Standing out
Plurking events? |
The website called Plurk is as quirky and eccentric as its name. Its tagline “your life, on the line” is definitely tongue-in-cheek as if offers to publish all your thoughts without censure and allows you to share your experiences with fellow plurkers. However, it favors brevity as it requires you to be concise by the limiting of each message to less than 140 characters. But as a plus it also allows you to share videos and send messages to mobile phones as well.
It is one of those social networking sites that is bound to make the event marketers and event managers thank their lucky stars. Through Plurk, a person can not only keep in touch with family and friends but also find and make new contacts, which is what social networking is all about. From marketing perspective, it means opening of innumerable doors and reaching people who otherwise would be inaccessible. Who needs grapevine and jungle drums when they can plurk.
As it has support for Flickr, YouTube, Photobucket etc., any marketing done on Plurk is sure to go places. Marketing through videos can become a whole new ballgame and building pre-event hype can be a whole lot quicker and extensive by using Plurk and all that it has to offer.
You can plurk links to your website or to a site especially built to promote an event. Using the private messaging system, marketers can send special notes or invites to important players.
Plurk allows you to share messages with the whole wide world or just a select circle, so event managers can send info to the general public or only to related groups as the event demands. It can help the managers perform better by keeping them on their toes as they will need to keep the information current. The feedback gained from post-event plurks can be very helpful in gauging the success of an event.
A few basic problems of Plurk should also get a mention here. As more people come online, it slows down due to the load. It doesn’t have the option of having multiple conversations simultaneously. However, these issues can’t mar Plurk’s huge potential as a social networking site through which business and marketing opportunities can be expanded to new horizons. It will allow event managers to feed in all that is hip and happening to the public the very minute it happens through internet and the even speedier mobile messaging so happy plurking!
Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)
Today’s tip! One stop shopping for all your event marketing in social media needs you can’t go past my Events Listed networking and marketing platform. It’s invite only, here’s a backdoor pass on me.
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The age of content overload: how your events can stand out in the crowd |
So the internet is agreeably one of the most remarkable innovations of our time, and it started out great when it went public. Fast forward to some 15+ odd years ahead and we find ourselves in a love-hate relationship of information overload. There is so much content out there, when everyone and their neighbor’s cat considers it their exclusive duty to share their perspectives on everything. It’s incredible to see how much information is out there, yet it sometimes becomes difficult to find the right info or get to the right markets effectively.
There is a paradox of interests online, people are spending billions of dollars on product development and want people buying their products. Despite that, they themselves don’t want to be sold to. Double standards or just natural human behavior?
Yes, I agree, there is a bombardment of information out there. Yes, I agree you can’t trust the validity of someone’s claims. Yes, I agree its difficult to get to your targeted audiences without getting lost in the crowd. However, I also know that the recent changes in the web have added a layer of self-balance to this problem. Let me explain…
When you add social media to this equation, you see how people are coming together in communities and taking ownership of safeguarding information with no personal interests. Think: Wikipedia. You can also see how networks are formed based on credibility and trust. Think: Linkedin, Facebook. You can also see how original thought leadership is given more popularity and authority. Think: Technorati, Digg.
There was a big jump when these social media tools added an element of human monitoring, rather than search engine optimization (which is usually run on calculations and algorithms). The human to human element was added in a natural way, in which communities develop and spread only based on merits. Communities have a self-balancing effect that ensures that junk content is not promoted. This system itself ensures some reliability in data.
Watch a great little video on the Information R/evolution
So, yes I agree, there is too much information. But I have the comfort of knowing that the internet has evolved in a way, so as to combat this challenge. Even in the event management and marketing business, you can see the impact different media tools, like social bookmarking sites, have on business. People trust social channels because they are humane and real. There are so many new players in the jungle that you can leverage to help carve niches in your service offerings.
So, the way to deal with this information overload problem is to look for community based validations. Spend more time to research and do background checks on the sources of information. Carefully understand who your market is, where they are and then plan how to get to them without getting lost in the crowd. It’s not impossible or difficult, it just requires planning and knowledge of the different tools that are at your disposal.
Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)
Today’s tip! Every marketing campaign starts with keyword research. If you’re serious about earning money online you’re first investment should be a great keyword research tool.
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