About ten months ago a fellow digitally savvy colleague, Joe, and I were having a open forum about his social media post-break up woes. As someone who had never dated another social media affluent individual, I could not relate to his saga. During Joe’s relationship he connected with his soon-to-be ex girlfriend on Facebook, Twitter, Google Chat, Spotify, Instagram, Pinterest and many more social mediums. You would think that connecting with an individual on so many levels would be a good thing. Post-break he decided to trim her out of his social media landscape completely. Frequent updates, tweets, pins, plays and likes were something that he just did not want to see.

Fast forward to the present. After dating a former colleague and active social media user, our 6-month relationship came to an end a few weeks ago. Joe’s post-break up social media woes became a harsh reality for me. Not only was I connected with my ex on every social media platform, I dedicated an entire page of my blog naming him a key part of my staff.

Needless to say, breaking up in the digital age is complicated. Unfortunately the nature of social media is, you guessed it, social. Your break up is on display just like your relationship. How can something as personal as a relationship be so public? When you are happy-as-a-clam[shell] in a relationship you want to tweet it from the rooftops but when shit gets real, you clam-up to avoid the public controversy of your relationship’s demise.  Beyond the break up, it’s important to be cognizant of your social updates as a professional and a personal brand. Everything you update is public and caches somewhere, whether you chose to delete content from your profile or not. Tools like Archivebook document everything you have said on Facebook, from the drunken pictures to the angsty status updates, even if you have removed them from your profile.

Even if you do cut digital ties with your ex, no matter if you ever see the person again, their Facebook profile is always looming in the distance. Every Tweet is a reminder of the failed relationship. How to deal with a breakup in an online, social world can be more complicated than the actual separation itself. Be conscious of how you position your relationship on social media for yourself AND your personal brand’s sake. Proceed with caution!

After receiving her Bachelors degree in Communications from DePauw University, Kate Frankenberg dove head-first into a career in public relations and marketing. Now she works as a Digital Marketing Professional & Copywriter, as well as an Author on the blog Off the Grid Chicago. You can also find Kate working with Junior Council of Lurie Children’s Hospital, doing something social (online or off), buried in a book or teaching herself something new.

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life – Steve Jobs

Though my times at Vivid Ascent have been nothing but positive, my freelance business has increased which presented me with an opportunity to grow this business even further. Beginning tomorrow, I will be working full-time on creating my own business, Calderone Ventures. The main business will be Internet Marketing, but I also intend on doing other really fun projects I hope all of my friends and family will enjoy (Pizza blog, Bike Bar Crawl). If you’ve got an idea for a website or project, let me know and let’s do it!

I also share this with you because referrals are an essential part of my business. If you think my projects are awesome (or even just semi-awesome…) then I ask you to please share my name to any small business owners you know. I’ll buy you a beer. Or seven.

Stay tuned. The next six months of my life are either going to be very entertaining and lots of exciting new projects are going to spring up or I may end up homeless. Don’t let me end up homeless.

One day in 2008 a group of five friends and I were sitting around planning what to do. Someone came up with the idea to dress goofy and ride our bicycles to each bar in Elmhurst and Villa Park, a guaranteed good time. Shortly after, a co-founder decided we should not only do it for a good time, but to also raise money for a good cause. During our bar travels we asked fellow patrons to donate to our cause and we’d make the donation in the name of the “Elmhurst Road Rash Bike Bar Crawl”.

Three years (and quite a bit of refinement) later, we’ve sold over 300 t-shirts and have helped to raise over $2,000 to buy toys, stuffed animals, video games, and more for Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago (formerly Children’s Memorial Hospital).

The main way we raise funds is through selling t-shirts with approximately half of the proceeds donated to CMH.  We also donate 100% of the proceeds from a raffle where participants will be entered for a chance to win over $200 in bar gift certificates, with 100% of the proceeds donated to the children’s hospital. Participants are thanked with drink specials at each bar the day of the ride, one free raffle ticket, and knowing that their day-drinking is for a good cause.

Kevin Doellman of Ayo Kdoe Productions compiled photos from previous years for this teaser video.

This year the event will be taking place on July 28th beginning at 2pm at Riley’s Gathering Place in Elmhurst. From there we’ll be taking the Prairie Path to Caps Sports Bar and Grill, Demito’s Double D Saloon, Josephine’s Wine and Martini Bar, and then ending up at Doc Ryan’s of Elmhurst. All are welcome and we really mean it when we say the more, the merrier.

To make a donation or purchase a t-shirt, please fill out this form below:

Whoa. Apologies for the lapse in content here. Life has been crazy (in good ways!) and I’ve neglected something that I tell all of my clients to keep consistant: your blog! That being said, this is the first post in the “Freemium Fridays” series highlighting apps and services that use this model:

Freemium (via Wikipedia):

 A business model by which a product or service (typically a digital offering such as software, media, games or web services) is provided free of charge, but a premium is charged for advanced features, functionality, or virtual goods.

The “Freemium” business model has grown exponetially over the past two years and is extremely useful for both the business and the consumer. Every Friday I’ll be highlighting a tool/application that’s using this model and is free for small businesses to test out on a base level. The goals with these tools are to increase your web presence, customer loyalty, and of course the return on your investment (which in this case is your time).

The first service using the “freemium” business model to highlight is one of my favorites, MailChimp. MailChimp is a great email marketing service that allows you to send up to 12,000 emails a month to your customers FOR FREE! Crazy, considering a comparable plan with their competitor Constant Contact is over $50 per month.

MailChimp’s attitude and funny quips makes their service not only cost-effective, but actually fun to use. Their ready-built templates give any individual with a bit of computer savvy the opportunity to create attractive and effective email marketing campaigns. Linking up your accounts also enables deep integration with your existing social media campaigns, creating a dynamic viral effect outside of just “forwarding” emails. The ability to schedule emails make it very easy for a small

MailChimp integrates email into all of your marketing channels

business to develop a year-round strategy, sit down for a few hours, and knock out the entire year’s email marketing campaign.

The only downside is their threshold for spam is very low. It’s a positive because spamming your email list will stress relationships with your customers, but you’ll find out many times instead of unsubscribing people will click “spam”, regardless if they actually signed up to receive emails. Once reaching this threshold, MailChimp requires you to prove that you’ve acquired email addresses in the proper manner and delete any you’ve pulled in the wrong way. Too many threshold limits and your account is canceled. Bummer.

What does MailChimp think about the freemium business model? Read here their update on how it’s going for them.

Now a question I receive all of the time:”How do I grow my email marketing list? Can I just pull email addresses from all of my Facebook friends?”. My short answer: NO! Your list must be grown organically or purchased from an email list company (which I don’t suggest, no bueno).

My long answer: Stealing email addresses from Facebook will reach your spam limit VERY quick. All of your  marketing promotions should be integrated into one strategic year-round plan. Your storefront should have a physical signup list. Facebook and your website should host email signup forms. Give people incentive to sign up in the first place: contests, discounts, and promotions work well… but there’s one thing that’s overlooked often: GREAT CONTENT! Getting people genuinely excited to receive your emails create the best customers of all.

Once your list has grown and you start sending out e-blasts, what should your focus be? Well, that’s different for every business. In general your email campaign should encourage social media interaction, which encourages web site visits, which ALL encourage the accomplishment of your strategic goal. To get help developing and executing an internet marketing plan, fill out the form below to get in contact with me:

What do all of these musical artists have in common? The greatest city in the world: Chicago.

I recently came across Scott Kleinberg‘s #Instagram312 project and I think all of us music-lovers can do something very similar. I have setup a collaborative playlist on Spotify and would love for everyone to add as much music as possible, with only one requirement: the band/rapper/DJ/spoken word poet/etc. have to be from our great city of Chicago.

The playlist is embedded below and here’s a link that will open the Spotify app: Spotify312

What’s the point of this? It gives us a chance to show the rest of the world how eclectic and diverse our great city is, while also providing ourselves with great music to jam out to while we wait for Lollapalooza.

I also encourage everyone to use the hashtag #Spotify312 when they’re adding music or rockin’ out to the playlist in order to share our project with the world.

Interesting Fact: Social Media Cures Hangovers

I work in social media.

I know what you’re thinking. How is it possible for this industry to enable someone to pay rent? Trust me, even sometimes I double check that I’m not being paid in Enchanted Castle tickets and gumballs. But as it turns out, this career is real…and it’s spectacular. Let me tell you why.

Yes, you are correct: the basis of my job is to make Hootsuite my bitch. This means I camp out front row in front of a 27-inch Mac monitor and keep my eye on up to 30 clients’ social media streams at a time. I’m watching for people directly mentioning them, casually mention them, checking in at their property, posting photos of their property, and more – way more. Whether it’s a kudos or a complaint, a suicide attempt or a sweet note, nothing gets passed me.

Here’s the downside: I see people complain about everything from ice cream melting too fast to the desert air being too hot. In the real world, you could just ignore folks like this, because, well, they’re dumb, but in this career, I must not only acknowledge people like this exist, but I must also engage with them to correct whatever is on their mind. This, my friend, is not fun and, in most instances, is harder than any standardized critical thinking exercise.

On the flipside, the positive parts of the job are intensely rewarding. I can sum this up by: making it happen. Just the other day, I saw a guest at one of my hotels tweet that he was dreading his check-out due to a devilish hangover. If I were in that position, I know I would have wanted to stay under the covers for the next 48 hours, so I called the property to see if a late check-out was possible. Unfortunately, due to occupancy, it was not. What next, I thought? Bloody Mary. After a few calls to the manager on duty, I tweeted back at the guest and told him that if he could make his way out of bed and down to the check-out on-time, there’d be a big-ass Bloody Mary with his name on it waiting for him. His response, “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”

A positive interaction that will live on forever for the world to see on a free online social platform? Now that’s what I’m talking about.

So there you have it: a little background on what it means when you tweet to a brand. Now let me leave you with this: the next time someone says they work in social media, don’t just immediately roll your eyes and wonder what state university they may or may not have graduated from. Instead, throw them a bone for sending you that ice water next time the desert air is too hot for you.

-@emilybelden

I pride myself in results based marketing. If there’s something I recommend to a client and we’re not seeing results that reinforce our strategy, I don’t continue the program. My pride takes a backseat to your results and I have no shame in admitting that.

That being said, I find myself pouring over numbers to find out exactly what’s working or how to optimize a campaign to achieve results. This morning my head started to spin after staring at spreadsheets, so instead I took a break and compiled a list of statistics and info I wish were true in my life:

• The average slice of pepperoni pizza has 173 pepperonis on top.

• The median pay for an Assistant Account Executive in Chicago is $1.73 million dollars.

• On a regular Friday night, bars in Chicago have a 5/1 girl to guy ratio.

• The average click-thru-rate of Facebook advertising is 15%.

• The Chicago Cubs have the most statistically sound chance of winning the 2012 World Series.

• Women are most attracted to a man when he is dancing off-beat to a funky techno song.

An artistic portrayal of the Vivid Ascent office

[Editors note: This post contains about 15 too many cat puns.]

Budgeting for a small business is similar to giving a cat a haircut; a lot of cuts happen and in the end, it probably isn’t good looking. No one understands this more than Chicago’s own entrePURRneur Steve Gadlin, founder of Blewt! Productions and recent Shark Tank alumnus. He was featured on ABC’s Shark Tank pitching his venture, I Want To Draw A Cat For You and for $25,000, one of the sharks became a 33% holder in his company.

It’s a pretty unusual industry Steve is in (in his words, he’s in the “economy for stupid, and I’m overflowing of it”), the methods he’s used to generate sales and the CATastrophes he faces are on par with regular small business owners: he’s been featured on Groupon, he posts all of the cat drawings to his social networks, and he’s constantly engaging with fans, but he’s a one-man shop, there’s more cats than there are hours in the day, and he’s also juggling a full-time job as well.

Steve PAWsed from drawing cats for a minute to answer a few questions about web development (his day job), internet marketing, social media, and how to PURRfect them in, not only the economy of stupid, but the economy of small business:

Joe Calderone: Can you give us a little bit of background on how you got into drawing cats?

Steve Gadlin: I’ve been doodling cats for as long as I can remember. In high school study halls, I’d pass time by drawing a comic strip called Silly Cat Comix. Every one of my creative projects since has really been an off-shoot of that ridiculous comic strip.

JC: What are some creative and engaging ways IWTDACFY is using social media?

SG: Every time I post a cat drawing to the site (about 40 times per day), it’s sent out as a Tweet. I also engage my Facebook fans in a daily basis through contests and conversation. Every Friday is “Free Cat Friday” in my Facebook page, which always generates a pretty big response.

JC: How many people engage with you on a daily basis through social media? What program, software, or tips do you have for managing interaction on Twitter/Facebook?

SG: I’m not sure about a daily number, as it depends how often I’m posting on any given day. I have just under 8,000 Facebook fans and about 1,500 Twitter followers. If I post a free cat contest on Facebook, I can count on 150-300 quick responses. Except in the case of the automated new drawing tweets, I don’t use any special social media tools. I think it’s keeps my voice genuine by just cracking open my web browser and connecting with my followers. I use the same tools they use to consume the message, in real time.

JC: While pitching the Sharks on your episode of Shark Tank, Robert Herjavec mentioned how great you are at generating free PR. Are there any tips for a small businesses or individuals to help further their low-cost/free marketing and PR?

