Wow Vimeo's payment processing stinks. Don't want the business or what? Eeesh. If my card was charged 3 times I'll be @%#ing mad! #

Powered by Twitter Tools

Post from: Dan Nedelko

• Internet Marketing Tweets 2009-11-19 Maybe this will mean people will start calling Wordpress a CMS and not just a blog anymore http://bit.ly/1QNUDr # RT @jbillingsley: Retroactive, segmentable goal funnels using Google Analytics: http://is.gd/4YjIG #ecommerce # Just got a lesson in the difference between kibbitz and kibbutz. Thanks Dan! # If you're a sports......
• Internet Marketing Tweets 2009-06-30 Azarenka makes the most ridiculously annoying noises when she plays tennis. Annoying enough to mute the TV. #wimbeldon # @ShelliCindberg Thanks for the shout out ;o) in reply to ShelliCindberg # I am looking forward to Serena Williams beating Azarenka so I don't have to listen to her stupid......

• Internet Marketing Strategies - Use Gravitar To Get Free Branding One of the easiest internet marketing strategies to get instant traffic and build back links to your website is to leave comments on other peoples blogs.  Don't make the mistake of just writing something like " hey I really like...
• Internet Marketing overview All products need marketing. However, a few years ago, marketing your products was limited to your state, country or a few countries in the neighborhood. The Internet has changed all that, and Internet Marketing is today seen as a very...

Once again it's become exceedingly clear I am not a project manager #

@stephaniegmack anytime Stephanie – it's not exactly a case study, more like an editorial case study in reply to stephaniegmack #

Conference call #5 coming up – holy smokes how did Friday turn into Conference Friday? #

Powered by Twitter Tools

Post from: Dan Nedelko

• Internet Marketing Tweets 2009-09-23 Th relationship between sports, betting and the law needs to change http://bit.ly/4y2YAb # Even if you don't think you need a dual screen laptop, you really do :) http://bit.ly/4Ed7nq # Our old friend Aaron Bradley shamelessly self promoting. Congrats Aaron! :) http://bit.ly/cPumI # Why Seth Godin is Wrong (even......
• Internet Marketing Tweet Digest 2009-06-07 Had a fantastic conference call with @paulmay over at @buzzstream. Fantastic changes coming up very soon. # Gary Bettman is on The Fan 590 talking about Jim Balseille - he sounds pretty rational to me. # RT @SilverOakCasino Comedian Gambles With Life at MTV Awards ( http://bit.ly/cGJdI ) haha......

• How to Start a Virtual Assistant Business Falling into a position such as a Virtual Assistant is not how it happens for everyone; I was very lucky. When I was starting out, I didnt even realize the career path that I was choosing. My husband was working...
• Grand Marina The Grand Marina is located in Alameda, CA Phone: 510.865.1200 Website: http://www.grandmarina.com/ View Larger Map 400 Concrete Berths - Capable of Storing up to 110' Vessels Rate may change. Check out their current rates: http://grandmarina.com/rentrate.html Pricing for Berths: Boat Size...

Powered by Twitter Tools

Post from: Dan Nedelko

• Wordpress Security Plugins When you use Wordpress for a corporate or business website, security always comes up as an issue and for good reason. In what has turned into an ongoing series on Wordpress Security I'm going to review a few very useful plugins which will add an additional layer of security to......
• Twitter Updates for 2009-02-27 #SEO squabbles are amusing and entertaining all at the same time. You guys kill me. # My personal site is finally coming back together - added the #dofollow #seo plugin. Do you use #dofollow? http://bit.ly/DIeaq # @webaddict StumbleUpon is better than Digg # RT @SilverOakCasino: Craps Strategy Guide Lesson......

• Rotate Market Leverage Banners with the WordPress Affiliate Manager I recently learned about Market Leverage from a friend, who has done reasonably well with their affiliate program. I decided to join, and upon joining decided to put together a WordPress plugin to help manage and rotate campaign banners. And...
• Developing WordPress Plugins on Windows using WAMP, Cygwin and Aptana Studio Developing WordPress plugins is not very difficult, in theory. PHP is not a difficult programming language, WordPress is well-designed with appropriate hooks for use by plugins, and there is extensive documentation. In practice, it can be a different story. There's...

@NailaJ Thanks Naila Tell everyone you know! in reply to NailaJ #

Powered by Twitter Tools

Post from: Dan Nedelko

• Internet Marketing Tweet Digest 2009-08-02 Yahoo/Bing deal may be ready to go. Yahoo powered by Bing? Interesting http://dannedelko.com/10v # The coming Google Apocalypse http://dannedelko.com/8yo # Online Gambling providers in Costa Rican Government Sites: http://dannedelko.com/fdn # Erin Andrews leaked peephole video links to Malware and Viruses - beware (and don't be creepy!) http://dannedelko.com/42v # @jennvolk......
• Internet Marketing Tweets 2009-10-19 @anilopez It's not a useful metric for a number of reasons - Google created the marketing PR obsession. in reply to anilopez # I really want to setup my Mac as a media server for my PS3 # @thedirtyturtle Thanks I'll give it a try. I tried an open......

• Finovate Startup 2009 Live Twitter I am attending Finovate Startup 2009. It is an action packed 1 day format which I belive will lend itself perfectly to a live twitter. Stay tuned it should be an amazing day. http://twitter.com/BlogTrafficExch In the break I have scheduled...
• Google Forbids Use of This SEO Software! How Safe is Your SEO Tool? This time it really happened. Google put the brakes on one of the world's most used SEO software products that was running unauthorized automated ranking reports against its servers. The threat of WebPosition no longer working on Google has been...

So off an on I am constantly looking for low cost ways to have a temporary workforce out there for any number of tasks. It could be some content I need written, link built, social media mentions. The list is pretty much endless and it also causes me some headaches.

It’s tough to find a group of people out there. I could easily place Craigslist or Kijiji ads but that’s time consuming and a pain.

That’s why when I ran into Short Task I was pleasantly surprised. The basic idea is this:

• You have some tasks you need performed online for a specific project.
• Short Task connects you to a marketplace of people who can complete that simple task for you.
• Your workforce will work at home.
• You pay.
• Task is completed.
• Everyone moves on with life.

It’s a cool idea and uber convenient so I thought I would include a Short Task Review for those of you who have never used it before.

Short Task divides their site up into “Seekers” and “Solvers” which is pretty straight forward. If I’m a solver I can perform the tasks that are in their Marketplace.

Once you login into http://shorttask.com you’ll see “Tasks” in the Main Menu. Select that and then you can filter based on Keywords or Amount Offered.

I just checked a few of the tasks and started at $9.00 – I also got a few hits for $15.00 tasks. Not a bad payout if you get yourself into a system and become quick and proficient with this. You won’t retire tomorrow but you could make a nice supplementary income from this type of work if you take it seriously plus you can work from home.

Having looked through the Marketplace I’d also suggest you stick to the $3.00-$8.00 categories. These could be completed relatively quickly (less than 15 minutes) if you’re a decently quick writer and are relatively good with a search engine (so you can find the sites you need to find).

The higher paying categories look like they want some pretty in depth research done for $15.00. If you think about it, if you can post a quality comment in 10 minutes for $3.00 you can make $18.00 in one hour easily. Instead of spending that single hour on one in depth research article.

That’s just a thought though.

From the perspective of a Seeker, I like it. I can assemble a relatively strong human work force in minutes by posting tasks and having people complete them for me. If I took $300.00 of a budget here and wanted to build some links for instance I could easily post it for $3.00 and would be able to get 100 human edited inbound links.

Neat idea. You should check out Short Task whatever side of the coin you might be on.

Post from: Dan Nedelko

• Twitter Updates for 2009-03-02 RT @sengineland: Search Engine Land: Google Testing Single Line Sitelinks? http://tinyurl.com/c8ztdz # Morning everyone, someone's got a case of the Monday's =P # I'm in love with the new Safari Beta - http://www.apple.com/safari/ using it for 20 minutes and it might be a Firefox contender... # RT @stuntdubl: RT......
• Wordpress Injection Attack March 4, 2009 Update: My plan has worked out very well and everything is back to normal without too much of an interruption. My request for Google site review took a total of 12 hours and it was completely handled through Google Webmaster Tools. Google spidered the entire site for......

• Asia marks fifth anniversary of Indian Ocean tsunami [/caption] Countries across the Indian Ocean are marking the fifth anniversary of the catastrophic tsunami that killed almost 250,000 people. In Indonesia's Aceh province, where 170,000 died, thousands held prayers in public mosques and private homes. On Thai beaches, Buddhist...
• Blog Visitor Retention Today, having a blog on the internet is just about as common as having an e-mail address. E-mailing and blogging actually share a number of the same purposes, such as that they are allowed to spread ideas, provide people with...

Powered by Twitter Tools

Post from: Dan Nedelko

• Pepsi Cheer - Social Media Done Wrong [caption id="attachment_654" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="The Pepsi Cheer?"][/caption] You’re probably doing Social Media in your Internet Marketing mix, most companies and marketers have jumped on that bandwagon faster than people become Dallas Cowboys fans when they go on a winning streak. To be honest, chances are if you’re doing Social......
• Online Casino Suite - Site Review On occasion I get asked to review a website for various other webmasters in both the online gaming space and in mainstream. Online Casino Suite is my latest review. On first visiting online casino suite there is definitely a ton of information being presented to the user. The main page......

• Security, Stability, and Interoperability Issues on VoIP Implementation Now we have accepted that VoIP is no longer just a phone service, it has become feature rich as it merges with computer configurations. The VoIP's existence has changed considerably over the last few years, coupled with the availability of...
• Battle of the Mini Laptops Last night, Phaw went to Park Sqaure Makati to check out 4 different mini laptops that have hit the Philippine market both officially and unofficially. Here are the 4 mini-laptops he checked out: Asus EEE PC Neo Explore X1 Astone...

The Pepsi Cheer?

You’re probably doing Social Media in your Internet Marketing mix, most companies and marketers have jumped on that bandwagon faster than people become Dallas Cowboys fans when they go on a winning streak.

To be honest, chances are if you’re doing Social Media you are most likely completely wasting your time and resources because you’re doing social media badly.

No offense. But the large majority of marketers simple do not use Social Media the same way they might use other forms of media and advertising.

No ROI (Return On Investment). This can also be measured in Brand terms rather than dollar amounts.
No clear and definitive goals.
No strategy.

If you took a few hours, set up a Facebook group, Facebook fan page and Twitter feed then simply post to those profiles then you’re completely wasting your time.

Stop.
Stop Now.

Doing Social Media badly is much worse than not doing Social Media at all.

As with everything in Marketing you need to attach a value, strategy and execution plan to each and every program you put in place. If you don’t then frankly you’re Marketing badly.

Case in point.

Let's pretend this didn't happen, OK?

The Pepsi Cheer was an abysmal failure from a Social Media standpoint and from a Marketing standpoint. Here is a good overview from Marketing Mag:

Pepsi Seeking One Million Members for Pepsi Cheer

This campaign was the brain child of the Toronto Agency Capital C (Yeah that’s right their corporate website is hosted on Typepad – very edgy).

Before we look at Pepsi’s Social Media Strategy results, let’s have a quick look at what they implemented:

On Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/PepsiCanada
http://www.facebook.com/PepsiCanada#/PepsiCanada?v=app_193041964437

Twitter
http://twitter.com/PEPSICANADA

and

http://www.pepsi.ca/jointhecheer/default.aspx?bhcp=1

Here’s what Pepsi wanted to do:

1. Create a contest to create a Cheer for Hockey Canada and the 2010 IIHF Mens’s Hockey Championship in Germany.
2. Have the winning cheer promoted via Social Media, on television and radio.
3. Have fans at the events use the cheer during the games to be started by Pepsi employees in the crowd (really bad idea).

The winning cheer was an annoying (in my opinion) “Eh! Oh-Canada! Go!” which was a customer submitted cheer and was then heavily promoted through advertising mediums (all listed above).

Now on a fundamental level this idea should have died in a brainstorming session. You never ever mess with the patriotism of Canadian Hockey fans. Here in Canada, Hockey is a big part of people’s sports watching mix and particularly since Canada dominates International Hockey (even though we lost in the finals to the US this past year).

The cheers Canadians have been using for years are pretty popular and there was never a need to add a new one to the mix when it was clearly a very shallow corporate marketing initiative.

Their brutal social media implementation also caused them more brand damage than had they done absolutely nothing. Pepsi and their agency failed to remember one key component of Social Media.

It’s a conversation with people. People can (and should talk back).

The Pepsi Cheer Gone Wrong

This is exactly what people did and it wasn’t pretty.

Let’s look at some very basic stats:

Pepsi’s Facebook Fan Page: 134,926 Fans
Pepsi Canada’s Twitter Profile: 1034 Followers

Basic Negative Results

Pepsi – I Don’t need yer damn cheer
231 members
http://www.facebook.com/groups.php?ref=sb#/group.php?gid=259956356825

The” Eh! Oh! Canada Go!” chant is a national embarrassment
64,762 Members
http://www.facebook.com/groups.php?ref=sb#/group.php?gid=217528662837

Twitter Search for Pepsi Cheer
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=pepsi+cheer

I’ll actually run a reputation report for this later in the week and add this to an overall case study, since this is such a blatantly bad idea.

Let’s have a quick look at why I’m saying this was not only a bad Marketing idea but it was a failure from a Social media perspective:

1. Pepsi struck a chord with a national sport and national pride. Basically saying “You’re doing it wrong Canada”. Bad idea.
2. Pepsi blatantly promoted themselves over simply promoting cheering for the team.
3. Replacing the cheer was unnecessary. There are a number of cheer Pepsi could have latched onto and promoted. This likely would have gone over well.
4. Their social media profiles simply ignored any backlash except for a few references to cheering “any cheer you want”. Too little too late.
5. The Pepsi Canada Twitter stream did little to engage anyone talking on Twitter except for positive feedback and inane Re-Tweets about their promotion.
6. The Pepsi Canada Twitter stream was hardly used but it was still there. Hey Pepsi Marketing Team – here’s a tip. Don’t use it if you’re going to use it badly.
7. http://search.twitter.com/search?q=pepsi+cheer has far more negative sentiments than neutral or positive ones. Clearly Pepsi made a mistake here since they’re ignoring the fans they tried to approach. Oops that only serves to piss people off.
8. The negative groups on Facebook almost outnumber the Fans of the Pepsi Cheer Fan Page. As a side note there is a decent set of sign up forms and calls to action on internal tabs of the fan page but there appears to be little focus to the fan page. They would have been better off to have participated in other Fan Pages (example: Hockey Canada) than to try to become the hub of Hockey Fans.

The Pepsi Cheer clearly annoying.

This is just the beginning of this fiasco for Pepsi in my humble opinion. They’ll be dealing with the backlash for quite sometime. Particularly since they appear to be staying the course on the same bad Social Media Strategy.

Another dumb move.

The key take aways here:

If you are going to do Social Media properly then do it properly and think about what you are doing, devote resources, a strategy and team to it.

If you think you need to have a presence on Social Networks just for the sake of being there, then you’re dead wrong.

If you are going to do a half assed job of Social Media Marketing then do yourself a favour and don’t do it at all.

Additional References

Junior Hockey Chant Falls Flat – Vancouver Sun

Traditional Cheers Given Vocal Support – Star Phoenix

Post from: Dan Nedelko

• Internet Marketing Tweet Digest 2009-11-28 The world of affiliate marketing just gets more and more interesting. Jeremy Shoemaker vs. Dennis Yu. http://bit.ly/73pLx1 # Washington at Dallas Week 11 NFL Free Pick - http://shar.es/aid7e # Watching the afternoon games with Jax. Nice NO win and great drive by Stafford for the win. Lions might have......
• Internet Marketing Tweets 2009-07-01 Ok so http://circleofmoms.com actually denies Men entry and then blocks you completely if you're not a female mother? Wow. Screw You. # http://circleofmoms - Circle of Moms pretty much practices internet sexism> I'm a guy and cant even read the site. That's not right. # Thank God for the......

• Top 3 Social Media Sites Today What YouTube, Twitter and Facebook can do for your business. With the advent of the computer, no greater advancement has taken place in social media marketing than with the three best examples:  Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.  These three programs together...
• Being a Social media Guru? The reality video The Social media guru we all need to be. Just joking of course but you have got to see this video. Honestly many of our customers may be clueless when it comes to social media, However on the other hand...

