1. A T.V / Movie star
2. Have an in with a traditional mass media company with great distribution
3. And have a Twitter account of course!

The story I am referencing above is in regards to Ashton Kutcher’s (@aplusk on Twitter) recent publicity stunt of generating 1 Million followers on Twitter and beating CNN in the race to boot.

How did he do it and why should you care? For an explanation of how he did it, see this article on Advertising Age, complete with images of Kutcher’s billboard promo. (whoops did I give it away?)

Now for the answer to the question: “Why should you care?”

For one this is a great example of how online marketing and offline marketing can be merged with excellent results.

Now, the value to Kutcher of having a million fans, and the resulting publicity at this stage may be hard to measure (sure beats stories about DUI’s, divorce or drug abuse!), but for the average person or company, it’s a great reminder that relying on one source of marketing is never a sound strategy and often online and offline can work together to give you extra bang for your buck.

Another thing this story reminded me of was: to be original. Or at any rate, the ploy was a great example of taking an old concept (billboard advertising) and mixing it with something new (Twitter) to create buzz and increase one’s reach in the marketplace.

Those are my thoughts on this story. I’m now heading out with some spray paint to post @adamkillam on everything in sight I can get my hands on. I figure if I work hard over the weekend I should be able to ad at least another 200-300 followers!

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.tel’s became available March 24th and are a new format of domain name that enables you to post all of your contact information in one easy to access and update spot without the need for a website. 

For an example, visit adamkillam.tel 

To learn more, visit webnames.ca, a .tel registrar.

I recommend that you buy yourname.tel ASAP before it’s too late!

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Here is a snippet from the interview:

Although cloud computing has existed for a number of years, Microsoft Corp., Google and other IT heavyweights only recently began applying the label to their services.

Adam Killam, an Internet marketing consultant, noted that that Salesforce.com Inc. – a company that delivers a customer management service over the Internet and whose name is synonymous with cloud computing – was founded in 1999.

At that time, only larger companies had the connectivity required for cloud computing.

“Now the everyday mom-and-pop shop … can use an application that’s being used by some of the biggest businesses in the world,” said Killam, founder of the Vancouver Salesforce.com User Group.

“You pay your $65 a month or whatever it is … and you get the same features and functionality that J.P. Morgan has.”

Follow this link to see the full article.

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Here are 7 easy steps:

1. Create a free account at www.budurl.com
2. Find a newsworthy story/blog post and shrink the story’s URL using Budurl
3. Paste the shortened link into Twitter and write a catchy intro
4. Post the story
5. Monitor clicks via your bud account
6. Rinse and repeat to test various copy/stories
7. Divide total number of clicks by total number of followers to determine what percentage of followers respond to each link/post

Bonus tip: use the notes section of Bud to better track the URLs and stories you’re following

Bonus tip #2: in the notes section, paste in the exact wording you used when posting to Twitter to keep track of Twitter copy that your followers respond to

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I wore a less flashy watch to a meeting today and will be tweaking the site in the coming week or so to see if I can simplify it a bit (yes, it’s already quite simple and I can do better!).

With all the talk lately of recession, marketing in tough economic times etc etc, it makes sense for marketers to be a little less flashy and focus their messages more on the bottom line and how they can make and save their clients money.

For me, that means the site needs to be less about adding widgets and more about focusing on good, solid, valuable content that my clients will find applicable to their businesses.

On that note today’s tip is:  go back to basics.

Practical applications:

• Update and simplify your web site’s theme / design 
• Don’t be afraid to use or go back to plain text emails or simplified HTML
• If blogging or using Twitter, focus on practical tips and less theory (marketers are the most guilty of breaking this one)

I think going frugal is a trend we’re going to see catch on and stick for the next couple of years. As more ideas on this topic come to mind, I’ll post them here.

What steps are you taking to “go frugal”  in 2009″ 

Post thoughts to comments.

Update: Read about the New Frugal Google

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Just before Christmas I updated my voicemail message to something along the lines of: “…text or email me rather than leaving a message as I receive these much quicker than messages…” For the actual msg call 778.899.5423.

The idea to do this came from the realization that certain friends were no longer returning messages and the realization that I too found myself taking days in some cases to check voicemail. Texts and emails however, are responded to almost immediately.

I then came across people discussing the same thing in Twitter and decided a new trend had emerged.

The fact is, people are getting used to consuming smaller and smaller pieces of information and in quicker time frames. Texts, emails sent via mobile devices and services such as Twitter (which limits posts to 140 characters) are forcing us to cut out the waste and get to the point.

The question for 2009 is: how can you take this insight and work it into the sales, marketing, and customer service sides of your business?

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Well quite a lot really. First of all, your name is likely unique.  Yes, there are lots of John Smith’s out there, John Doe comes to mind etc. but even in extreme cases like that, how many people in your industry, in your niche, in your area, have the same name as you? I’m willing to bet next to none.

If you’re in business for yourself, are in sales or marketing, investing or for that matter anything to do with business, you need to own your own domain name. Simply stated, a domain name is your website address. In the case of this blog, adamkillam.com is my domain name and also my personal name – see the connection?

Part of the power of owning your own domain comes from the fact that in business today, one of the first things people do after meeting you is Google your name. If you haven’t tried this on yourself, you should – it’s your job, no one elses, to know how you are showing up online. Better yet, you should control the top 5-10 results. While the scope of how to do that is outside of my goal for this article, ideally you want to control as much as you can about what people are finding out about you online – mainly by having your website or sites and profiles you control being ranked highly in the major search engines.

The phone book is dead. People Google you now, or they facebook you or both. If your a business person/professional/investor etc, you should also show up on linkedin.com. Again, I won’t provide a detailed explanation of these services in this article but suffice to say if you don’t have a presence on any of these, you’re missing out. Due to my web presence I get speaking engagements, new business leads, potential partners find me, and gain a level of credibility much more quickly with people than the average joe all because of my site and domain.

If I’ve convinced you and you’re ready for the next step, head over to Godaddy.com and buy yourname.com or yourname.ca today. Then get in touch for help with the next step.

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If you haven’t checked out Twitter yet, I’d suggest you do so now. I first started hearing about Twitter about 6-8 months ago and decided to keep an eye on the service even though I didn’t take it too seriously at the time.

Twitter is a social networking tool by definition that enables its users to make small, 140 character posts called “tweets”. Tweets are collected on a user’s blog, commonly referred to as micro blogs due to the short length of each post. The social aspect comes from the ability to follow or subscribe to other user’s conversations and to monitor the general conversation and posts via Twitter.com, where you can see an up to date snapshot of all recent posts by users.

If any of this sounds confusing at this point, I’d suggest you sign up for the service and test it out to get a better idea of how it all works. Much has been written already about Twitter and the idea is not to write a comprehensive, all encompasing post here today.

With the basics out of the way, I wanted to point out a service that enables you to more closely monitor what people are saying about you and your brand on Twitter and other places around the web called Summize.

Using summize, you can search for a term such as your company name, and get a list of the most recent conversations taking place that match your keyword.

Where’s the value in that you ask? Well, for one thing, you can tell if the current sentiment is positive or negative and take action immediately to either leverage the good or quell the bad while it’s happening. How you ask? By getting involved in the conversation of course.

Like any new technology, (i.e blogging 4+ years ago) you need to spend some time learning the conventions, lingo and netiquette. Once you’re up to speed you need to get involved and submit your thoughts, monitor the conversation and contribute.

The cool thing about Twitter is that once you get into the conversation and become a member of the community, you’re likely to find out about things faster than others in your industry. Twitter caters to people who like to be in the know and enjoy spreading ideas with others on the cutting edge.

Happy tweeting!

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