I do enjoy the dust up of opinions caused by the discussion of Social Media and Social Networking and how to use it from a marketing perspective and from a user’s perspective.

There’s….

“The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread” Tribe

“The Social Media/Networking is a Total Time Suck” Tribe

“The Occasionally Dip My Toe in The Water” Tribe

…and the always popular

“Prove It To Me” Tribe

There is always a few with such strong opinions (usually negative) that I get a kick out of it. Make no mistake, I myself do not shy away from strong opinions while also knowing that when I issue absolutes, I risk a little egg on my face.

As usually, I’m always the odd man out as I belong to the…

“Social Media/Networking is a Part of My Overall Marketing Mix” Tribe

Ours is a small tribe made up of folks who actually write and live by a marketing plan that has objectives, goals, targeted audiences and measures against it.

Some in our tribe do not use Social Media at all…but they can still be in our Tribe and not the “Time Suck” tribe because they have reviewed – not unilaterally dismissed – Social Media tools and decided it doesn’t work for their marketing objectives.

Smart marketers, whatever their business, adapt and study a changing landscape. Today’s change includes understanding and usually adapting to having Social Media and Social Networking as a part of the marketing mix.

The Social Media marketing mix is like an old family recipe – you make up the ingredients and portions based on some basic assumptions. A cake will need things like flour, eggs, water etc., but you may decide to add a little bit more of this or that or bake for a shorter or longer time than is standard.

With Social Media and Social Networking – it’s like an internet cake. Basic ingredients include having a free account on the most popular Social Media outlets: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, FriendFeed. Again, it’s free – the worst that could happen is that you get some SEO love from your account if all you ever do is set up a basic informational profile.

Then, if you want to dig deeper, you can figure out how these services and others (like blogs, podcasts, video sharing) might or can benefit your marketing objectives. Because your time is valuable, part of how you assess the marketing value of these tools is to decide how much time you can and are willing to commit to their execution. Time is as much a marketing expense to a business as the actual layout of cash.

If the answer is yes – we/me should do this and I can do this – great, carry on. If the answer is no, it doesn’t fit with our objectives and budget (primarily time but also possibly money) – great, carry on. In both cases, you really studied what you need to know about the tools and compared them to your marketing objectives and made a smart business decision.

You were not simply dismissive!

It seems simple but that process is a fail for many small business people because their busy-ness (not their business) helps them to avoid learning new things and ultimately they seem resistant to change…they enjoy the comfort zone of the familiar.

To them I wish nothing but a comfortable and obviously unplanned snooze.

Tags: branding, commentary, facebook, internet, linkedin, marketing, social media, social networking, twitter // 6 Comments »

You may file this under the heading of “silly, useless fun” but you are reading my first blog post created entirely on my new i-phone.

As with everything i-phone, there was a an application (read: program) for it; in this case from WordPress. Tip of the cap to Craig Chapman from Rare Earth Interactive for the heads up on this app (only one of about 15,000+ available so far).

I think I’ll title these i-phone posts: “i-posts”.

And if I don’t get alot faster with this touchscreen typing, you’ll not see all that many “i-posts”.

Tags: commentary, i-post, silliness, social media, technology // Comments Off on i-post: blogging from the i-phone

BUFFALO, New York, March 27, 2009 – – Voice over talent and president of audio’connell Voice-Over Talent Peter K. O’Connell was tapped by two Western New York State professional associations for live announcing duties in March. O’Connell served as announcer for the Buffalo Niagara Sales and Marketing Executives’ 2009 Elite Sales and Marketing Awards Gala and was a co-host of the 2009 BETA Awards program for InfoTech Niagara with WKBW-TV anchor Elizabeth Carey.

The Buffalo Niagara Sales and Marketing Executives is a professional association that was established in Buffalo in 1942 by area sales and marketing leaders with the goal to improve the knowledge, standards, conduct and network of sales and marketing practitioners. InfoTech Niagara is “the” trade association of Western New York’s information technology industry.

audio’connell Voice-Over Talent is a worldwide, English language-based voice talent organization. The company also operates International Voice Talents, a company featuring professional foreign language male and female voice actors. audio’connell Voice-Over Talent and International Voice Talents provide voice talent for commercials, animation, corporate narrations, documentaries, broadcast voice imaging, audio books, podcasts and messaging on-hold (MOH). Industries served by the two companies include advertising agencies, media and broadcast production companies as well as both large and small businesses around the world.