Powered by Twitter Tools

Post from: Dan Nedelko

• Internet Marketing Tweet Digest 2009-08-02 Yahoo/Bing deal may be ready to go. Yahoo powered by Bing? Interesting http://dannedelko.com/10v # The coming Google Apocalypse http://dannedelko.com/8yo # Online Gambling providers in Costa Rican Government Sites: http://dannedelko.com/fdn # Erin Andrews leaked peephole video links to Malware and Viruses - beware (and don't be creepy!) http://dannedelko.com/42v # @jennvolk......
• Internet Marketing Tweet Digest 2010-01-17 @JohnFMoore Thanks John! in reply to JohnFMoore # Text "HAITI" to 45678 if you are in Canada and have Rogers, Bell or Fido to donate $5. Do it. Do it now! # @CaribConnect thanks a million and please spread the world $5 a person can help a lot of......

• Prosper.com Review: A Review of the Prosper Marketplace Prosper.com, also called Prosper Marketplace, is a service that is part of the emerging peer-to-peer lending industry which facilitates the lending and borrowing of money between its users. How it Works: Prosper, Lending Club, Zopa and other firms around the...
• RateLadder IRR/ROI 5/08 Update -- (1.35%) to 15.3% Well another month down... Nothing major happened that would effect my IRR/ROI (like a debt sale.)  It was a fairly uneventful month for my Prosper p2p lending account, but it was a good month...  My ROI/IRR is higher on 4/5...

Powered by Twitter Tools

Post from: Dan Nedelko

• Internet Marketing Tweet Digest 2009-08-02 Yahoo/Bing deal may be ready to go. Yahoo powered by Bing? Interesting http://dannedelko.com/10v # The coming Google Apocalypse http://dannedelko.com/8yo # Online Gambling providers in Costa Rican Government Sites: http://dannedelko.com/fdn # Erin Andrews leaked peephole video links to Malware and Viruses - beware (and don't be creepy!) http://dannedelko.com/42v # @jennvolk......
• Internet Marketing Tweets 2009-06-03 After seeing Balsamiq Mockups during a conference with @paulmay I'm going to dig into it and write up a review. http://bit.ly/I5I4W # @jakub_zalas Yup, I contacted them already and got a quick reply with a license. in reply to jakub_zalas # Google changes course on NoFollow http://bit.ly/u7cLF via @honeypot_mkting......

• Fun Facts about New Year's "Auld Lang Syne" was written by Robert Burns in 1741 and literally means "old long since," or "days gone by." This song is traditionally sung in many countries at midnight, January 1st, signaling the beginning of the New Year. "Syne"...
• The Greatest Internet Marketing Strategy Using Google Adsense - Free Useful Tips By: Dean Shainin(Before you read if you looking for a Flat House Share then visit freeroomshare.com )Are you writing articles with the idea of marketing your internet business?Discover how using the right keywords in articles and having Google Adsense ads...

Powered by Twitter Tools

Post from: Dan Nedelko

• Internet Marketing Tweet Digest 2009-06-21 Setting up optimized portal pages today. Link in, link out, quality content. # NASCAR is pro-legalization of Online Gambling in the United States! http://bit.ly/1jvNm6 via @SilverOakCasino # RT @seoguy0: FEAR GRIPS GOOGLE - New York Post http://bit.ly/d3VY7 # After using Bing.com for the entire day today (as a test)......
• Internet Marketing Tweet Digest 2009-09-13 Going to try to have a day with the family this Labour Day - I'll be back at it tomorrow morning. Have a good one all. # Everyone's summer vacation is over - from a working point of view this is good. Life gets back to normal! # Who......

• Internet Marketing Tools For Your Business Internet has changed the way people access and approach the information about products and services. Now you can find any information about product or service you are interested in, because it is just a couple of mouse clicks away and...
• Save Time, Money and Space in Over 80 Ways If you're looking for handy gadgets, tools and various items that can save you time, money or space (or all three!) this list of more than 80 top products is just what you need. Everyone's got saving money on their...