter 8 helps you to pull all these tools together to develop a Facebook marketing strategy.

With all the described options, you learn that one of the best uses of Facebook for your business is through the development of communities.  But how do you pull all of this together? Chapter 9, “Using Facebook to Develop Communities,” teaches you how you can use Facebook to develop communities.

Because you’re not the first company to jump into Facebook, Chapter 10, “Best in Class,” shows you some of the Best in Class companies that have fully utilized Facebook to build communities, engage with their audiences, and become more social.

To finish, Chapter 11, “Shaking the Crystal Ball: What’s Next for Facebook,” shakes the crystal ball and tries to guestimate what’s next for Facebook.  This is your sandbox to play in to see if you can figure out where Facebook goes from here.  Place your bets and let ‘em ride!

A Bit of a Warning

While I did my best to keep updating the manuscript, eventually my publisher cut me off from making edits since the book had to head off to the printers and to store bookshelves.  That means that you should expect that some of the stats have changed and that there have been feature set changes.  But, the underlying core is the same.  The theories, strategies and tactics are the same.

Special Thanks

I just really wanted to say thank you for all of the never-ending support.  This opportunity wouldn’t have happened without each and every one of you.  Should you choose to pick up a copy, thank you for skipping a few coffees to grab it.  I hope that you’ll find it useful.

If you have already read it, I’d love to hear your feedback.  What did you think? What can be improved upon in the next edition?

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to receive future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Filed Under: Announcements, Book Reviews, Facebook Tagged With: , ,

Email Marketing and Social Media: 2 Peas in a Pod

May 9, 2010 By 15 Comments

peapod2.jpg

This was originally posted over on the New Marketing Labs blog. I thought you’d find the upcoming webinar useful too so I wanted to share it here.  I hope that you can join us!

Are you desperately trying to figure out where your email marketing and social media efforts come together to form a seamless digital marketing strategy?
If you’re nodding your head up and down as fast as you can then we’re here to help!  On Wednesday, May 12th at 2:00p EST I’ll be hosting a webinar along with DJ Waldow of Blue Sky Factory to yap about new media strategy and how social media and email marketing can work together.

During the webinar you’ll:

  • Gain an understanding of the new media market and its benefits
  • Learn why email marketing is the digital glue and how it easily integrates with social media
  • Take away strategies and tools for measuring results and using them to optimize future campaigns
  • Have access to examples of real-world marketers using these channels effectively
  • Walk away feeling EXCITED about email marketing and social media

What makes me so excited for this webinar is how passionate and knowledgeable DJ and the entire team over at Blue Sky Factory is when it comes to email marketing.  Every time I chat with anyone from their team or hear them speak at our events or other conferences, I always learn something new.

So, will you join DJ and I from the comfort of your office, bed or local coffee shop for our webinar on 5/12 and come chat all things email marketing and social media?

Make sure you bring your questions, problems and confusion with you to the webinar and we’ll do our best to deal with everything you can throw at us.  Let’s just make sure it’s about email marketing and we’ll be fine.  Deal?

webinarreg.png

Photo Credit: tiny banquet committee

Filed Under: Announcements, Email, Social Media Tagged With: , , ,

Dusting Off

April 17, 2010 By 15 Comments

Well hello again. It’s been just a few weeks, er, actually, 12 weeks, since I’ve written around here.  It hasn’t been because there hasn’t been tons of great stuff going on that I haven’t wanted to share with you or that I’ve lacked ideas to write about.  So, what have I been up to then?

dustyroom

The end of 2009 and the start of 2010 has been extremely busy at New Marketing Labs.  We keep getting opportunities to work on lots of fun projects with great partners.  This has kept me flying in airplanes.  Already this year I’m at 50% of the flights I took all of 2009.  When I’m actually home for a weekend, I’ve been spending it over at my steakhouse where we continue to be fortunate that the community chooses us as their restaurant of choice for a romantic evening out.  In fact, we were just named the Best Steakhouse in the Pioneer Valley and continue to break our monthly sales goals.  Additionally, the past 3 months I’ve had to really keep my head down to finish my first book, Facebook Marketing, due out on May 20th.  I just sent the final edits off to my publisher this week and it’s at the printer now. Yay!  When I haven’t been on a plane, at NML, in the kitchen, or writing, I’ve tried to spend that last little bit of time available in the day with Laura.

While none of these things are good excuses for not stopping by and sharing my thoughts with you, I wanted to bring you up to speed on the past few months.  I hope that you’ll tune back in and we’ll keep exploring together.

How have you been?  What are you up to?

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to receive future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Photo Credit: Tobias Sieben

Filed Under: Announcements, Miscellaneous Tagged With: ,

Are You Subscribed Yet?

January 11, 2010 By 4 Comments

I really appreciate all of the meaningful conversations that we have in the comments of this website, on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr and the other ways that we find to connect online.  But, I realize that for some of you, you simply click through or you’ve arrived here from a search engine.  If so, it would make me smile if you took a minute to subscribe.  I’ve given you a few different options below.

Thank you for the continued support. I’m really looking forward to learning from you and hopefully share some helpful material throughout the rest of 2010.

Subscribe via Email

Don’t have time to check in with your feed reader but still want to get any new content? Sign up via email and receive any new content in your inbox every morning. What’s better than a little bit of Justin along with your coffee? Let’s be real now….

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Subcribe via Google Reader

Google Reader happens to be my favorite RSS reader and I highly recommend it. I love that we can share and learn together using something as simple as a feed reader.

Add to Google Reader or Homepage

Subscribe via RSS Reader

Realizing that Google Reader isn’t the only feed reader out there, feel free to grab add to your reader-of-choice.

Subscribe in a reader

Thank You

Finally, thank you for all of your continued support. I love every minute that I get to spend with you either here, on one of the various networks or, even better, in real life. Keep doing super cool stuff! :)

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to receive future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Photo Credit: Frank Gruber

Filed Under: Announcements, Connection Drive, Miscellaneous Tagged With: , ,
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »