Stay Tuned Or Else!

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“Big Wrestling” was a proposed new sports venture based out of South Florida. I worked with the team and their young fans to create a short video to be shown to investors and wrestling fans. I worked with the talent to get them excited (it wasn’t hard). They performed in front of a large green screen and during post production I added the flashing background and fireworks.

If you are reading this blog article, you are probably a professional and thinking “What does this have to do with me?”. EVERYTHING! Internet marketing (especially internet video) is all about making an impression. Okay, you don’t have to scream at the camera, but you want your personality to come through. There are a number of ways to communicate effectively, tell a compelling story, and stand out from the competition. Find out how.

Astronaut Mike Mullane

Astronaut Mike Mullane & Nichelle Nichols

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It’s been almost twenty years since I had the pleasure of producing a TV show with three-times Space Shuttle Astronaut Mike Mullane, featured here this short clip being interview on the set of “Inside Space” by host Nichelle Nichols (Uhura from the original “Star Trek” series). View the video clip. Mike is one of my favorite “professional celebrities” – brilliant, kind, and quite funny. I once asked him, “Mike, I know that 75% of what astronauts do in space is military related and very hush-hush. Could you tell me about some of it?” Mike (a former Marine) smiled at me and said, “Sure Larry, but then I’d have to kill you (to keep it secret).” Read more →

Top-7 Ways to Create Scannable Web Copy

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People scan copy on the web – they don’t read! Studies show they read headlines, sub-headlines, and highlighted links. If they find something interesting, then they may read a paragraph or two, or sometimes the whole article. But you really only have less than 5 seconds (or less) to attract their attention or they are gone. In view of these facts, here is Doctor Of Content’s suggestions for writing (scannable) web copy for maximum business performance.

1. Write Headlines that Draw Attention
* Make it SHORT (5 words or less)
* Be Informative – offering a summary of the article at a glance
* Incorporate the main keyword of the article
* Make it Easy To Understand (using cool hi-tech phrases doesn’t help)

2. Incorporate Subheadings
* Include subheading that offer meaning and a progression of the content

3. Use Bulleted Lists
* People like lists (especially Top-10’s) Read more →

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Best Practices Are Dangerous!

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I believe that best practices are dangerous.

Could you say that again?

Yes. Best practices, followed religiously, and applied indiscriminately  to every case can often spell DISASTER. Every business is different, and therefore every website (designed for every business) should also be different. I believe that there is a unique solution to every problem – the tool should fit the job at hand, not the other way around.

Too many web developers, theme developers, and marketing copywriters suggest ‘their’ solution, built on ‘their’ best practices, will solve  ‘your’ problem. The problem with ‘their’ solution is that each business is different, each market is different, and each business owner is different. If you add up the small differences the total equals UNIQUE.

While best practices can serve as a good guide, they should never be followed as a cookie-cutter blueprint solution to your particular business problem. Effective solutions require unique questions. It’s how Einstein theorized relativity, how the Wright Brothers developed their airplane, and how great businesses get built offline and online.

Don’t be a follower. Look for unique solutions to your unique problems. Doctor of Content can help.

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Your Choice for The Worst Blog in the World

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Thumbs down smiley faceI need your help. Send me a link to the best example of the worst blog you’ve every read and tell me: 1) why its so so so bad, and 2) what could be done to fix it.

Warning: What you think is the worst blog, someone else might think is great. Ever see a really bad horror film that is so bad its ‘camp’, and then, as the years pass, is considered a cult classic?

Hey, I know from what I speak: Read more →

Here’s How Blogs Help

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A blog is not meant to be a classic piece of literature – its (most often) quickly written right from the gut… with only one purpose: to  convert, convince, educate, entertain, engage , enrage , express, help, mock, promote , and sell (how crass).  Hey… I thought you said “One” purpose. Sorry, I lied. A blog’s purpose can be as diverse as the people who write them.

The Top-5 Reasons For Writing a Blog

Read more →

Content Strategy is About Communicating

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Have you ever tried to convince clients or corporate management that they should invest in content? Most companies are well aware of the benefits of having a web developer, but few are willing to invest in a dedicated web content developer. After all, anyone can write – or can they?

Most believe that writing is the domain of marketing. So why not assign them to write a blog, create a video, or develop an eBook? But writing engaging, informative, and useful content is often beyond the scope of marketing and many marketers.

Consider this for a moment:

Would you come back to a website or a blog filled with “Here’s why are products are great”?

Writing engaging web content that focuses on the needs and interests of your audience is less like writing well-crafted marketing copy and more like writing a compelling article for a magazine. Successful business websites are beginning to look more like a “Popular Science” or “The Huffington Post”.

Today, we are ll in the publishing business:

The success of your content strategy (and your business) is dependent on your ability to produce engaging and useful communications across all digital mediums – the web, a blog, mobile, an App –  and your ability to tap the huge potential of social media and client-focused social networks (such as Linkedin). Today, we are all in the publishing business – communicating ideas, answering questions, and telling stories. That takes commitment (time & money), but it’s worth the investment.

Thou Shalt Be Real

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Building credibility is crucial to your online marketing strategy and to the growth of your business. Without it, you can publish blog articles and update your web content, but chances are your content won’t be read, your name shared in networks, or your business found by potential new clients.

Credibility requires brand YOU to be honest, transparent, and human in all your communications. Drop the poetic sales talk and well-crafted copy. Tell stories and offer useful content.

“Thank Yous” will come in the form of new clients and customers.

Top 25 Definitions of Social Media

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If you ask a whole bunch of people, “What is social media?”, here’s what you’d get.

  1. About.com – Media is an instrument on communication, like a newspaper or a radio, so social media would be a social instrument of communication
  2. Answers.com – The online forms of communicating to the masses, which include blogs, microblogs, social networking sites and podcasts
  3. BlackBox Social Media – Social media is any online media platform that provides content for users and also allows users to participate in the creation or development of the content in some way
  4. Common Craft – Social media in plain English (video)
  5. Daily Blog Tips – Social media are the various forms of user generated content and the collection of websites and applications that enables people to interact and share information online
  6. Duct Tape Marketing – Social media is the use of technology combined with social interaction to create or co-create value
  7. Get a Social Boost – Digital word of mouth
  8. Health is Social – Social Media is the meeting place between people and technology
  9. Integrasco – Social media explained (video)
  10. Mahalo – Social media is content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content
  11. Marta Kagan -What is Social Media (presentation)
  12. Michelle Digital – Social media is life online
  13. One Zero One – Social Media, by definition, is the collection of strategies, practices and tools for communicating, creating, sharing and discussing news, information and other media online
  14. Optimize Your Web Presence – Social media are online venues, such as social networking sites, blogs and wikis that enable people to store and share information called content, such as text, pictures, video and links
  15. ProPR – Social media are online communications in which individuals shift fluidly and flexibly between the role of audience and author. To do this, they use social software that enables anyone without knowledge of coding, to post, comment on, share or mash up content and to form communities around shared interests
  16. Radian6 – Social media is game changing, not a closed system, not just another media, transparent, more than blogs, decentralized and real-time and measurable
  17. Scobleizer – Internet media that has the ability to interact with it in some way
  18. Search Engine Land – Social media itself is a catch-all term for sites that may provide radically different social actions
  19. SEO Zodiac – Social Media is simply people having conversations online
  20. Social Media Optimization Services – Social media is people meeting other people
  21. Social Media Vision – Simply refers to communication/publication platforms which are generated and sustained by the interpersonal interaction of individuals through the specific medium or tool
  22. Telezent – Social media explained visually (presentation)
  23. The Financial Brand – Social media isn’t about the media, it’s about being social
  24. The Social Election – Social media is people talking to people online
  25. Wikipedia – Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques

This is my definition  of social media

Doctor of Content – Social media is content generated by individuals and shared over the internet to coerce, enlighten, and motivate audiences.

As you can see from above there is certainly a wide range of definitions.

What’s is your definition of social media? Leave a comment!

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