Breaking the rules and transfering from Blogger to Wordpress

Before I started my blog I began reading lots of other blogs to get the lay of the land. I started commenting and engaging with blog authors and I began looking for tips on beginning your own blog. One of those tips, which I am now breaking, is to pick a platform and stick with it - forever. I choose Blogger. It was free, I already had a google account, it had the functionality I was looking for and it had an easy interface that made posting to it a breeze.

Two years later and I no longer think it's the best tool for me. Wordpress is easier to customize, stats are built right in and there's more flexibility to the design and different pieces of content you can add.

So here I am breaking one of the rules. I'm migrating to Wordpress. For the time being I'll keep both blogs going while I get a hang of Wordpress. And I'll think of what to do with the two years of content living at Blogger; let it live there or transfer it to Wordpress one post at a time.

For now you can find me at Blogger and Wordpress, both with the title Marketing Engagement by Valerie Conyngham. It's where I post about everyday marketing ideas that strike me, with a particular bent toward the design industry, as in architectural.

And if you're thinking about breaking any of the rules, I'd say go for it. Remember, technology changes often and our best offensive strike is to be flexible. Live by rules, but not rigidly.

Image credit: Flickr user givepeaceachance

Great Interactive from Barnes & Noble

I was reading my stream of Twitter updates and was excited about a tweet from @themarketingguy. He pointed his followers to the Barnes & Noble app on the iPhone. If you download it, it comes with a coupon for a free tall hot or iced coffee at a Barnes & Noble Starbucks stores. The tweet was simple "The Barnes & Noble iPhone app comes with a free cup of coffee." I immediatley downloaded the app to my iPhone and retweeted @themarketingguy's tweet. Barnes & Noble gets more face time with me, @themarketingguy gets validity to his tweet through an RT (that retweet speak in twitter) and I get a free cup of coffee and an app that I'm likely to use regardless. The lesson to be learned? Sometimes it's a tiny little thing (like a cup of coffee) that helps you to interact with your audience, gain word of mouth and make a great impression. Just think, already this went from app to twitter to blog. Where will it go next? Good press for a buck plus change.

image credit: webgrl on Flickr

Corporate Blogs and Freedom of Expresion

Last week I was at a marketing meeting at the Boston Society of Architects. The presenter, Mike Reilly from Reilly Communications, briefly introduced HOK’s blog, Life at HOK. After seeing the blog the question came up of how to keep everyone “on message” while blogging, an oxymoron in my opinion. If you’re trying to keep everyone on message within a blog then you’re not allowing the true power of a blog to come through – freedom of expression and opinion. A blog is about free communication - no corporate police, no messages to deliver. For HOK it’s an outlet for its employees to express themselves, whether relevant to architecture or not.

Another company may take a different approach where there are parameters around what the content can be. That too is a viable strategy so long as there is no one in the background editing and putting the corporate spin on the posts. Blogs have different voices unique to their writer(s). It’s the personality that comes through in a blog which makes it more engaging for its readers.

The HOK blog is a testament to what a corporate blog should aim to be, an unfiltered collection of messages. It gives the reader a glimpse into the culture of HOK in a way that polished corporate messages cannot.

The Method Pop-up Retail Experience

I had my first pop-up retail experience this weekend courtesy of Method. It started with excitement as I thought perhaps the store was the newest fixture on Newbury Street. But upon entering, the salesperson who greeted me explained that the store would be gone April 28th. It was a temporary disappointment as I knew this would still mark an opportunity to stock up on my favorite cleaning supplies, and of course there were special offers to be had. It also presented an opportunity to experience pop-up retail first hand.

The store was beautiful, it was well thought out with lots of greenery, my favorite being a toilet bowl filled with daffodils and grass. There was a photo booth to add to the playful mood and the signage was a challenge to the city's residents - Detox Your Home Boston.

The products were displayed on clear shelving, by scent making it easy to pick up all the products in a single scent family and there were scent bottles to involve the senses even more. Jars of colorful gumballs helped tie the color pallet together and there were dog treats on hand for any four-legged visitors (as a dog owner I can tell you I'm much more loyal to brands that keep dog treats on hand). Reusable bags made of recycled plastic were given to shoppers to tote their purchases home in, helping to drive home the "green" message. My only complaint was that the full spectrum of products was not available, making it hard to take advantage of the 5 for 20 dollar special without purchasing duplicates.

If I was reader of the Method blog I would have benefited from knowing that I could bring in my chemical based cleaners and trade them in for Method cleaners. Though readers of the blog are probably already Method customers and might not have any chemical based cleaners in their homes, hmmm, perhaps the blog wasn't the best place for that message...And if I had mentioned "beantown is a green town" I would have received an extra 10 percent off my purchase. But I'm not a reader of the Method blog so I missed out on the incentives. I did visit the blog after visiting the pop-up store to learn more about their tour.

Boston was Method's first stop, NYC will be the next. I'd be curious to see how at the end of the travels pop-up retail helps Method to convert people to its biodegradable, earth friendly cleaners and what kind of ROI it produces, if one can be determined.

The Boston stop was maestroed perfectly. The store popped up on a high traffic (with equal parts local and visitor traffic) street around Earth Day. The message was succinct and the scents produced by the store were intoxicating. Staff was friendly and they were will trained in the message of the brand. As for myself, I now have enough All Surface Cleaner and Wood For Good Surface Cleaner to last a year. However, I'll need to make the trip to Target to pick up some more Wood For Good Floor Cleaner as that's the one thing I really needed.

Image taken from the Method Blog.

Who's using social networks?

My intrigue in social networks is recent. I've spent the past few months trying to gain a better understanding of who is using them and why. Admittedly I'm not big on social networks. I have a Facebook page that I never update and I'm on Linked In, which I tend to update only after receiving an invitation to join a colleague's network. I don't see a lot of value in the premise of having hundreds of "friends" whom I don't know, but happened to come by their email address at one time or another. It's akin to building a permission based marketing database. Yes, someone has agreed to hear from me, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're hoping I take them up on the offer. The other reason I don't see a lot of value in social networking is because the majority of my friends aren't there, and most don't have a desire to participate in the space. It makes me wonder if my set of friends is so unique to be immune to what is purportedly exploding all around us or if the use of social networks is being over-projected to a larger demographic than the active user base. When I ask people why they don't use social networking sites, twitter, blog, etc. (and we go through the explanations of what I'm talking about) it becomes apparent - my friends, much like myself, are too busy to maintain the effort. Between careers, family and a social life there isn't a lot of time left to participate in an on-line life. From there I think about the people that I know that do use the technology and it always comes down to two major categories - marketers (who are there to figure out why other people are there and to figure out a way to capitalize on that) and the people in their mid-20s that I met while in my graduate degree program. What will be interesting to follow is if the people that were active Facebook users while going to school (and not working) continue to be as active once they graduate and land full-time jobs. It's at that point that the real value of social networking may become clearer.