Mr. O’Connell also owns Voice Over Workshop, which provides professional voice over training to novice and experienced voice talent world-wide.

audio’connell Voice-Over Talent, International Voice Talents and Voice Over Workshop are all a part of O’Connell Companies.

– 30 –

NOTES TO EDITORS

Company Media Releases ON LINE:
http://www.audioconnell.com/media

Company Name Pronunciation:
au·dio·o’·con·nell (awe-de-oh-oh-kah-nel) or au·di-o’·con·nell (awe-de-oh-kah-nel)

Company Name Spelling:
Use lower case letters- audio’connell or audio’connell Voice-Over Talent

Company Web:
http://www.audioconnell.com

Company Blog:
http://www.voxmarketising.com

O’Connell Voice-Over Resume:
See resume here

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LinkedIn

Google+

Tags: media releases // Comments Off on MEDIA RELEASE – Live Announcer and Award Show Co-Host Duties for Peter K. O’Connell

This marble has been in my brain for most of the day and I feel I need to get it out.

The Voicey Award winners were announced this week by their producers Voices.com.

My congratulations to the winners.

I also renew my objection here to the award’s title which I find silly – and I expressed this sentiment some years ago to Stephanie Ciccarelli so I am not speaking out of school. It’s OK, she thinks I’m silly.

Don’t ask my what my great idea to name the awards was because I’ve forgotten it but I know it was a helluva lot better than Voicey! 😉

And speaking of silly, he said in his professional segue kind of way, I was visiting a message board today and came across two things on the board.

1. A recent and long thread complaining about Voices.com
2. Kudos and shout outs (from a couple of the complainers, I believe) to the winners of the Voicey Awards

This led me to imagine the face-palm moments taking place at Voices.com where they have voice talents complaining about their service (in some form or another) on one page of a forum while these talents merrily praise the Voicey Awards and their winners on another page.

Yes, the kudos were offered in support of those honored and that’s as it should be but considering this juxtaposition I was chuckling all day with this thought:

Voice Talents – you can’t live with ’em but you’re not supposed to shoot ’em.

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Tags: commentary, silliness, voice talent, voiceover, voices.com // 2 Comments »

OK, look….it’s a thing with me.

We all have these “things” that irk us. They are small, mundane issues that make us each a little nuts…the things that make your friends say…”what’s your problem?”.

Mine is (well one of mine is) email signatures. Specifically email signatures without key info like phone number (office and cell!) and web site. When I need to contact somebody fast, I often look up their email for their contact info. When it’s not there when I need it, I have a little (internal) hissy fit.

The thing is not all the people with whom I correspond have a spot in my address book. This is mostly due to the fact that I don’t update my contact manager as often as I should.

But just so we’re clear, this post isn’t about what I can do better (my “perfection” is well documented)…it’s about how other people need to make my life easier.

Glad that’s settled.

So here’s the thing, say “Linus*” sends me an email, he would like me to call him and he signs the email just “Linus”.

Uh, “Linus” do you know that MOST email programs have an automatic signature feature wherein you can fill out your complete sig with all your pertinent contact info once and it will appear at the bottom of your email automatically as soon as you open it?

Well, “Linus” now you do. I’m glad we had this little talk.

* I don’t know any Linus although it has, for a long time, been one of my favorite names. However, it has never been one of Mrs. audio’connell’s favorite names, hence in my brood you will find no “Linus”

Tags: commentary, rants // 2 Comments »

With thanks to RadioJingles.co.nr (a blog to which I subscribe…Google Reader strikes again 🙂 there is a great link to a really well done video interview by voice talent Nick Parker of NickParkerLive.com. Nick interviews Dave Foxx, long time Creative Services Director at Z-100 (WHTZ-FM/New York).

I don’t know Dave (save for his voice and production skills) but what impressed me most about the interview was the “thank you” conversation at the end of the video. If you enjoy radio imaging, this vid is cool to watch…if you want to know what separates the pros from the wanna-be’s check the end of the video.

Dave Foxx has exactly the right attitude.

Tags: announcers, commentary, radio, voice actors, voice talent // 9 Comments »