SG: Well there’s no real FREE PR. If it doesn’t cost money, you pay in time and effort. I spent many years standing out on a corner handing out postcards to get attention for my other projects, and now I have a great list of media contacts and relationships. But it took a long time, and a lot of hustle, to earn that PR.

JC: In your day job, you work in the web department at your company. Are there any new technologies you’re excited about in web building?

SG: I’m probably a little old school when it comes to building websites. Technologies and platforms come and go. Content really is king. Finding a way to communicate your message and connect with an audience is the real exciting challenge, and that’s often completely independent of the technology behind it.

JC: Chicago’s own Groupon is in a bit of hot water because of their accounting practices. What was your experience/results when working with them?

SG: I had, and continue to have, a great experience working with Groupon. They’ve been very open and communicative with me, and I really credit them with helping to give IWantToDrawACatForYou.com the boost of exposure it needed to become more than just a silly side project.

JC: What can we expect next from I Want to Draw a Cat For You and Blewt! Productions in the future? Are we going to see a follow up to your amazingly addictive “I Want to Draw a Cat For You” song/dance/video?

SG: I have all sorts of projects cooking. Shark Tank will air an update on my company on 5/11′ but I’d rather not give anything away. When I declared on the original show that I was a fountain of stupid, I meant it! Blewt! has a variety of projects in development right now, and you haven’t seen the last of the stick figure cats!

Currently you can enter I Want To Draw A Cat For You’s contest for a grand prize of a LIFE TIME SUPPLY OF FREE CAT DRAWINGS! You can also CATch an update on Steve’s cat-drawing business on May 11th’s episode of ABC’s Shark Tank. To view all of Blewt!’s ventures and productions, check out their website here.

JoeCalderone.info Blog on an iPhone using Google Currents

Google Currents is an amazing mobile app (iOS or Android) that turns any RSS feed into a gorgeous mobile-optimized magazine. It’s free to setup and allows for email acquisition, splash pages, and many other customization tools that turns your feed into a phenomenal mobile experience. It’s free to setup and takes only about 15-20 minutes to get everything ready.

Publisher analytics allow you to view how many subscribers follow your feed and Currents also deeply integrates with Google Analytics. As with all of your marketing efforts, analytics are essential to gauge the most effective return on your investments.

Subscribe to JoeCalderone.info via Google Currents now!

The best part about publishing content with this app is every section/article can be easily shared through your social media networks. When viewing an article, you’ll see an icon with two arrows in the bottom toolbar. Tapping this icon brings up all of the user’s social networks and the opportunity for the content to be shared. Combining this application with your current social media marketing efforts gives you the opportunity for your content to “go viral” and really drive traffic to your site.

Yesterday I took some time to set it up for my blog and I couldn’t be happier. It beautifully displays all of the content, provides a great URL to gain subscribers, and links to other sites open with the app’s internal browser, so users aren’t taken out of the app and away from your content. I do not have advertising on this blog, but I haven’t noticed any ads on major publication’s Currents articles (great for readers, not so much for publishers).

Google Currents already has a large publication directory, so you’ll have plenty to keep up with once you have the app. Plus I have a very special interview I’ll be posting this week, so you’ll want to stay updated on my blog.

]]> http://joecalderone.info/google-currents-mobile-content/feed/ 0 http://joecalderone.info/quick-thoughts-facebook-purchases-instagram/ http://joecalderone.info/quick-thoughts-facebook-purchases-instagram/#comments Mon, 09 Apr 2012 21:09:13 +0000 Joe Calderone http://joecalderone.info/?p=1035 Story at a glance:

• Mark Zuckerberg announced this afternoon Facebook has purchased Instagram
• Reportedly, the deal is worth $1 billion
• Instagram will remain growing independently of Facebook

Deja-vu?

Back in 2008, a similar social networking powerhouse (Myspace) purchased a platform that was drawing great traffic from their network (Photobucket), but only pulled 300 million dollars. Granted we’ve seen how things turned out for Myspace and now Photobucket is the official photo-hosting platform of Twitter, it still is a familiar subject. The difference here is that Facebook not only gets a great team of talent, but also a mobile network that rivaled their own. Users have a love for the easy photo editing that filters bring, but also the platform, sharing, and interaction it creates.

The Instagram iOS application has held a 5-star iTunes rating (with over 450,109 reviews) and 15 million downloads, while the Android version garnered a million users registered within a 12 hour timeframe. With Facebook growth becoming pretty stagnant (some say even declining?), this is exactly the injection they needed pre-IPO.

Haters gon’ hate

Users are already abandoning their beloved accounts now that the Zuck is at the helm. I doubt he cares: